What Difficulties Should Spanish Speakers Overcome While Learning English?
English is undoubtedly one of the easiest languages to learn for Spanish speakers. As one of the globally accepted and widely spoken languages, there are many reasons than one why Spanish speakers would like to learn English.
It increases your chances of getting a job, participating in discussions, improving your networking skills, and increasing your educational qualifications while granting you access to global opportunities.
Every person has a different learning capability, and requires various learning techniques involving, primarily visual and audio. Learning every part of the English language, especially speech, is the best to start your way to fluency. You need to make efforts in each language’s parts and master English.
Does English for Spanish speakers differ somehow from the rest of the world who learn it? No, it doesn’t. But just like learning anything new, it takes time, effort, and overcoming some challenges. Before we consider the common challenges faced by Spanish speakers when learning the English language, let’s consider some of these best methods and practices for learning English generally:
Best Practices For Learning English Fast By Native Spanish Speakers
Attaining fluency in English is achievable for native Spanish speakers, but here are some best practices and tips to speed up efficiency and fluency:
Build A Relationship With English-Speaking People
Make friends with English-speaking people. You can share property or neighborhood with them or volunteer with English-centered groups. Hearing a new language and using it in conversations with people every day is one of the fastest ways to grow your fluency.
Interact With Media Using English
First of all, change your phone’s interface language to English. Watch movies, news, and TV shows, listen to podcasts, read textbooks and apps in English. The more you interact with and listen to the use of English in a different context, the easier it becomes to understand grammar and formulate sentences.
Learn English Words With Flashcards Every Day
Try to learn new English words every day. Whenever you see an unfamiliar word, note it down and try to check out the meaning. This helps to broaden your English vocabulary.
Challenges Native Spanish Speakers Have To Overcome When Learning English
Mispronunciations
Due to linguistic differences, some words are bound to be mispronounced. English has a complex phonetic system of twelve vowels and eight diphthongs, while Spanish has only five vowels and five diphthongs. This leaves a phonetic gap and room for wrong pronunciations of words like seat and sits and fit. The frequent mispronunciation of these words in the media further encourages mispronunciation.
Stress
Stress can occur on different syllables with no marks to indicate the stressed syllable for English learners. Another difficulty this poses is the diversity of English vocabulary from different stress placements- same word but different meanings.
Grammar Patterns And Word Order
Although there are similarities in both languages, English grammar forms difficulty for non-native English speakers due to differences. English grammar may be one of the more significant difficulties that non-native English student faces in Spain. One such difference, for example, is that no punctuation is required in Spanish, and the adjectives generally are placed after the nouns they describe.
Subject Omission
Subjects are generally omitted in the Spanish language, and this becomes an issue in learning, speaking, and literal translation of Spanish to English, where a subject is often required for a complete sentence structure.
Dialects
Many regions within a location have dialects with different pronunciations for certain words and words with different meanings. This could pose difficulty for the Spanish speakers learning English. As inclusive as the English language is, it also has dialects, which could pose difficulties for non-native speakers.
Additionally, the ease of learning could be impeded by the regional origin of the non-native English student in Spain, as many regions have their native regional language.
Slangs
Slangs and colloquialisms are present features of every language. It helps the speakers to show familiarity, pass on words with deeper meanings, and sometimes do not follow proper grammar structure. In some areas, it takes whole new learning to adapt to the slang of a place and further poses a threat to Spanish students learning English in a place.
Verb Tense
Verbs are an integral part of the English sentence structure and often add some complexity to the learning process. As a Spanish speaker, it can be frustrating to learn a verb only to discover its different tenses as well as present, past, future, past perfect, present continuous tense, or present perfect and the need to use them in the appropriate context.
How Can Spanish Natives Overcome These Challenges To Achieve Fluency In English?
Get A Tutor Who Is Preferable A Native Speaker Of English
You can get trusted who not only studied English but is also a native English speaker. This helps with getting the accent and pronunciations right.
Practice And Always Be Open To Feedback
Constant practice will always be a key to attaining mastery of anything. Practice daily and at every opportunity. At work, at the dinner table, at a restaurant, or reading billboards in English are all great places and instances to practice. Also, be open to feedback from English speakers.
Address The Common Mistakes
As a tutor, you can help Spanish students overcome this challenge by creating specific English classes for Spanish speakers, exercises in reading, and sharing resources that carefully identify and correct incorrect pronunciations, spellings, and proper verb use.
Use A Widely Accepted English Standard
The two widely accepted English language standardized tests worldwide are the International English Language Test System (IELTS) and the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). It’s better for a Spanish native learning English to follow the curriculum and standards set by these bodies.
Unarguably, English is one of the most technical languages to learn, even for natives of an English-speaking country. For native Spanish speakers, it would require time, effort, and consistency, but the benefits and opportunities that come alongside learning English always make an effort worthwhile.
