At the beginning of 2023, after finishing Fu Zhen’s The Best Wine Is Worth Trading a Golden Turtle For, I wanted to travel to Latin America. After getting a U.S. visa in early 2024, I finally arrived in Mexico, my first stop in Latin America. To travel and communicate better in this part of the world, I decided to learn Spanish. With the prospect of speaking Spanish fluently in the future in mind, I struggled through my first month of study.

Here are the focuses of my first month:

  • Pronunciation: I learned the alphabet and pronunciation rules. At this stage, I did not plan to train listening and speaking; being able to greet people and ask for prices was enough. I was also taking Spanish classes at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, where instruction was in Spanish from the start, so class itself was listening and speaking practice for me.
  • Grammar: I skimmed a grammar book and noted the conjugation rules for the main tenses; I also read novels to understand grammar in context.
  • Vocabulary: I read Spanish novels and gradually learned new words. I had to look up a word several times before remembering it. For commonly used words with very similar spellings, such as llenar, llegar, llevar, llamar, and levantar, I had to copy them together and compare their meanings. Once a verb changed subject or tense, I could no longer recognize it, so I had to memorize verb conjugations.

Here are the materials I used in my first month that I highly recommend:

  • Collins Spanish Dictionary & Grammar: Although it is a dictionary, the final third is grammar. It explains grammar in English clearly and concisely, making it an invaluable tool for learning Spanish. If you do not have the book, you can also use the Collins website to learn grammar. The dictionary also explains verb conjugations very clearly; this month I memorized its regular conjugation rules.
  • The SpanishDictionary mobile app: It explains Spanish in English and is suitable for looking up complex verbs and all kinds of phrases. Its first advantage is that it gives clear, concise English equivalents and example sentences for complex verbs, and it lets you save words by individual meaning, which is more convenient than Spanish Assistant. Its second advantage is clear, accurate pronunciation: it separates words into syllables and includes Latin American pronunciation.
  • The Spanish Assistant mobile app: It is suitable for looking up nouns and simple verbs. Those with strong English skills can pair it with the Collins Spanish Dictionary word-pack for more concise definitions. Its synonym and related-entry functions are useful for learning connected vocabulary together and building memory associations. Its vocabulary-book feature is also useful and was my main review tool; I looked up nearly 1,000 Spanish words in the first month.
  • Short Stories in Spanish for Beginners: An excellent Spanish reading-practice book. It offers a method for building vocabulary through reading, with eight engaging short and medium-length stories carefully designed for beginners. It is ideal for becoming familiar with common words and works better than memorizing a word list; I finished one story a day.
  • Two Years of Self-Study in Spanish to Reach C1: A Bilibili video sharing learning experience. Most of my Spanish study materials were chosen with reference to it.

My study plan for next month:

  • Read Short Stories in Spanish for Intermediate Learners
  • Memorize irregular verb conjugations
  • Watch Spanish-language teaching videos by Spanish-speaking creators with Spanish subtitles

P.S. Foreign-Language Learning Theory

The foreign-language learning theory I have always found most convincing is “comprehensible input.” During my six-month trip through five Southeast Asian countries, I improved my English by listening to English podcasts and reading English novels, and got the results I expected (I took IELTS without preparation and scored 8.5 in reading and 7.5 in listening).

For practical guidance, you can refer to the videos of Canadian diplomat Steve Kaufmann on Bilibili and YouTube. He believes the two most important things in language learning are motivation and time. The first means that your learning materials need to be interesting and varied enough to give your brain rich stimulation and make you willing to invest more time. The second is that you need to spend enough time immersed in the foreign-language context, whether by reading novels, listening to podcasts, watching videos, or practicing speaking with native speakers.

In addition, one of Steve Kaufmann’s videos makes an interesting observation: when learning a language, concentrating your time matters more than spreading it out. In his experience, studying Chinese for seven hours a day for nine months worked better than studying Russian for one hour a day for five years.