Learn Spanish and Speak Like a Baby (Part II)

Keep It Simple

One of the big problems when you learn Spanish as a grown up is that you want to run before you can walk. I clearly remember one day in Ecuador with some fellow travellers after I had recently started having a few Spanish lessons. One of them was trying to talk to a Mexican guy about the giddy world of football club finances and had run into a language barrier. He turned to me and said, “Can you tell him in Spanish that Man Utd are set up as a strictly private limited company while Real Madrid receive financial support from the government in times of economic woes?”. Err, no. Keep it simple and you will get your point across a lot easier. There will be time later on for using more complicated words.

Wear a Smile

One of the most endearing things about how kids speak is often the big smile on their face. However, when you learn Spanish after learning how to go to the toilet there is also a very good reason for smiling when you speak. If you listen to anyone who is just picking up a second language you will notice that they speak rather bluntly and without a lot of the niceties which native speakers use. This seems to be particularly true when English speakers talk in Spanish. In South America the people are rather more formal than Brits in some situations and if you blurt out staccato demands such as, “Where is the bank?” to strangers it might sound rude, and even more so if you have a harsh Scottish accent like mine. This is difficult to avoid if you are straining just to get the basic words out, but a smile on your face will show that you are just a harmless little baby who happens to shave four times a week.