Becoming Bilingual

Hi, I’ve been bilingual most of my life because I grew up in a Spanish-speaking household, but I can totally relate to the challenges of actually learning the language beyond just hearing it. Writing and reading were tough for me too, so I had to take Spanish classes in school to strengthen those skills. 

Here’s what worked for me: Writing things down helped a lot, especially vocabulary and grammar rules. A good program I suggest to use to take notes on if you've found a good textbook/information source out there is Notion, since it's like a digital notebook you can use on your phone and laptop. Flashcards (like Quizlet) are super helpful for memorization, too. 

Watching telenovelas and Spanish TV shows/movies was a good test to see how well I was doing. I’d watch without captions and see how much I could understand. This helped me get a sense of what fluent Spanish sounds like. For me, I realized I was fluent when I could understand Spanish without translating it in my head. Reading, hearing, and responding in Spanish started to feel automatic.

Don’t put too much pressure on yourself to be perfect right away. Keep practicing, and you’ll push through it. You’ve got this. :)

Sources I've Used:

Busuu (There's a free trial I believe? Good for "real life" situational language)

Tia Tula (Free practice quizzes and other lessons)