How to Learn Spanish Fast — Step-by-Step Guide & Transcript

[00:01] is it possible to become fluent in Spanish in 30 days well I wanted to find [Music]

[00:27] a couple of years of Spanish in high school I did count hours of du lingo and I even lived in Spanish speaking countries like Spain and Colombia where I eventually met my wife but even with all that immersion I couldn't even hold

[00:40] a basic conversation in Spanish when my wife and I found out that she was pregnant we decided that we wanted to speak to the baby in Spanish as a first generation korean-american I have a deep bond with my grandmother because I can

[00:52] still communicate with her in Korean and I want my daughter to be able to do the same thing with her family back in Colombia here's the catch after moving back to the US getting settled I had 30 days until my wife's expected due date

[01:06] so I needed a faster way to try and do the Impossible by studying the top language learning experts I developed a 4-we plan to go from basic to fluent in Spanish each week I focused on a specific theme with a very clear

[01:19] progression in mind where I removed all distractions I decided to wake up at 5:30 to give myself from 6:00 a.m. to period I was going going to make sure that all of my input and media

[01:32] consumption was going to be 100% in Spanish to get started I signed up for baselang a language learning site where you get to talk to native speakers for a flat monthly fee I picked Baseline because during my research I found out

[01:45] that the best way to learn a new language is through contextual learning for instance instead of trying to remember random words and grammar rules for no reason I started by emulating a natural conversation

[02:12] life I started by just introducing myself my name is how are you where are you from and this sort of gave me an idea of what I needed to learn first so communicate if I actually met somebody

[02:25] who spoke Spanish in my very first lesson I learned how to say I am from lesson I learned how to say I am from the United States now since I know how to say I am I can say I am timtim or I can say uno this

[02:39] helped me learn phrases and contextually pair words with meaning anytime I was pair words with meaning anytime I was speaking or I heard something I didn't

[02:55] [Music] know okay okay empty document and I moved it into Anki a spaced repetition software I created

[03:08] two separate an decks one for words I would use frequently and another for words I don't use as often to expand my vocabulary if you know a word Anki will show you the word less frequently and vice versa and I even downloaded the app

[03:21] some extra time I could study Baseline let you work with a variety of different tutors so every single time I would meet somebody new I would read introduce and go deeper and deeper into the

[03:34] lot of shared interest I'll just book another lesson with them I was connecting with new people and honestly making some new friends this made the entire process of learning Spanish really fun now I started talking about

[03:47] really fun now I started talking about my

[04:07] as well like weightlifting learning skills and confidence I asked one of my teachers Jorge for some feedback you're doing

[04:21] really good in Spanish right now but I think you should go out to try to speak with real people in Spanish because it's even harder than in a classroom luckily there was a local Hispanic heritage event where I knew I was going to be

[04:35] able to meet some native Spanish speakers I gave myself three challenges it was time to test my Spanish in the [Music]

[05:53] than I expected yeah one more step towards fluency you know so after the event I was really proud of myself how however there were many moments where I couldn't exactly understand what somebody was saying to

[06:12] did you get so well oh so I realized that I needed to practice more hearing so for week two I focused on input even if I couldn't comprehend everything that I was listening to the first time I trusted that my brain was making

[06:25] connections on a subconscious level with repeated exposure if something that you've heard before comes up again and you recognize it you can file it in the no category I started watching movies in Spanish hey we can watch it in Spanish

[06:38] Spanish hey we can watch it in Spanish okay Spanish music playlist which I listen to all the time while working out or all the time while working out or [Music]

[06:54] driving because of the repeat exposure to certain words and phrases I was getting better at understanding and differentiating how certain words were pronounced and used on top of that I was still doing my 3 to 4 hours of Baseline

[07:06] classes a day with a lot of speaking and prompt reading but then on day 15 during one of my lessons I couldn't understand anything that was being said to me I was starting to burn out from trying to process so much information in a

[07:19] different language while balancing my other responsibilities I honestly wasn't learning and I was starting to dread the learning activity that I had booked for the day the worst thing that can happen to any learner don't get me wrong like

[07:32] learning's been cool but man I'm tired obviously because of running the the business managing the YouTube channel that baby coming I feel a little overwhelmed so it was time to ask for some help this is Connor after doing his

[07:45] own 30-day Spanish challenge he went on to found Baseline become fluent in Spanish and Portuguese and he's even given TED talks on language learning and luckily for me he also happens to be a really good friend of mine yeah after

[07:57] studying for around 5 hours a day and I just wanted to know if you had any recommendations for me to be able to finish the challenge right so you're you're doing 3 or four hours of actual class every day right yeah so the the

[08:11] to happen it's part for the course that is a lot of work for your brain and question I've got for you is are you sleeping enough how much are you sleeping per day all right I'm going to be honest with you uh it probably could

[08:24] be better probably sleeping like maybe 6 and 1/2 maybe 7 Some Nights no no no no sleep is when all this stuff gets encoded so right now you're working with a leaky bucket you're not getting fully rested and then you're going back and

[08:39] doing for yourself as far as language learning you're probably only capturing 70% of what you're doing any given day the rest is just you're losing it after to rest for the first time since starting the challenge 10:14 I'm going

[08:54] to call in earlier night I'm going to take Conor's advice get some shut eye my schedule looked something like this to give my brain more time to process and codify information I decid to leverage naps to utilize the greatest

[09:08] learning tool for our brains sleep I started to batch my lessons in two separate blocks so I can take a nap in between he also recommended that I set up some Stakes so I had an end goal in mind for the learning itself for this I

[09:21] Venezuela she also happens to be a Spanish teacher so there's no way that I can my way through it for week three I now focused on output through a technique called mimicry a technique where I listened and tried to repeat

[09:35] back exactly what I was hearing I asked every single teacher if they could also read the prompts in Spanish so I could train my ear and copy exactly how they train my ear and copy exactly how they were saying

[09:54] native week four was all about review and expanding into advanc topics but all still within context the average person only knows about 20,000 words and you really only use about 2,000 of them on a daily basis depending on your interest

[10:11] work and lifestyle to learn my top 2,000 words I developed four categories to talk about my experiences like traveling and where I've been my interests like working out and learning skills work in business and finally my beliefs another

[10:24] benefit of Baseline is that they have a last minute booking feature so if I had additional time I would try and do one or two more classes as I started to have more and more complex conversations I made note of the things that I messed up

[10:36] on and I paid attention to my pronunciation talking about my past experiences and hearing about the experiences of others allow me to understand how to tell stories in the past learning this way felt natural and

[10:49] fun and just like that 30 days went by and it was time to have my call with my and it was time to have my call with my friend

[12:15] she's awake too she's awake right now Eva so I'm happy to report to you guys that during the challenge my daughter was born perfectly healthy and I'm a new only been speaking to her in Spanish but even singing her laab in Span spish as

[12:29] well in my first class I could barely get pasta andas by the time I finished conversation in Spanish talking about really don't think that you can become fluent in any language in 30 days I was

[12:44] because of the years of effort that I put into learning Spanish before the challenge it was all bouncing around in there I just needed a focused plan and Max effort to learn how to communicate efficiently I think most people are

[12:58] right method and plan anyone can eventually become fluent guys I spent over 82 hours during this challenge learning one onone with native speakers for a flat fee of $179 a month if you do the math that's

[13:12] like $2 an hour that's insane for private lessons I definitely wouldn't have been able to make this much progress if it wasn't for today's thanks again for your help man and shout out to every single tutor at B langang

[13:26] thank you so much for watching watching this video and don't forget to subscribe as we have more videos coming that's it peace