Once you've memorised your vocab lists and can recite verb tables in your sleep, what then? It's time to put your Spanish skills to work by actually speaking. Here are some ideas and resources to help you find Spanish speakers, wherever you might live.
Living in a Spanish-speaking country
The best way to practise speaking is of course with native speakers. If you live in Spain or Latin America, this can be as easy as walking out your front door. While you can certainly exchange a few words with your panadero, cajero, and frutero, for actual conversations you'll need to make more effort.
Clubs and Associations
The best place to start is at the tourist office: find out if there's a list of local clubs and teams. Depending on the size of your town, there might be hundreds: bridge clubs, football teams, choral societies... there's bound to be something that you're interested in, and joining a club is a great way to meet like-minded native Spanish speakers. Also take a look at these:- Clubs and associations in Mexico
- Clubs and associations in Spain
- Asociaciones por país
- Instituciones y organismos por localidad
Community centres
While you're at the tourist office, you can also ask whether there are any cultural organisations or centros comunitarios, which usually offer various classes at very reasonable prices.
Official organizations
It's definitely worth finding the nearest branch of the Instituto Cervantes, a government organisation devoted to teaching Spanish and offering various cultural events within and beyond the Spanish-speaking world.
Living outside of a Spanish-speaking country
Even if you don't live in a Spanish-speaking country, there's nothing stopping you becoming a more confident Spanish-speaker.
For example, you can take online lessons with a native Spanish tutor through our partner platform, LanguaTalk.
Whilst 1-on-1 lessons aren't the cheapest way to learn to speak Spanish, they're almost certainly the most effective. Online tutors are usually better value than local tutors as they don't have to consider travel time, and they often live in countries with a lower cost of living. On LanguaTalk, you can filter by price, with tutors costing anything from $8 to $30 per hour.
Click here to see tutors' videos and reviews, as well as book a 30-minute trial session.
Another option is finding language exchanges through Meetup. This can be an option if you live in a city with people from different countries. All it requires is that you spend half the time speaking your native language to help the folk you're chatting with. Not as effective as getting a tutor, but still worth considering.
Lastly, if you don’t live in a Spanish-speaking country, I highly recommend visiting one as often as possible, even if just for a few days. Getting to use your Spanish in real-life situations will inspire you to continue learning and improving like nothing else can.
On your own
If you really can't or don’t want to do any of the above, there are ways to practise speaking Spanish online and even to practise speaking Spanish on your own.
The four basic language skills
- Listening to Spanish
- Reading in Spanish
- Speaking Spanish
- Writing in Spanish
