Spanish A1 Completed

I’ve always wanted to learn a foreign language as it is a great way to travel without language barriers.

Last year, I had a chance to visit Europe and travel to France, Switzerland and Spain. I learnt a few words in French before I left for France. When I was in France, I tried using my broken French to communicate with the locals. Even though I could understand a few words, it felt really difficult to communicate. That was expected as I only knew a few words. What surprised me was that the people really appreciated my effort and became friendly. They also attempted to speak with me in English even though they were not fluent.

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.

After France, I visited Spain and I really liked the conversations with the locals I met. These three weeks in Spain were wonderful. I interacted with the locals, learnt about Spanish culture and history. I also got a chance to meet a few people from Argentina and Paraguay and learnt about their countries and cultures.

And I thought it would be a good idea to learn Spanish. I can come back to Spain or travel to South America next after I have a good grasp of the Spanish language.

After the Europe trip, I came back home and opened Duolingo to learn Spanish. I steadily maintained a streak of 150 days. I learnt a lot of vocabulary, but I knew I didnt build any proficiency in Spanish. Duolingo just felt like a guessing game.

Will I be able to speak Spanish, just by using Duolingo? I guess not!

I decided to join a Spanish class. Luckily, there was one that was right next to my house - Institute of Spanish Studies ↗️ . 60 hours of classes, with 4 classes per week to complete the A1 level course. I really liked my Spanish teacher as he gave a lot of culture nuances from his life, having lived in Spain and South America. The A1 textbook was quite fun and spoke about travel, food, family and many other things about Spanish culture, while also teaching the grammer and vocabulary.

Spanish turned out to be a very logical language. There were a few few rules to remember and I could easy create new sentences using the rules. I really enjoyed solving exercises in the text book. And it was a fun activity to try to speak Spanish with a few friends.

At the end of two months, I completed the A1 level proficiency course in Spanish. During the course, I also gave a presentation in Spanish where I narrated a small story about a woman walking the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. The walk is also called “Camino de Santiago” and is a very popular pilgrimage in Spain.

Check out the presentation:

Have you learnt any foreign languages? Let me know your experiences in the comments below.