How to find time to learn Spanish

Finding the time to learn Spanish is one of the big “problems” that I hear all the time. 

And it is a source of frustration for many of the people I work with because learning the language is important in their personal life. At least once a day, it’s not uncommon for me to hear... 

“I’m so busy right now”, “work is crazy at the moment”, “I just don’t have enough time”... 

Can you relate?

I mean, I totally get it. For most of us, life is extremely busy and we need to juggle so many things it’s not surprising that 24 hours a day doesn't seem like enough!

However, I can guarantee you that you can definitely fit learning Spanish within your busy schedule with a bit of creative thinking and planning.

Here are some ideas:

1. Connect with your motivation

What is your reason for learning Spanish? Take a couple of minutes to think about this and how important this is for you. Because when our reasons are powerful and important to us, we find the energy, prioritise the time and make the space to make something happen. Keep coming back to yours!

2. Your learning preferences

Do you enjoy visual materials? Do you need to write things down? Are you a logical learner who enjoys tables, systems and mindmaps? Do you learn better on your own or with other people? 

When we identify our learning preferences and we align with them, learning happens more naturally for us and therefore we need less time to learn something!

And there’s no right or wrong here as long as it works for you. So make it enjoyable, not a chore! And if you find something boring or that it’s not working… change it immediately so it doesn’t slow you down!

3. Planning

Make use of your dead time. This is the time that we have in “between activities” and we normally don’t do much! 

Well, we can purposefully change this and bring to our awareness all the little 5 -10 minute gaps that we have and combine it with Spanish. For example, telling yourself what you see/what  you are doing/have been doing/are about to do in Spanish! This is an excellent way to incorporate your Spanish in your daily life and keep it completely alive.

Combine your learning with daily activities. For example, if you go for a walk (or while you commute to work or need to drive somewhere else) you can combine it with a podcast in Spanish. This is a perfect opportunity to do two things at once! Be creative and come up with ideas on how else you can combine your daily activities with Spanish. 

Break your learning down. Ex. Aiming to learn 5 -10 new words for a few minutes a day will be much more beneficial than spending 2 hours trying to memorise a list of 50 once a week. When the words are in context and we put them into practice ASAP we have a much better chance to remember them and we can only do that if we break it into small chunks.

So, it doesn’t matter which stage you are in, and how busy your life looks right now. The most important thing is to look at learning as something fun to look forward to and always remind yourself of all the positive things and experiences that Spanish will bring to your life. 

You will find the time to make it happen 😉

Feliz día,

Cristina