I Tried Learning Spanish For 30 Days

Hola, soy Zach. So for 30 days, I tried to learn Spanish, and it was interesting. What's the best way to learn Spanish? I have no idea. And I didn't do any research. I just jumped into the first resource that I saw Xiaoma using, which was story learning, Duolingo, maybe a little bit of Anki. So let's see how it went. Okay, so it's day number one of my Spanish speaking journey. Hola, como estas? That's what I know. That's the Spanish I know. For the next 30 days, I'm going to try and learn Spanish. So I'm going to start with Duolingo, a SoundCloud language exchange, and then there's this good like story learning thing on the internet as well. Let's just get right into it. I'm just going to start doing some Duolingo right now. A few minutes later. So first day, I did Duolingo for a little bit. I did a little bit of SoundCloud, a language exchange program, and a story learning website, which helped you learn Spanish by like reading stories in Spanish. And I quickly learned that Duolingo was an absolute waste of time. It was too easy and too slow. I wanted to commit hardcore and learn as much as I could in the shortest amount of time. That's where the SoundCloud listening and the story learning really came in. So the idea behind this is I'm meant to listen to the story because it's a story. It'll be more fun to learn. And then I read the story and then I read it and listen to it. And then I try and like translate it. It sounds good to me because I like stories are more fun than just, you know, memorizing vocab and stuff like that. But I feel like I know so little, like absolutely nothing, that this is going to be tough. Three friends have a corona? This is hard. Hola, buenos dias. Ahora es dia numero tres de estudio espanol. Me gusta estudiar español porque es felicidad. Estoy emocionado porque mas tarde viajo en Buenos Aires. Para cinco semanas. But yeah, okay. You know, we have a lot of work to do. I was watching Jaume, who's like this amazing YouTuber, and he's like blasting it after three days. But I'm not blasting it. So right now I'm about to go into my first ever Spanish Zoom class with a teacher. I think it's a private lesson. So I'm going to try and, you know, have some conversations because, you know, what's the best way to learn Spanish? I think it's to go to a Spanish-speaking country. So, you know, tonight, later tonight, I'm just going to go to Buenos Aires, you know, for fun to see if I can learn some Spanish. And on the plane to Buenos Aires, I remember I had my first ever interaction with a Spanish speaker. So there was this lady, the flight attendant spoke no Spanish, which is interesting if you're flying to Buenos Aires. And this older lady was like trying to pass by with her bag. But the flight attendant was saying, you know, you have to wait, hold and wait your bag because we need other people to pass or something like that. And my heart was beating so, so fast because I was like, OK, I think I know how to say this in Spanish. So maybe I'll try and do it. And I did it. And I said, Necesitamos esperar, which means you need to wait, right? And then I think the lady said, the old lady said, ¿Por qué? ¿Por qué? She said, ¿Por qué? And then she started speaking so fast and in a dialect that was a little bit different. And I had no idea what to understand. And I said, Disculpe, ¿Por qué no hablo? And she looked at me like with the most crazy expression. And then so she said, OK. But then a real Spanish speaker came in and was like, OK, I got it. I got it. But I learned in that first interaction, the importance of having real conversations with people that actually speak Spanish. I'm just getting settled into the new location. Lego. Yeagle. I arrived. I'm arriving. Don't know. It's been like 18 hours of travel. So the first thing I'm going to do is get some food, take a shower, and then I'll start to figure out my life. But I'm going to hold off on a lot of the video today because I just got to figure out my life. But I'm in Buenos Aires, you know, learning Spanish. OK, well, tomorrow. We'll talk tomorrow. But luckily, I was in a Spanish speaking country. I was in Argentina and I was in the city of Buenos Aires. And then began my first Spanish class ever. I'm ready. Hopefully, I'm able to talk. The formal classes were a little tough initially, but slowly they became better. What I found most helpful was in the class, they only spoke Spanish. I wanted more, though. I needed more. And luckily, everyone around me spoke pretty much only Spanish. And some people who spoke English would still speak to me in Spanish because they could tell that I was trying. I was trying to learn more Spanish and speak more Spanish. And my ultimate goal was one day to go to a Spanish restaurant and have them not say, ¿Quieres una menu en ingles? Because I just wanted them to be like, oh, this guy knows Spanish. We can give him a Spanish menu. So my classes were from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. during the week in person at a Spanish speaking school. And then in the afternoon, I would do like an hour or two of private lessons on Baselang, which was like this talking service. And those were amazingly helpful. And this is where my Spanish took on a new level. If I was restarting learning a new language, like I'm going to start learning to speak Italian or I'm doing a little bit of Italian now, having conversations with native speakers as soon as possible is so, so beneficial. And also like writing down the important words that I say all the time and just memorizing them, like maybe, so, because, little bit, a lot. And if I was going to rank the importance of kind of ways to learn a new language, in my experience, I'd say speaking with a native speaker is the most, is the best thing, like by a lot. And then formal private lessons, like one-on-one with someone is like the next best thing. Then memorizing key vocabulary and then maybe common conjugations. And finally, listening or reading to like authentic content in like Spanish. And by authentic, I don't mean content that's like, you know, meant to help you learn Spanish. I mean content that's like what people who are native Spanish speakers would read or watch, like Instagram reels or TikToks in Spanish or YouTube videos from Spanish-speaking people. And this is what went on for about two weeks. And my Spanish got a good amount better. I would watch La Casa de Papel. I would go to football games. I would speak with my friends who only spoke Spanish. And this is the point where I saw a change. Instead of me having to be like, yo quiero, blah, blah, blah. I could be like, yo quiero, blah, blah, blah. I could speak in a normal rate and kind of get to the point where I could have okay conversations with people. And this was huge because before people would be like, okay, we can't really speak Spanish together because it's just so slow. And you're having to use Google Translate all the time. But now I got to the point where I could be like, como se dice, blah, blah, blah. And like, also I want to do this and maybe this. And how are you doing? And all these kinds of things. And I know if I stayed there for another month with only native Spanish speakers, my Spanish speaking abilities would be so much better. And if I ever really, really want to commit to learning a language, this is exactly what I'm going to do. Okay, that's enough Spanish for day number 14. But I think it's a little unquiet here because I'm on this amazing private roof thing at an Airbnb. Behind me is the city of Buenos Aires. I'm in Palermo right now. And it's absolutely fantastic. I'm loving it. It's summertime here. What I was trying to say in Spanish earlier is that I thought I would be a little bit better after two weeks. I'm still much better than, you know, when I first started. But after two weeks, I thought, you know, I'd be able to hold a conversation. And I really still can't hold a conversation. I can get by. I can ask for the check at the restaurant. I can ask for it to go. Beyond that, I don't know much. The most important thing, I think, was living in a Spanish speaking country. And I saw this new, beautiful potential of learning a new language. I've never learned a new language. I've, like, only spoke English my entire life. When I'm speaking every day, only in Spanish, it's better than only in the United States when I only speak in English for one, two, or three hours in a row. So, I think I'm Spanish. But when I want to speak with a Spanish-speaking person, or, how do you say it, other people, or other countries, it's very difficult. But I think I'm better. I think I'm better. And I love the language in Spanish because it's very small. It's very elegant when I can speak like that. I'm a little sad because I need to travel to the United States in two days. But it's the best experience of, oh, it's difficult. Numbers are difficult for me. Nearing the end of my 30-day challenge after trying to learn Spanish for 30 days, I have a couple final thoughts. First of all, I was amazed that I could actually have full-on conversations with people at the end of 30 days. Of course, they were abysmal and mostly only in the present tense, but there were still full-on conversations. I remember one time I was driving on, like, a tour or something like that, and I saw a big protest going on. And I had my fancy video camera gear, so they thought I was a news reporter. And I came in, and I started talking to the people in Spanish, and it was amazing. Imagine this interaction I could have with people that I would no way, shape, or form be able to have with these people if I didn't speak a little bit of Spanish. And they were saying something like, the money's in the house. Like, they aren't sharing the money. You know, some kind of political protest. And the people of Buenos Aires, the people of Argentina, were amazing. They were so happy and so excited that I was trying to learn Spanish and speak to them in Spanish. The only bad interaction I ever had when trying to speak Spanish in my 30 days in Buenos Aires was when I was speaking to a bus driver. And they usually say, like, donde ves? Like, where are you going? Like, where do you want to go? Because they have to calculate the rate in the bus or something like that. And when I first started getting on the bus, I had no idea what they were saying. No idea. So I said, disculpe, yo no se, yo no se. And they would be like, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah. I'd be like, ah. And there were people behind me, and I was holding up the bus. And they would just say, adelante, adelante. Like, go forward. Go forward. And I think that was the only bad interaction I ever had trying to speak Spanish. And I was making friends who only spoke Spanish and a little bit of English. The best part of this was seeing a side of Buenos Aires, of Argentina, that I think I never would have seen if I didn't speak a little Spanish. It was like an unknown unknown in my brain unlocked. A new part of my brain was revealed. A new thing that could happen if I learned a new language. And this part of my brain not only was, wow, Buenos Aires is an amazing, passionate, vibrant, beautiful city, but also that the people in the city were amazing. They were excited to speak to you. They were compassionate. They were friendly. They would take me to do amazing things. And these things wouldn't have happened if I didn't speak any Spanish. It's much better than when I only speak one language, English, only English. But now, I can speak a little Spanish with people and with other people. And so, I think, depending, depending, I will learn a lot of Spanish in the United States and in the United States, because when I speak Spanish, it's better than when I don't speak Spanish. And yes, the last day of January, March 30th, then, of course, my friends and family spoke I don't remember. Okay, I tried to speak Spanish, but I think it actually is getting, like, I can actually have, like, decent conversations. You can see pretty much only in the present tense. And when I can struggle, I can do, like, a little bit of the past tense, a little bit of the word tense. But it's really amazing what you do in 30 days of just really putting your head down to it. So, it's really, like, a mind-opening thing. It's almost like this paradigm shift. So, there are things you know, there are things you know you don't know, and then there are things you don't know that you don't know. And I think this is kind of another one of those things that I didn't know that I didn't know. And how cool it is to be able to just speak to someone in a different culture, who's in a different culture, who's just grown up completely different than you, and you start to speak kind of in their own language. It's just, it's just an amazing thing. And you learn so much, and I think so much more than you would if you just spoke in your own language. It's kind of addicting. Finally, one place I wish I checked out earlier for learning Spanish was Skillshare. Specifically, Peter Hanley has an amazing course that I would have done at about two times speed that I wish I did instead of the story learning, where I wasted tons of time. And this class gets you ready to speak Spanish in a couple of hours. Skillshare is kindly sponsoring this video. And over there, I also have my own personal class on getting straight A's with flashcards. Beyond language learning and doing well in school, Skillshare courses have also helped me accomplish my dreams of becoming a doctor and becoming a YouTuber through productivity and video production courses. What are your dreams? What do you want to learn? I'll bet you can find a course on it on Skillshare. And the first 1000 people to use my unique link will get the first month free. So you could access Skillshare a month for free and then cancel the subscription and pay absolutely nothing. So click on my link if you want that deal. But that is it. Thank you so much for watching. If this is your first time watching, mucho gusto. And I will see you on the next one. Nos vemos.