In two lessons, you’ll find out why speaking is everything.
But one of the main reasons why speaking is so important is so fundamental that we need to look at it separately. It has implications on how we approach almost everything – from vocab to grammar to pronunciation.
Let’s pretend you’re learning a single vocab word, “azucar” (sugar).
When you first learn the word, you know it intellectually. It’s in your brain, and you can recognize it. Depending on how well you know it, you can say the Spanish word when presented the English word after a split second to a few seconds.
But when it comes to using the word in real speech in a real conversation with someone, the part of your brain that takes that intellectual knowledge of the word “azucar” and uses it in a sentence hasn’t been used yet.
So, as a preview to how I approach vocab, the process is roughly this:
- Be exposed to a word through your curriculum, teacher, conversation, or other input
- Learn and reinforce the word with flashcards until you can almost always recall it when presented the English
- Use the word a LOT in real conversations to solidify it
The role of speech here is to move the word from “Intellectual” to “Second Nature” (from step two to three).
If you know the word intellectually, you can recall it.
But if you want the word to flow naturally out of your mouth as if it was English, you have to use it in conversations a lot.
This phenomenon is the same with grammar. It’s very similar with pronunciation (where it’s more about muscle memory than your brain). It’s one of the two big reasons you struggle to understand people when they talk fast.
I’ll get to how it applies for each part later on, but the core of it is so simple and so important that I’ll say it again:
Learn something intellectually and then use speech to make it second nature.
This seems simple, but it’s extremely powerful. It’s one of those “duh, of course” things that people don’t actually do. And you’ve got to actually do the speaking to get the rewards here.
We’ll see this applied later on to everything from vocab to understanding people when they speak fast.
But in the next lesson, I’m going to break down the biggest, most dangerous mistake holding millions of Spanish learners back.
Just fixing this one thing could cut months off of your learning time.