How to Speak FAST Spanish
Try seven ways to practise understanding and producing connected Spanish speech. If you’ve struggled to keep up with songs or conversations, this guide is for you. Tip #6 is especially fun and unique! Don’t miss the exercise at the end to put these tips into practice and transform the way you learn Spanish.
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.
There is an exercise at the end so you can practise what you hear.
#1. Ok, do you have a teddy bear?
Speaking practice can help you build sentences more readily. Even ten minutes a day gives you a chance to retrieve useful words and phrases. 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. Practise a conversation with a voice chatbot.
If your chatbot offers voice conversation, you can use it to practise speaking. 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 continuing 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 adapt the prompt to other situations and languages. Check which voice features are available in your account.
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 find it through the Study guide link on this site.
#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 an American or English series or film that offers Spanish dubbing and Spanish subtitles. 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)
You may also hear informal shortened forms such as these, depending on the speaker and region:
Perfecto – Perfe (Perfect)
Fin de semana – Finde (Weekend)
Ilusión – Ilu (excitement or anticipation, in this context)
Información – Info (Information)
Bolígrafo – Boli (Pen)
Bicicleta – Bici (Bike)
Autobús – Bus (Bus)
In some varieties of southern Spanish and Latin American Spanish, you may hear the following pronunciation patterns. They vary by region and speaker:
Final or syllable-ending -s may be weakened or aspirated, often sounding like an “h,” or sometimes omitted. This is a pronunciation pattern; keep the standard spelling when writing.
Margaritas – Margaritah (Daisies)
Las margaritas – Lah margaritah (The daisies)
Some final consonants may weaken or disappear in particular accents and contexts; they are not universally dropped:
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.
In some informal speech, an intervocalic d weakens or disappears, especially in endings such as -ado:
Cansado – Cansao (Tired)
Cansada – Cansá (Tired)
Don’t pause after every word when practising connected speech. When one word ends in a vowel and the next begins with a vowel, speakers often link the sounds. A final consonant can also link to the next word’s initial vowel, as in los hijos. The initial h in hijos is silent.
Los hijos – Losijoh OR lohijoh (The sons)
La abeja – Labeja (The bee)
The vowel sequence ue forms a glide in words such as huevo and bueno. The examples below are rough sound cues, not standard spellings.
Huevo – Wevo (Egg)
Bueno – Weno (Good)
In some accents, a syllable-final l may sound like r before a consonant. This does not happen in every variety.
Vuelta – Werta (Turn, spin…)
#6. My favorite one! This is a metronome.
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 Puerto Rican. Listen for the features she uses in this performance, such as weakened syllable-final s and reduced words. In her variety, c before e or i, and z, are pronounced like s; c before a, o, or u still has a /k/ sound.
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 to put the YouTube video at 0.5x speed. After that, change it to 0.75× speed, then to normal speed.
Increase the tempo only when you can say the words clearly. Slow practice helps you hear and produce the sounds accurately before you work on speed.
Musicians often build accuracy at a slower tempo before increasing it. You can do the same with a song you enjoy.
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.
Background listening can help you get familiar with the sound of Spanish, but focus on a short, understandable passage if you want to learn from it: listen, notice a phrase, then try to recall and use it.
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.
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?
Here is one rough spelling of the presenter’s connected pronunciation, not a universal way to say the sentence: 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!
