Humans are social creatures. We socialize with others to pass time. We comfort each other when one of us is down. We post pictures of where we are and what we are eating all over social media, so that we can connect with each other from long distances. But, the one thing that humans do more than anything else, is converse.

Regardless of where people are and what languages they speak, they’re almost always speaking. Learning how to be conversational in a different language, like Spanish, is a great goal and well worth the effort. However, it’s often difficult to learn the necessary skills to hold a real conversation.

The good news is that the learning process can be broken down into a few different steps. In many ways, it all comes down to your ability to stick with it. Essentially, learning to speak conversational Spanish is all about practice! You just have to jump in and then keep at it. These six simple steps should help you along the way.

1. Develop your listening comprehension

Speaking is just one side of the process. If you want to have good conversational skills, you also need to be able to listen effectively. Think about it. How are you going to be able to hold a conversation with someone if you barely understand what they’re saying. The other important factor is that listening to someone else speak Spanish will help you to learn pronunciation, grammar, and slang. These are all key in holding a conversation with someone.

Invest some time and effort into improving your Spanish listening skills by immersing yourself in the language. Some great ways to do this are by watching Spanish TV shows, listening to Spanish music, and listening to the radio. Over time you will notice that you are beginning to pick up more content as you listen.

2. Choose a type of Spanish to learn

With 405 million native speakers, Spanish is the second-most commonly spoken language in the world. However, while all these people may speak the same language, they don’t all speak it the same way. Different Spanish-speaking countries in the world have different dialects. That’s why it’s important that you determine who you want to speak Spanish with, before you start learning conversational Spanish.

Different dialects often have completely different variations of conversational Spanish so you want to make sure that you are learning the right one before you become fully committed to it.

3. Find someone to practice with

Remember what we said at the beginning of the article. Learning conversational Spanish is all about practice. This step is quite obvious, but it’s possibly the most important. You need to find a practice partner - someone to have conversation with. Whether it’s another Spanish learner in your area, or someone online, look for a person who is on a similar learning level as yourself. This will be exceptionally beneficial to both you. Communicate with each other in Spanish and help each other out along the way. Of course, one other option is to find a native Spanish speaker who want to learn English. You could then help with each others’ conversational skills.

4. Think about your reason for learning conversational Spanish

Learning to speak any new language is a challenging task and requires a great amount of commitment. Having a strong and meaningful reason behind your desire to learn will almost always drive you towards success. Whether you want to improve your resume, learn it for travel reasons, or improve your skills for a Spanish-speaking partner, your chances of succeeding are much higher if you have a strong driving force behind you. So think about why you are learning conversational Spanish. This should help you to stick to your learning plan.

5. Put the textbook down

Textbook learning is important for the technical side of Spanish-learning, like grammar and vocabulary. But, it’s not going to help you when it comes to conversational Spanish. In reality, the way natives speak Spanish is very different to how it’s learnt in a textbook.

Textbook-learning results in learners forming rigid and unnatural sentences, which is why it’s so important to immerse yourself in other parts of language learning, like watching Spanish TV shows and practicing with other Spanish speakers. Translating textbook knowledge into conversation is not easy, so make sure you incorporate other methods into the learning process.

6. Allow yourself to make mistakes

Lastly, it’s very important you you accept that you are going to make mistakes, and allow yourself to make these mistakes. That is how you learn. Too many people are afraid to speak because they are afraid of making mistakes. Don’t over-analyze yourself, just let it flow. As soon as you stop thinking so hard, it tends to come to mind so effortlessly. Like we said, it’s all practice, practice, practice.