A long time ago, one of my friends asked me to go with him to his little nephew’s baseball training. During the time the boy spent there, he practiced the same technique to improve his swing (hitting the ball with a bat).
I noticed that baseball players have to work on their technique so that their swing becomes smooth, strong and effective.
When the pitcher throws the ball, there’s just no time for the batter to stop and think, he has to bat quickly!
Just as in baseball, in real fluent Spanish conversations, there’s no time to think either. Words just come and go easily, automatically and effectively.
Unfortunately, Spanish students usually struggle with fluency.
It’s very common to see how they stop and take their time to answer simple questions in Spanish like:
—”¿Que vasa hacer mañana?”
—”Uhh, ¿Mañana? Uuuhmmm, voy a… uhhhh… Creo que voya… uuhh…”
However, this is not what you want!
Your goal is to speak fluently, automatically, and effectively. You want to go ahead and answer questions quickly:
—”Mañana me voy de viaje hasta el 4 de Agosto del otro año**”
One technique for a more fluent Spanish
One of the best exercises that I know to improve your fluency is answering questions.
I learned this technique fromAJ Hoge, my English teacher, and author of Effortless English: Learn to speak English like a native.
AJ says that during traditional English lessons, the teacher often tries to practice speaking doing boring drills, and something happens in Spanish.
For instance, the teacher may say:
—”Repitan después de mí: ‘Hola, ¿Cómo estás?’ “
And then the students would repeat exactly what the teacher says:
—”Hola, ¿Cómo estás?”
This could keep happening for a couple of more sentences. It is totally different if you answer questions the way AJ Hoge teaches us.
How can you use this technique?
It’s very simple, and yet, very effective.
Imagine you are listening to an easy to understand Spanish story, and then you start to hear some questions about the story.
The questions must be designed to repeat the new vocabulary that you learned during the story and thus the new words will be recorded in your brain more easily.
Don’t worry if your answers are too short, all you need to do is to give an answer in Spanish. Over time and the more you improve, you could give longer replies.
The answers you give to these easy questions must be out loud, quick, and you can’t think, just like a baseball player when he hits a ball.
During the following video, I show you exactly how to do it:
Why does this work?
Answering questions is an active brain exercise, and because during the questions you hear the same vocabulary over and over, you can learn and remember new words,idioms, and expressions more easily.
Not only that but quickly answering questions in Spanish will train your brain to think in this new language. You’ll become used to answer questions so that in real life this doesn’t become such a huge challenge.
One of the things that AJ recommends for this technique is energy and psychology, things that play a big role when you learn a new language.
He suggests answering questions out loud, or even shout the answers. You could even yell every time something is supposed to shock you, no matter if it doesn’t make you feel this way.
Note: If you’re interested in improving your Spanish using this technique, then my premium lessonsmay come in handy for you. I base my lessons on funny stories and the questions and answers technique.
Does this really help you achieve fluency?
Yes, 100% guaranteed! I say this because it worked for me.
I took many of AJ Hoge’s lessons when I learned to speak English, using this very same technique and because of my experience, I got convinced of its power.
Now that I want to help you achieve fluency in Spanish I want to recommend the most powerful and effective methods to learn languages that I know.
*NOTE: If you want to learn more of what you can do tolearn Spanish and become fluent in the least time possible, I suggest you sign up for my ebook: 10 Secretos que nadie te dice para hablar español como un nativo in the form below.*
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