2 Ways To Weave More Spanish Around You

So long as you desire to build more Spanish around you, there is no dearth of means of doing so. We have discussed several excellent methods of creating a highly immersive environment right where you live without spending a fortune. Today, we will discuss two more ways that can, well, intensify our Spanish immersion endeavors and take us to a whole new level of absorption. In line with our principles of austerity and engagement, these can be implemented for free and can potentially engage you for hours at a stretch, thus injecting more Spanish into you. As said before, Spanish must invade every aspect of your lifestyle.

Is there enough Spanish around you?

It has always been stressed that the key to near-perfect immersion is employing Spanish in everything that we would otherwise normally do in English or any other language. At least as far as possible. So, you have built up a massive collection of Spanish DVDs, are watching an insane amount of Spanish movies and Spanish telenovelas on TV, reading only El Universal® instead of The Times®, devouring tons of Spanish novels and comics, and have set your laptop, Facebook®, Google®, etc. to Spanish. Awesome! Let’s take a step back and think. Could we still be missing out on anything that is yet to be turned into Spanish? Any hidden opportunity? Think hard enough and you’ll soon see, there always remains something overlooked and today, we will review 2 such areas.

The philosophy of immersion is simple: Nothing you do must ever be done using anything but Spanish. Of course, you cannot spend every waking minute of your life studying Spanish, reading books, listening to music, watching movies, and reviewing flashcards only. While these activities should account for a major portion of your day, almost certainly you still have some gaps in your schedule and it is these gaps that we will attempt to fill with Spanish here. Think about how much time you spend relaxing with recreational indoor games and think about how much time you spend in your kitchen. Even if you don’t, it’s worth considering. Let’s see how these activities can be translated into Spanish to give you a seamless immersion.

Play games with Spanish

Scrabble® is the best game for acquiring Spanish vocabulary stress-free
Photo credit: hdaniel licensed CC BY-SA 2.0

Most of us spent a major portion of our formative years playing Scrabble®, Hangman®, Monopoly®, and countless other board games. These games were more than just recreation and entertainment. They shaped up our childhood. They were the subtle hands behind our improved skills, like logical reasoning, mathematical aptitude, and most importantly, vocabulary.

Yes, the impact of games like Scrabble® and Hangman® on vocabulary acquisition can hardly be denied. Imagine the results if you start playing these games in Spanish and constantly strive for perfection. And strive you will because that’s the very virtue of games; they are built to kick your butts until winning becomes your habit. They did wonders to my Spanish vocabulary and, I am sure, won’t disappoint you either.

If multimedia games are your poison, almost every conceivable title today, leastwise the most well-known, major labels, comes with a Spanish version. Build a discipline to play whatever you play, in Spanish and only Spanish. I admit playing an intensive MMRPG in an alien lingo would not do much for your odds at winning in the beginning, but a few losses are honestly no big deal if you are learning Spanish. Given enough time (and it won’t be too long), you will come to grow more confident and the Spanish instructions of your favorite game would become second nature to you.

Personally, I would still prefer the traditional technology-proof route. There cannot be a cheaper alternative to Spanish board games, when it comes to stress-free recreational learning within one’s home. It doesn’t matter even if you need to cheat and use the dictionary in the beginning. no matter how you play, it’s impossible not to absorb at least a fraction of Spanish that hits you during the course of each game. Even if you acquire just one word after playing Scrabble® using the dictionary for a whole hour, treat yourself. No learning is small learning. Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Build Spanish in your kitchen – meal by meal

Why spare your kitchen?
Photo credit: Sam Felder licensed CC BY-SA 2.0

If you enjoy cooking as much as I do (just kidding; I hate cooking), you are probably spending at least no less than an hour in the kitchen everyday. Why not include this wonderful space in your otherwise partially immersed environment? There’s a lot of room for Spanish in this space, trust me. To start with, try labeling all cans, containers, and bottles in Spanish. So, you can have labeled cans containing azúcar (sugar), sal (salt), salvia (sage), etc. sitting in your larder constantly pumping you with effortless Spanish day in and day out. Wasn’t that easy?

Another excellent way to add more Spanish to your life the delicious way is to try cooking in Spanish. Just mine the Internet for some delicious recipes written completely in Spanish and cook off them. This might be a bit exasperating at first but over time, you’ll notice that most words repeat over and over again and hence stick to your memory without any effort. These would be the words for most cooking-related activities like broiling, boiling, heating, chopping, and so on. Just be careful with the recipes at least in the beginning so as not to misinterpret or overlook anything or else you might end up with something horribly inedible on your plate!

One recreational and the other delicious, these immersion ideas are sure to give the laziest of you enough Spanish in your life to keep you motivated until you acquire perfect fluency. Let me know if your experience has been anything but uninspiring.