How to get better at speaking Spanish WITHOUT talking to others
Introduction
With these 5 useful tips, you’ll be speaking Spanish fluently in no time! The best part is, no other human is necessary to get there. Let’s dive right in.
Talk to yourself!
You’re always listening, so why not talk to yourself? This is a completely valid way to get use to the way the language feels in your mouth. Ask yourself questions that you would have asked another person, and then try to respond to them–out loud of course!
You can also try to record a video of yourself speaking Spanish or simply use an audio recording app on your phone. Play it back to yourself (however painful it might be!) You’ll begin to notice your challenges, and areas you can improve on. You can also become aware of your pronunciation. Over time, eventually you’ll begin to notice your fluidity improve!
Learn & Memorize Lyrics
Luckily for us Spanish learners, there’s an abundance of incredible music coming from Latin America. Try to find a song you really enjoy enough to listen to over and over. Memorize the lyrics and sing along! This will improve your accent particularly well.
If you choose music to the likes of Reggaeton or any kind of rap, there may be more slang in it, which is a great bonus because this is how natives speak in a more casual setting. Studying and memorizing lyrics to sing along to will make your speaking better.
Read out loud
When you’re reading in a foreign language in your head, sometimes your brain won’t pronounce the words at all and other times, your internal voice will actually mispronounce words, especially if that word is an English-cognate. For example, when you see the word “animal” in a Spanish book, you might default to the default English pronunciation, instead of placing the stress on end syllable like you’re supposed to. Reading out loud will help you catch these strange things our brain does.
Reading out loud will really help you develop your ear and build up your intuition. You’re going to be reading in perfect Spanish grammar, so this can be a great way to get familiar with some of the trickier aspects of the language, and sound more like a native.
Try out some AI tools
This is my favorite way to practice speaking out loud! With the rise of ChatGPT, the speech recognition feature has been a real blessing for us language learners as I explained in my ultimate Chinese masterlist of resources.
I recommend the app “TalkPal” (available for both IPhone and Andriod). It’s a better version of just using ChatGPT. I will review this language learning tool in a future post. The cost is reasonable at $6/month. There are some other ChatGPT-powered apps out in the app store, but most of them cost more, and didn’t offer me much extra.
Of course, if you don’t have any spare cash at the moment, just using ChatGPT’s microphone option can be great too! You’ll just have to manually ask it to correct your sentences when you have doubts. (TalkPal does this automatically! Just saying~~ )
Summary
It is absolutely possible to build up your speaking practice without leaving your country. In fact, you don’t even have to leave home at all! With the power of the internet, we can now build up a comfortable fluency without talking to any real human being. If you’re an anxious or shy person like me, this is a huge blessing! I hope this post helps you and be sure to follow me on Pinterest for more language learning tips!