See if this scenario is familiar: you took that Spanish course some time ago, but then quit because you just didn’t have time. Now you say to yourself occasionally: “I’m going to resume studying Spanish, I just have to.” Then you think of some ways to do it:

– watch movies in Spanish with the subtitles off or in Spanish (not English!);
– buy that cool Spanish grammar you saw online and set aside at least 30 minutes a day to study;
– buy some CDs by Spanish-speaking artists and learn the lyrics;
– read books in Spanish.

Yeah, I know you think speaking a foreign language can help you get a better job, opportunities can appear, and so on. But are you following up on your initial plan? Here’s what you’ve done:

You bought some movies (in Spanish) on your favorite online store and when you sat down to watch it, you thought, “Man, I’m so tired. I’ll watch it with the subtitles in English just this once. The next movie will be in Spanish.”

Your grammar book was just delivered but you realized you don’t have a notebook to write the answers to the exercises on. Well, you’re not going to write on your brand-new book, are you?

Your friend lent you some of his CDs and you make a point at listening to them while you’re doing the dishes, cleaning up your room or doing some other chores at home. Well, you still need to get your ears used to the sounds of musical Spanish, so why bother reading the lyrics and understand what’s being sung, right?

At the bookstore you found that collection of beginning Spanish bilingual texts with audio. Fantastic! Beside reading, you can also listen to Spanish at the same time. What happened? Those books and CDs are still wrapped in the plastic they came.

What’s your problem here? I don’t mean to be harsh or rude, but if this is your case, you’re being downright lazy! And laziness brings about more laziness and so on. Now, instead of starting on Monday or next week, START NOW! Who told you something has to start on Monday?

I know it’s very hard to change our routines, so here’s what I suggest: get your daily planner, agenda, whatever you use, and set some realistic goals, like if you have 30 minutes free every day, make good use of them and study non stop.

One of life’s greatest pleasures is speaking another language fluently, and you can do it, we all can. We just need to work hard and be persistent.

I hope this tip can help you in your studies. Cuídense y nos vemos prontito.