The Street is the Place to Learn Spanish (Part I)

I have pointed out previously how I have learned a lot of new words from street signs but I think that there are more ways of using the street to complement your Spanish classes than just looking at signs. If you are somewhere where they speak a foreign language then why not try these ideas out?

Listen to the People

At first you will find it really difficult to understand what the people who pass you by are saying. When I finished my daily Spanish lessons I would wander around the streets of Quito for hours but I rarely understood a single word. The locals could have been speaking Russian or Hebrew for all I knew and this was really frustrating. The trick I discovered was to eavesdrop in places where people don’t move much, like a queue at a bus stop, a restaurant, football games or the post office.