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Does your progress in the Spanish language feel like a car idling, no matter how hard you try to accelerate?
Whether you've been studying for months or years, everyone hits this wall: the infamous language learning plateau.
What can you do to push past this painful stage into real, measurable improvement?
Before you can make more progress, there are two things to figure out:
- Whether you've really hit a Spanish learning plateau
- Which tricks will help you push through it
Here are our top tips for both of these areas!
Is a Plateau Really a Plateau?
Many Spanish learners feel like they're plateauing when they reach an intermediate level of Spanish.
The more you know, the more you realise you have to learn. This deeper understanding of the language can make your current progress seem insignificant when it's not!
Secondly, you may feel like you're learning intermediate Spanish slower than beginner Spanish. This is likely true, but it's completely reasonable that you can't keep up the pace of beginner learning.
Intermediate learning is more complex. Plus, your brain is busy retaining and reinforcing your beginner knowledge, so it can't take on masses of new information every day.
What feels like a plateau may not be a plateau at all! It's simply the nature of progressing through the more challenging parts of a language.
What's Holding You Back?
What if, even after considering those factors, you feel like you're really not making progress?
Then there's definitely a reason.
We've rounded up the most likely culprits below. Figure out which of these areas is the issue so you can push past it!
Check All Four Skills
The four language skills—reading, writing, speaking, and listening—are intrinsically linked. If one of these areas is lagging behind the others, it will slow down your progress.
Whichever of these skills is your weakest, focus on honing that area for now. Once it catches up with the others, your Spanish will continue to develop. Here are some resources to get you started:
- Reading exercises by level
- Writing exercises by level
- Speaking practice with online tutors
- Listening exercises by level
What if you're not sure which of these areas needs work? Create a free Progress with Lawless Spanish account to take our Spanish language test and find out!
Are You Using High-Quality Materials?
Your progress may also stall if your Spanish learning materials aren't good enough. They could be too basic, too difficult to use, or not of high enough quality.
If you think this could be the issue, we know what to do next: use our resources!
All of our resources are made by expert native Spanish teachers.
That's right—not just native speakers, native teachers who teach Spanish to English speakers professionally. They know exactly what areas you'll struggle with and how to get you over those hurdles.
We have hundreds of exercises for you to strengthen your skills while learning about life in Spanish-speaking places and their culture.
Change Up How You Learn
It could be that despite your best efforts to stick to a Spanish learning routine, you're not tapping into your full learning potential.
For example, you may study frequently, but how often do you test yourself? Testing harnesses the power of recall and reconsolidation, which have proven to be far more effective than rereading alone.
Besides testing, there are many other great language-learning techniques you might not have tried:
- Immersion learning
- Group study
- Podcasts and videos
- Learning through music
- Online communities
- Chatting with native speakers at language exchanges
Adding different learning methods to your study routine will help you achieve a more well-rounded understanding of the language. They could be just what you need to kickstart your progress!
Set Meaningful Goals
Finally, you may be plateauing because you don't know where to go next. A lack of goals means a lack of motivation, which will stunt your progress. So if you've achieved all your previous Spanish goals, it's time to set new ones!
Goals keep you accountable, motivate you, and help you measure your progress. All of these factors can break you out of the plateau.
Learn more about how to set effective goals in our full article on SMART goals!
Next Steps on Your Spanish Learning Journey
Whether you feel like you're plateauing at A1 or C1, our materials are sure to get you out of your funk. They include all the above plateau-proof factors:
- All four language skills
- High quality
- Various learning methods
- Trackable goals along the way
Not sure where to start? Create a free Progress with Lawless Spanish account and take a Spanish level test!
