Are you wondering how to practice speaking Spanish by yourself? Let me help you with that!
From a communicative approach, we learn languages to communicate with other people.
That communication can be in writing or orally, being the latter the area most students struggle with.
Fortunately, nowadays technology gives us the possibility to find a good teacher or a language partner and talk with them on Skype or any other similar platform.
But if you can’t find someone, you will have to talk to yourself! And as funny as it might sound, it’s a really effective way to improve your speaking.
Are you ready? Let’s go!
How to practice speaking Spanish by yourself
To improve your speaking in Spanish, or any other language, you have to speak it. That’s it! There aren’t any special secrets or magic formulas.
You need to open your mouth, and exercise both your mouth muscles and vocal cords.
So although having someone to talk to is fantastic and definitely more interesting, you can improve your speaking skills alone, too!
Be your own language partner! I am my own language partner every day and I can assure you it works.
Practice speaking Spanish with yourself following these three steps!
1) Input
In language learning, input refers to the language a student is exposed to while listening or reading.
That can happen either in a classroom, with material provided by the teacher, or in a student’s daily life!
This is what you should do first, so that you really have something to talk about!
You can read a book, read the news, or listen to them, watch Spanish TV channels, series, etc.
Once you have a story worth telling, you can move to the second step!
2) Output
Output, on the other hand, refers to the language a student produces, either by writing or by speaking.
Now that you have something to talk about, just practice speaking Spanish with yourself!
You can do it in front of an imaginary person or audience (that’s what I do), or in front of a mirror, if you would like to pay attention to your gestures and body language.
Did you read an interesting article on BBC Mundo? Tell it to yourself! Take a few seconds to organize your ideas in your head and get started.
Or, if you couldn’t read or listen to something, just tell yourself about your day, what you did, how you felt, about it, etc..
You may struggle to continue your narration at some points, you may feel stuck. But that’s totally normal!
That’s when you’ll realize that you lack some specific words you need or that you should review a certain grammar concept, etc.
Finally, after that realization, you can move to the third and final step.
3) Practice speaking Spanish alone: review
Teachers usually suggest students record themselves while speaking, in order to listen to the recording later and detect those mistakes more easily.
It may take a few extra minutes, but if you struggle with pronunciation, I would take the time to do it.
Personally, what I do is to take notes on a piece of paper or my language learning notebook after I finish my speaking practice.
Sometimes even during my speaking practice I write quickly a word I forgot or something like that.
For example, if I’m talking about an important event in the past and I realize I’m not sure whether I should use the adjective ‘historic’ or ‘historical’, I know that’s something I will have to review.
I review my notes immediately after my practice, or later that day if I don’t have too much time.
I promise you can learn and benefit a lot from talking to yourself in a foreign language.
5 or 10 minutes every day will do the trick.
And that’s all for today!
Do you want to learn more Spanish?
I hope you have enjoyed this article about how to practice speaking Spanish by yourself!
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And to improve your Spanish even further, book a lesson with me! My students are already speaking Spanish and using it in their everyday lives. Be one of them!
Thank you very much and until next time,
Kevin.