I know so many adults who want to learn Spanish! If that is you, I’m telling you right now you will want to own these two books! Can you learn Spanish without them? Sure. But these two books for Spanish beginners will help you so much in building a wide vocabulary: a necessary part of speaking any language well. Words are the building blocks of language, and the more you know, the more you can say!
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The first book you need is a “pocket” dictionary. It doesn’t actually fit in your pocket, but is a small paperback edition that you can carry around with you. I don’t want to be too bossy by telling you to get the pocket edition. If you want to learn Spanish and build muscle, you can get the full-sized one, however! Learning Spanish needs to be something you’re working on all the time. If you run across something you don’t know the word for, looking it up in the moment is better than waiting until later when you get home. My favorite pocket dictionary is this American Heritage one that I used in college, but I’m sure a Merriam-Webster one would be fine as well.
American Heritage Pocket Spanish Dictionary
Here I am saying goodbye to my tattered dictionary from college. It had torn in two and got replaced by wordreference.com.
The second book that must go hand-in-hand with a dictionary is this classic guide to Spanish verbs. In a dictionary you can look up the word for “walk,” but in this verb guide, you can then find out how to say “I walk,” “he walks,” “we walked,” “they are walking” and so on! Verbs change form SO much in Spanish (compared to English) and you need to get a grip on this as a beginning speaker.
Once you get these books, decide what your fluency goal is. Do you want to hold a basic conversation in Spanish? Aim for learning 1,000 words. Do you want to speak like a native speaker? Then you’ll want to aim for 8,000 to 10,000 words. Next decide how much time you’re able to commit to it and do the math. 1,000 words divided by 365 days equals 3-5 new words learned per day. 8,000 divided by 36 months equals around 225 words learned per month. Keep doing the figures until you land in a spot that feels like a good balance between what fluency level you desire and what amount of time you’re willing to put towards it each week, and how much time you’re willing to wait to achieve the goal. And remember. You’re allowed to change your mind! You will also go through seasons where it’s easier to stay committed to the goal than others. That’s okay. Learning a language is a marathon, not a race. There will be ups and downs, highs and lows. Keep it fun and don’t be too hard on yourself. Keep at it for the love of Spanish.
