Apart from a great Spanish program like our Visual Link Spanish™ course, one of the most important things you can do to really improve your Spanish skills and really become fluent is to speak with the natives.

Many people can be very nervous about striking up a conversation with a native Spanish speaker. They are worried that maybe they’ll say something wrong or that the native speaker won’t understand them. They are also worried about saying things incorrectly or possibly getting embarrassed.

To really learn Spanish, I am challenging you this week to start a conversation with a native Spanish speaker. Once you get over the fear of the initial conversation, I think you will be amazed at how easy and comfortable it can be to talk to them. In general, they are really some of the friendliest people in the world.

Here are just a few phrases that I recommend to get you started. First you could say “Hola, Qué tal” [Oh-lah, keh tall] which means “Hi, how are you?”  Next, you could try saying “Me llamo Dave” [Meh yah-moh Dave], or in English “My name is Dave”. Of course, you do not want to say your name is “Dave” unless your name really is “Dave”. Finally, to spark some conversation, you could say “De dónde es usted” [Deh doan-deh es oo-sted] which means “Where are you from”.  Our last phrase this week is, “Qué le gusta hacer?” [keh leh goose-tah ah-ser] which means “What do you like to do?”

Here is my assignment to all of you newsletter readers out there; Are you ready? Practice the phrases above and set a goal of when you are going to finally approach a native speaker. Once you have done it and had a conversation in Spanish, send me an e-mail and let me know how it went. I am eager to hear from all of you!

To learn more about speaking Spanish, please visit our website www.spanishprograms.com