Who are you talking to?

How I accidentally mastered Spanish by talking to myself.

Have you ever had a conversation, and after you finished, thought to yourself “I should have said this instead of that!”

It’s happened to all of us.

What I did in that situation might be a little different. I didn’t just think of what I should have said, I thought about how I messed up and what I should have said in Spanish.

Sometimes people would correct me. Sometimes I could tell by the look on their face that I didn’t say the right words in the right order. Afterwards, I would go over that conversation in my head, trying to make sure that I wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

Here a few tips and tricks that really helped me out, even though in the moment I didn’t really understand what I was doing at the time.

DISCLAIMER: I am one of the “I don’t audibly talk to myself” people. I do not promise that people will think you’re normal if you start talking to yourself audibly in another language. You have been warned!

One of the best things we can do when in doubt is search for the WHY!

Why does this language work this way, why is this phrase worded in this specific order?

When you have a question, and you seek out the answer, you are much more likely to retain said information. Instead of passively waiting for the answer to fall into your lap, you are taking an active role in your language learning journey.

Not only will it help you retain information better, but it will help you learn more thoroughly.

This applies to language learning as well.

Let’s say you’re confused as to why a certain verb conjugates a certain way. You messed it up, you realized it right away, someone points out the correct way to say it, and you stroll home practicing the correct phrase in your head. You could leave it at that, and trust your memory to do all the work, and hope you don’t mess up again.

Or you could look up WHY that verb is conjugated in that certain way, and by doing so learn the WHY behind your mistake. It’s easy to fix a mistake, it’s harder to understand WHY it’s a mistake.

Depending on your own memory and not learning more about the situation, you will miss out on the WHY the language works the way it works. It requires more effort, but this journey is worth it.

I would chew on the phrase multiple times as I tried to figure out what went wrong in the conversation.

I’d sometimes even have a conversation with myself, maybe something like this:

Repetition works.

Repetition works.

Your head is a safe space, go over what went wrong (and what went right!) repeatedly, until you’re sure you have a firm grasp on how not to make the same mistake again. And if you can’t figure it out, go back to step one, and search for WHY it’s not making any sense.

I know, it’s a clichéd phrase, but it’s so true! If you aren’t used to talking to yourself, it might feel very strange. Someone might have taught you that it’s incorrect to talk to yourself, either audibly or otherwise. Maybe it just feels… wrong.

This might not work for you, you might need to find another technique to use.

But for most people, it’ll simply require a bit of practice to get accustomed to it.

If you’re not comfortable holding entire conversations in your head, just focus on the phrase, or word, in question, and go from there. Remind yourself why it’s said the way it’s said, research the why, rinse and repeat!

If you are constantly telling yourself how BAD you are at learning a language, you will start to believe it!

If you start giving yourself a hard time about how often you mess up, you’ll start thinking to yourself that everyone is going to give you a hard time! Talking to oneself is a great tool for learning a language, but it becomes dangerous once we start talking poorly of ourselves and to ourselves.

It is so easy to sabotage yourself, be vigilant in not allowing this destructive negative talk to become a habit!

These tips are just that: tips. They are not “language learning laws” or “keys to unlocking your language learning potential.” But I truly hope they help you. Learning a language is not about figuring out that one lifehack in order to make everything easy. It’s more about amassing various tools that will help you learn, and knowing when to use the proper tools. And this is one more tool for the tool chest.

This is the fourth post in my Living in Mexico series. If you want to start from the beginning, please click below! And if you want to read the next post, click here!

And if this article was helpful, clap!
Or share,
Or, you know, whatever you want!

Related posts:

Components are the building blocks of an application in React. They define the user interface and can be assembled to form more complex interfaces. Props, short for “properties,” are an important…

I was always sick when I was small Bound to my bed by every passing bug Mama read me Robert Louis Stevenson As I perched on the mast of my mattress boat There was enough room for my favorite friends…

Here is a free guide on investing in dividend-paying stocks which can be a great way to generate passive income.