Fluent English Speakers:
I am a Spanish student right now. I would love to some day become fluent because I have friends that only speak Spanish so it's hard. But I was wondering how many years (for the people that have English as their first language) of Spanish did it take to become fluent?
3 Answers
I would say it took me 3 years to become conversational, I'm not sure I would call myself fluent, even after 10 years of learning and speaking Spanish. It could have been faster, but I made some mistakes with my approach to learning, along with not starting to speak Spanish soon enough nor often enough.
It all depends on how much time you dedicate to learning Spanish. The more time you can dedicate to it, the faster you learn. And more importantly, the more you speak the faster you learn.
If you're able to speak a lot, combined with studying, in 6-12 months you can have good conversational abilities.
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I agree with Rodney. In a good solid year of studying hard you can get pretty good conversational-wise and after a couple years if you keep diligent at it you can improve your speed and the range of topics that you are able to discuss. Listening to podcasts really helped me subconsciously "learn by osmosis," so that different phrases and obscure ways that words are used would just pop into my head. Here are some of my favorites that you can find on iTunes:
Spanish Lessons: 1) Notes in Spanish--inspired beginner, intermediate, advanced, and gold (like advanced but with an analyisis of the conversation at the end)
2) Coffee Break Spanish and Show Time Spanish
Podcasts for Native Speakers:
1) CUENTOAVENTURAS (fairy tales and children's stories)
2) Dicen Por Ahí--this is the most challenging to understand! It's Mexican Spanish speakers sharing about strange things that have happened to them in their life (it can include some innapropriate language).
3) El Podcast de Búho: A Spanish history junky shares interesting historical happenings and ancient mythology.
