Introduction
Do you ever listen to songs in Spanish and not understand? You try to follow Spanish speakers but you can’t? You think you speak Spanish too slowly?
Stick with me because I am going to share with you 7 fantastic tricks that will help you speak and understand fast Spanish. Number 6 is quite unique and fun.
You also have an exercise at the end. You should do it after discovering these 7 tips that will change the way you learn Spanish.
#1. Ok, do you have a teddy bear?
Your speaking will improve a lot when you try to talk to others. When you create sentences in Spanish. Even if it’s 10 minutes a day, it will help a lot because each time you will need less thinking to build the sentences in Spanish. It is a matter of practice. So the first tip is “Practice your speaking every day with your teddy bear.” Tell it about your day, your problems, your thoughts. It may also count as a little therapy session. 2 in 1.
#2. You know Chat GPT, right? An AI chatbot.
In the mobile version, you can use the microphone and have a conversation with it. You should give it context, like: “Act as my Spanish teacher” “I have a B1 level” or “I want to practice for the B2 exam.” Also you can ask it to correct your mistakes, you can learn a lot from this at the same time that you’re practicing your output. You can ask it something like “I want to have a conversation with you in Spanish and please correct my mistakes in English after I speak before following with the conversation in Spanish.” You can practice a conversation for a specific situation.
For example: ”Let’s have a conversation in Spanish. Please act as if you are the waiter in a restaurant.”
You can do this for any language you want! Speak Spanish with ChatGPT. It’s free.
And what is also free is our Study Guide! On My Daily Spanish we have a free study guide that offers a step-by-step process to help you learn Spanish faster. You can download it for free by clicking the "Yes, I'm interested" button above.
#3. Everybody here loves TV series and films, right?
From Spain, I love “Aquí no hay quien viva”, which is a very funny Spanish series, but they talk a little fast. I can recommend “La Mesías”, “La casa de papel”, “Paquita Salas”... But any series in Spanish will help you. You can even use the dubbed Spanish version with Spanish subtitles of any American or English series or film. And while watching, stop after each sentence and repeat what they said. It will help your pronunciation a lot and you will learn new phrases.
So this third trick is: Watch a series in Spanish with subtitles and repeat the sentences.
#4. While watching a series or a film in Spanish, if you hear an interesting phrase or a sentence you liked, something you didn’t know and that they say a lot, make a note of it.
Write the full sentence down. It would be cool to have a notebook for that. And read those sentences every now and then when you study Spanish. It is important to study sentences rather than just words. Learning those sentences will make it way easier to speak faster. Because you are not thinking of each word, but of sentences that you use in different situations. So remember: learn sentences more than separate words.
#5. In some regions they tend to shorten words a lot.
I’ll explain how they do it.
For example:
Todo - To (all)
Para - Pa (To, for)
Nada - Na (Nothing)
Muy - Mu (Very)
Pues - Po (So)
It is common everywhere to hear these words shortened:
Perfecto - Perfe (Perfect)
Fin de semana - Finde (Weekend)
Ilusión - Ilu (Illusion, eagerness)
Información - Info (Información)
Bolígrafo - Boli (Pen)
Bicicleta - Bici (Bike)
Autobús - Bus (Bus)
And something that they do in the South of Spain and Latin America is:
We eat the -S at the end of words and aspirate them if they are before a consonant. (Only when talking, we don’t write it like that.)
Margaritas - Margaritah (Daisy)
Las margaritas - Lah margaritah (The daisies)
We eat any final consonant:
Reloj - Reló (Clock/watch)
Sal - Sá (Salt)
Amor - Amó (Love)
Paz - Pá (Peace)
El amor es muy bonito - “El amó e mu bonito” (Love is beautiful)
Note: we only say it like that, but it’s written like usual, like the first sentence.
We also eat the Ds between vowels.
Cansado - Cansao (Tired)
Cansada - Cansá (Tired)
Don’t make a pause between words. If there is a vocal followed by a vocal we connect them.
Los hijos - Losijoh OR lohijoh (The sons)
La abeja - Labeja (The bee)
Sounds like UE are said very quickly.
Huevo - Wevo (Egg)
Bueno - Weno (Good)
Some Ls are turned to Rs before consonants.
Vuelta - Werta (Turn, spin…)
#6. My favorite one! This is a
This is a device that marks the tempo in beats per minute. We will start with a low bpm (beats per minute) and keep increasing it little by little. Now you have to choose a song. The faster they sing in the song, the better for practicing. But any song will help. I chose this one for today:
Bzrp music sessions #51: Villano Antillano. (From 0:37 to 0:44)
Lyrics:
Cuando cierro un verso los dejo de terapista
Ya dije que no, cabrón, no me insistas
Están en la fila, pero no están en la lista
Dale, Biza, explótame la pista
When doing this, first you have to listen to the way the singer is pronouncing all these. Then, read it yourself a few times. Villano Antillano is from Puerto Rico, so she speaks with an accent from there, aspirating the final -s, shortening words a lot and pronouncing the c as an s.
Then, we set the metronome to a low bpm. And we increase it little by little.
Another way you could do it to follow the rhythm is put the YouTube video at 0.5x speed. After that you change it to 0.75x speed.And lastly, to 1x.
You can do it even faster than the singer if you want. This is a trick for rappers, dancers and musicians. They practice a super fast speed so later when they have to do it at a normal speed it will be super easy for them.
When you play the guitar, you practice the guitar solos at a really high speed so later you won’t have any mistakes when doing it at the normal speed. That’s tricking the brain. You can practice with the songs you want.
For this, I recommend the Bizarrap sessions, or rappers like Daddy Yankee. You can search for new songs on Google by typing “music chart + the name of a Spanish speaking country”.
#7. And the last tip: passive practice.
Whatever you are doing that you can have something on in the background; everything related to Spanish will be nurturing your Spanish folder inside your brain.
So: watch Spanish TV, listen to Spanish podcasts, to Spanish audiobooks, watch YouTube videos from Spanish speaking creators… You can find a lot of interesting content that you will enjoy while learning Spanish. Do you recommend some podcast or series in Spanish? Please share it in the comments!
EXERCISE:
Ok let’s do the exercise for today! Have a look at this sentence: En el reloj tengo un dibujo de un huevo y dos margaritas (On the clock I have a drawing of an egg and two daisies)
How would you say this sentence quicker?
En el reloj tengo un dibujo de un huevo y dos margaritas: En erreló tengun dibuho dun wevoy doh margaritah (Watch the video to hear it)
Practice the speed from slow to fast.
Great job!
Conclusion
And one last practice to improve your Spanish today would be to answer these 100 common questions in Spanish. It would be a fantastic exercise if you listen to the question, pause the video, answer it yourself and then click on play again and listen to how I answered it. Watch the video and you will have improved a lot after doing this exercise. ¡Hasta pronto!
