How To Overcome YOUR STRUGGLES & PLATEAUS when You Learn Spanish!!

Hey, what's up my people, it's Rocky here from SpeakSpanishFaster.com, and in today's video, we're going to talk about how to get over the immediate, the intermediate plateau that I know many students are struggling with. It's something that I also struggled with when I was learning Spanish. I think everybody goes through this. It's natural. And it's funny because I had already had planned this video out, had my bullet points written. But then I checked our Spanish, our Speak Spanish Fasters member circle, where we have over 21,000 students in there right now. Just wanted to put that out there. So if you're interested, definitely come join us. But anyway, so I got this comment from a student that went perfect with this video because it literally explains how it feels to be in this plateau. So the comment goes, Hi Rocky, what do you recommend is the best way to use all the materials for me? I am one of those second language learners that has always had trouble with audio comprehension. I was a dual language teacher for 20 years and was able to understand students and parents because of familiar content. However, I always struggled with other Spanish speaking teachers and parents when it was conversation outside of education teaching content. That always bothered me. I have no problem with reading and writing Spanish. Of course, there's always improvement needed with vocabulary and grammar. But my weakness has always been audio comprehension. So this is something I've talked about before on this channel. But this is the dip that Seth Godin talks about. Because look, at the beginning, when you're learning Spanish, todo va bien. Everything seems good, fun, because you're going from nothing to something. So it seems like you're learning quickly, right? And it's easy to see progress. But then you seem to hit this plateau, you hit the dip, and you can't break through to fluent conversations. So today, that's why I wanted to dive into how to get out of this plateau, how to escape the dip, so that we can keep moving forward. Now, I'll tell you, like I told this student, and I know many people don't want to hear this, all right, but it's quite simple. It all boils down to not having consumed enough comprehensible input in Spanish. That's why you can't break through. You haven't consumed enough Spanish. I see this all the time in the comments, people saying that they can't understand anything yet, but it's those same people that are trying to speak Spanish. Now, I know that there are some people out there that will tell you, hey, just go start speaking from day one. But let's be real, that's just not feasible. It's not possible. It's important to take in the language before you can use it. You have to hear it, you have to listen to it a lot. Now, in school, all they have us do is make us read and write. And it makes sense why that is all we can do after studying traditional Spanish in school or studying in a traditional school system. So people feel like they know Spanish because they can read and they can write it, but they aren't ready to speak. They haven't listened to enough of it. But because they do know it, they try to speak it. And if they haven't consumed enough Spanish, then they're going to hit that wall. And if you try to speak too early when you're not ready, guess what? It's going to destroy your confidence. And this is really going to set you back. I remember reading something by Stephen Krashen, who's a world class linguist and researcher, definitely check out some of his stuff, his studies and stuff. And he emphasized how vital confidence is when speaking a foreign language, how vital it is to sounding authentic when you speak a foreign language. He used his experience with French as an example. So when he said that when he speaks French with people that he's comfortable with, it flows naturally. But in unfamiliar settings where he's less confident, he stumbles and he's not as smooth. Sound familiar? I mean, think about it. That's why they say when people have a few drinks, they speak better Spanish. It's mainly because they don't care what others think when they're a little tipsy. They're fearless, right? So gaining confidence is key to speaking Spanish fluently and getting past the plateau, getting out of that dip. Now, I'm not saying that even when you're ready to speak Spanish fluently, that you're not going to make mistakes. I still make mistakes when I speak Spanish or when I speak Italiano or Napoletano. Heck, I even make mistakes when I speak English. But there's a difference in making simple mistakes that you can learn from versus not being ready to speak. And you will know which one that you're in right now, because making simple mistakes means you are actively participating in conversations, understanding what's being said to you. But maybe you just don't know like a word or two, or maybe you said a word wrong or you don't know a particular word. So you have to supplement with English. But not being ready, on the other hand, that means you can barely understand when native speakers speak to you. You freeze up when they speak to you and you really struggle to even put together sentences outside of the ones that you've rehearsed. So the trick, the key, is to stick to the plan of consuming Spanish day in and day out to build your skills while at the same time building your confidence. Alright, it takes time, it takes patience, it takes persistence, it takes perseverance. But the strategy is simple. Listen to Spanish while you read it and watch Spanish videos with subtitles. Of course, you'll be listening while you watch. Listen as much as possible every day. People ask me how long, how long do I have to listen to be fluent? Well, it's up to you. But know that the more you listen, the faster you're going to learn because that time compounds. So compare 30 minutes a day versus 90 minutes a day. 30 minutes a day for a year is about 182 hours of consumption a year. 90 minutes a day is over 540 hours. Now that's a big, big difference, isn't it? But 90 minutes a day is difficult. Alright, I'd prefer 30 minutes a day every single day, every single week over one day of 90 minutes a day and then you miss three or four days. Why? Because missing days prevents you from building the habit of listening to Spanish every single day. So maybe start at 30 minutes and gradually move up depending on how hungry you are to learn. See me, I'm impatient. Like when I want to learn something, I want to learn it now. So I spend way too much time probably learning different skills. But that's how I learn languages quickly and not just languages but any skill that you want to master, the more time you put in, the faster you're going to improve if you're doing the right training. Now luckily for us, the training for learning to speak a language fluently like Spanish is simple. Just listen and read it for a while. The hard part is showing up daily, continuing to push through the dip, to keep practicing even when you've been practicing for so long and still aren't at the level you want to be at yet. The tricky part is that you don't know when the breakthrough is going to happen. Everyone is different. All right. But quitting guarantees that you're never going to achieve that breakthrough. So you have to trust yourself and you have to trust the work that you are putting in and you have to ensure that you're doing the right work. And that's why I have this YouTube channel. That's why I created it to guide you on the best ways to learn Spanish. And that's why I also make videos, many of my videos only in Spanish, because as I mentioned earlier, we've been conditioned by school language classes to memorize grammar tables and conjugations. And that's how you become fluent. That's not how you become fluent, but we believe that's how you learn a language. But it's not. All right. We have to consume Spanish. That's why I make the videos on this channel in Spanish. And again, beginners will always ask, well, how am I supposed to learn if I can't understand? Well, you have to begin by decoding. That's why I put the subtitles in Spanish and English. All right. You have to put in the work in the beginning to decode the language. You have to turn Spanish into comprehensible input and consume it. All right. This is how you learn whether you're watching my YouTube videos or another YouTuber or a show on Netflix. Now, over time, you will have to decode less and less because you'll be exposed to the same words over and over the common words. So what happens when you have to decode less? Well, you can start consuming more and more, start consuming massive amounts of Spanish in one sitting because you won't need to stop and look up every single word. It's a process, but it happens quickly. All right. And when you can sit through a lot of content or long periods of consuming and you don't need to look up words, that's when the major breakthroughs are going to come. Now, I know I sound like a broken record. I'm always repeating the same things, right? Comprehensible input, información comprensible. But that's what's most crucial to learning Spanish. So it doesn't do you any good for me to come on here and tell you this and tell you that or concoct all these different things for you to do. It's quite simple. All right. It's not easy, but it's simple. I still consume Spanish every single day. I try to listen to at least a podcast episode or watch a few videos, watch a show on Netflix or call my grandma, call some of my cousins. I just try to interact with Spanish every single day because I want to keep that habit going. And you have to have that mentality no matter which level you are at right now. It's all about repetition. It's all about building habits. So when consuming Spanish becomes a part of your life and you stop worrying so much about becoming fluent, that's when you become fluent. It's quite the paradox, I know, but that's just how it seems to work. Anyways, muchas gracias por ver este video. Thank you so much for watching. If you found this video helpful and you are looking to take your Spanish to the next level, all you got to do go to the comments down below, click speakspanishfaster.com YouTube, check out my three secrets to learn Spanish faster, sign up for our course so you can be in the member circle and ask me questions directly and talk to other students inside of the member circle. Yeah, all that good stuff. So definitely check that out. If you enjoyed the video, do me a big favor, hit the thumbs up for me, comment below. Let me know what else you need help with. Last but not least, please do not forget to subscribe to the channel. Turn on notifications so you never miss another video.