How to learn the Spanish words you ACTUALLY need intermediate

If you're learning Spanish through vocabulary apps you've likely already noticed a certain issue You recognize the words in the app but can't use them in real life And often the words you learn aren't even particularly relevant or useful So today I'm going to show you how to stop wasting your time learning things that don’t serve you how to know which words you actually need for your life and how to finally remember them and use them in conversations The first step is to find the right context in which the words you need appear Applications lack that context they lack personal relevance They have nothing to do with your emotions or the experiences you've gone through in life And therefore what you learn through applications is always harder to remember than something you experience firsthand Right now I'm seeing the power of context every day because I have a young daughter who is learning dozens of words each day Because every word everything she learns comes with a very memorable context Everything she learns every word she immediately sees the practical value Everything she learns she knows she can apply those words and everything comes with a personal immediate context filled with emotions and experiences Children and adults don't learn in the same way of course But we can take something from their approach to learning and in this case it's the importance of context Find a context for the words we learn a context that evokes emotion something that feels like a real experience something connected to our own lives and that is relevant to us at this moment So what is this appropriate context and how do we find it Well for me there are four categories We can view all the Spanish vocabulary everything we could learn grouped into four main categories The first category is things that interest you I prefer focusing less on the number of words and more on personal interest Let me give you an example Let's just say I'm a shark enthusiast I absolutely love sharks I'm a scientist specializing in sharks For me that is I'm fine learning words like reef dorsal fin or gills One person might not find those words useful but they are to me And in real-life applications I might never come across them But I do want to learn them because they’re useful for talking about what I’m passionate about So what should I do to find those words that matter to what I'm passionate about First don't make a list Don't make any list at all You simply need to start watching reading and listening to materials related to this interest It could be documentaries podcasts or YouTube videos about sharks woodworking surfing cooking or whatever interests you And as you listen to read or watch the video jot down the words that catch your attention along with the context in which you encountered them So whatever it is that excites or interests you find content about that topic and let your passions guide and improve your Spanish The second category is this Do you know that typical Duolingo issue where you know phrases like The moose walks across the ice but can't you have a normal conversation with regular people To fix this issue the second category is conversational content I mean interviews podcasts where a couple of people talk or videos featuring several people discussing things videos of people speaking authentically and naturally without a script That's why I'm not referring to documentaries for instance which constitute another kind of language In conversational content people are speaking authentically without anything written without a script They're just talking in the way they speak with their friends among friends So if you want to understand those conversations And if you really want to understand them you have to practice comprehending them and identifying the words that appear in those conversations So you can watch or listen to those interviews and just like in the first category jot down the interesting words e words that catch your attention along with their context together with the sentence in which the interesting word appeared If you find it hard to understand this kind of conversation Conversations with native speakers but you understand me fairly well already you might find my B1 level course interesting based on a series of interviews with native speakers from various countries each with different accents we used these interviews to learn useful vocabulary ermediate grammar culture pronunciation and more If you're interested there's a link in the description The third category deals with a problem I see this a lot with my more advanced students They can hold conversations and understand quite complex topics discussing politics economics or global warming but they find it hard to talk about their work about their families about what's in their kitchen because in their daily lives they aren't surrounded by Spanish At home they speak English or another language or they live in a Spanish- speaking country but at work they don ’t use English nor do they use Spanish That's why it's sometimes hard to find the words we need in everyday life if we don't live with Spanish at home every day That's why I call this category and it helps you find the words you need to tell stories about your own life about what you did yesterday or about what you normally do A fairly useful exercise for finding these words is this one: spend a few minutes each day speaking aloud or writing about what you did yesterday Not all day—just one situation Something you did a doctor's appointment when you went to school to pick up your children and something happened when you went to the bakery or the supermarket Developing the habit of describing the things you do in your daily life helps you find the words you need for those situations so you never miss basic words —those that are sometimes hard to find elsewhere The final category is called gs you need to know or need to know how to do To explain this category to you let me tell you a story Recently my wife and I sold our house A house we had lived in for seven years and like any place where one spends a significant amount of time living In the end there are just a few things that need to be fixed In our case there was a door—a closet door that was broken and needed to be replaced I had to replace it but I'm not very skilled with that sort of thing so I turned to YouTube to find a tutorial on how to do it and whenever I can What I'm trying to do is those things in Spanish to keep improving my vocabulary so I went to YouTube and typed in how to install an interior door and I found a video extremely blurry and old from 2011 that explained to me how to do it so in the end I managed to complete the task succeeded in replacing the door and at the same time I picked up a few new words— hinge which means hinge and wedge which means wedge—words I'd never needed before so next time If you need to fix something at home cook a meal or plan a trip try doing it in Spanish so you can learn the words you need just when you need them — which makes them far more memorable — this makes the words much more memorable than any vocabulary app because they're associated e thing you've experienced so now you know how to stop relying on vocabulary apps and instead find the words that truly work for you for your everyday life to talk about the things that interest you and know how to find them in engaging useful fun and other interesting sources but as you already know vocabulary is just one part of a much larger process that is learning Spanish—vocabulary is just one part and if you want to speak Spanish fluently and I imagine you want that if you're watching this video all the way to the end what you need is an effective sustainable and simple plan in this video I’m giving you a plan—exactly that a 5-step plan for each week to learn the Spanish you need to have conversations with native speakers within a year