What do you write about for practice?
This may seem like a stupid question, but I don't know what I want to write about to practice my Spanish. Any ideas or strategies for practicing Spanish writing (and speaking, actually) that are of use to you? Please share!
And do you ever post things here for people to read? I thought about doing that, but I thought my topics would be kind of random.
7 Answers
Write a diary of what you do every day. It's extremely challenging.
Also, I can tell you some of the topics I had to write about in my recent college Spanish class (in Spanish, of course): contributions from Latin America that have been incorporated into American culture; Day of the Dead; the civil wars in Central America; events of Cuba (rise to power of Fidel Castro, censorship, poverty, persecution of gays, huge immigration of Cubans to the US, etc.); choose an artist from Latin America and write about their life and art; how to make a torta; modern history of Argentina (Dirty War, Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, los desaparecidos); Victor Jara and the Chile Stadium; jarabe tapatío (Mexican Hat Dance); etc.
Also, go to a website that sells used college books for half price. Read the descriptions carefully. For help writing, avoid the books that have the primary purpose of teaching grammar. Find one that's filled with short stories, because after the story are a bunch of questions. Write in Spanish the answer to your questions. I highly recommend the one that we used in our class: Aproximaciones al estudio de la literatura hispanica. Maybe focus on modern short stories, and write out the answers to questions (what does the color of the horse symbolize, what do you think the author's view of the treatment of women was, etc). The stories are so interesting and answering the questions is actually fun.
Hola, doowa,
It is definitely not a stupid question. It plagues many of us who are not in a structured environment (like school classes) any more and are really trying hard to not get out of practice.
Two suggestions:
If you write or email letters to friends, when you finish in English, try to translate it into Spanish. Make it a habit and it will keep you in practice and build your vocabulary, too.
Speaking practice is way more difficult unless you are fortunate enough to live for a while in a Spanish speaking environment. Second best is to listen to the news in Spanish or watch the Spanish (tv) channel programs, as frequently as possible to get the idea of how conversation is carried on.
Hola doowahdiddy-diddydum-diddydo, why don't you just start with the words to that song for practice. Lately I've been doing video exercises for the English learners but have also done one for Spanish. I make a video and either narrate it myself for others to practice their listening comprehension of English or have a good native Spanish speaker narrate it en español. You can write a paragraph in your best Spanish about just about anything and post it for corrections. There are all sorts of ways to practice. I hope this helped.
Well, I am writing (translating) a children's story (New old story posts) and I am considering a post regarding my fan club ... 
Oh, and you must write about La llorona!
Try translating songs you like into Spanish, It's a great idea for practice 
Write about whatever interests you.
Random is good.
