7 Essentials to Speak Spanish Like a Native 

It’s one language.

 While there are many variations of Spanish, it’s still one language. Many of the words that are used in different countries are unique to that country or unique to that area. I’m sure you can think of similar examples in English. The English spoken in the UK is slightly different from that in the United States. People speak differently in New York than they do in Georgia. Having said all of that, it’s still the same language. You might hear a new word or two, or may not understand someone’s accent right away, but it’s still the same language. 

Don’t worry too much about the kind of Spanish that you’re learning. A fluent speaker of Spanish can communicate with other fluent speakers of Spanish. It’s all one language. 

How long does it take?

Spanish is what we call a Category I language- fairly close to English. People who go through the Foreign Service Institute (training for U.S. diplomats) can generally attain a B2 level (ACTFL Intermediate High)  of Spanish with 750 to 1000 hours of study in many cases. CEFR B2 and ACTFL Intermediate High might not mean anything to you, but suffice to say, it’s a pretty high level of language. You can speak and communicate with people, but in no way is it as easy as in your own language. You’re still going to be pretty rough with your grammar. You’ll still mispronounce some words, You’ll still be grasping for vocabulary at times, but you can communicate with people. A native speaker speaks much more fluently and accurately than that level. 

While I talked about that general amount of time that many Foreign Service Officers preparing for their assignments abroad can invest to attain that level of fluency that allows them to function in life in a Spanish-speaking country, to hit that really high native level, takes two or three times as long, in my opinion. It’s relatively easy to move through the Novice and Intermediate levels. It tends to take a bit longer to move from that high intermediate through the Advanced, and up into that native-level language. 

Learning-acquisition 

Dr. Stephen Krashen is a great teacher and researcher of Second Language Acquisition. He explains the difference between learning languages versus language acquisition very well. 

When we learn a language, think about all of those rote things that you do. Flashcards and apps, exercises, going to a traditional language class, studying verbs, or going to a language lab. Those are all traditional, deliberate activities to learn a new language. They work by helping you get new patterns and words into your long-term memory that eventually all work together to a level where you can create your own language and sentences. 

Acquisition is something that’s slightly different. Acquisition is the way that you learned your first language. You were spoken to, you watched TV, you were read to, you went to school, or you listened to music, to name just a few ways we acquire language. You were completely immersed in that language. Instead of learning separate words and phrases, or verb tenses and patterns, in the way we talked about with learning, you absorbed all the messages you heard and read naturally.

Many people who learn multiple languages, and/or learn languages to very high levels, understand how these two things work together. You want to be deliberate in your studies, journaling, use of flashcards, regular chunks of time to study and study of grammar. In combination with regular, focused periods of study,