I’ve been learning Spanish since 2020. I had a 45 minute commute to work for 6 months, and each drive I put on an episode of Coffee Break Spanish and my life has never been the same since. As a last stop before the end of our 18 month trip, Ben went home to England and I stopped in Spain on the way.
I spent 10 days in Granada practicing my Spanish in the real world, 18 days at a yoga teacher training course in Cadiz, then a final week in Seville attending a language school. For this post, I’ll be talking about my time in Granada and how I managed to practice speaking Spanish with the locals!
The spanish language and I, a love story
Learning Spanish is one of my core hobbies. I enjoy sitting down and studying the rules and grammar that make up this emotive tongue. I even draw satisfaction from the mental struggle of getting through an article, book or series in Spanish. Don’t even get me started on learning about idioms, ugh I just love it.
It should come as no surprise that I took the opportunity to visit a Spanish speaking country on my way back from South East Asia, it’s practically on the way!
Granada
Out of my three destination in Spain, I visited Granada first thanks to a recommendation from a friend. It’s not the easiest place to get to from Vietnam. A flight from Hanoi to Doha, Doha to Madrid, then a train south from Madrid to Granada. I arrived around 11pm and people flooded the streets. I struck up my first conversation with a native Spanish speaker in Spain: my taxi driver.
He was from Ecuador and he told me about the time he moved to Granada 15 years ago. He loved the area and started listing off all the amazing things to see and do. Without me realising, I had arrived in Granada the weekend of Día de la Cruz, Day of the Cross. A vibrant time of year with free public flamenco dances dotted around the city, music, food, flowers, Granada at its most vibrant. Qué suerte! How lucky!
I told my taxi driver that I’d come to Spain to improve my Spanish and he flattered me by telling me I already spoke it well. Even this brief interaction felt like a huge win in my language learning goals. The confidence to strike up a conversation in a foreign language is daunting, it’s difficult to know how much you’ll understand and how patient the other person is to your potential lack of comprehension and speaking blunders.
Arriving at my accommodation
I went through homestay.com, hoping for a more authentic stay in Granada. It didn’t disappoint. My homestay family were so kind, giving me the freedom to use all the open spaces of the flat; the kitchen, the living room and the balcony. I had my own bathroom and a lovely cosy bedroom with a desk.
I was mainly in contact with the woman of the household, she spoke some English, but we communicated 98% in Spanish. There was a time where I tried to tell her about an egg coffee I had in Vietnam but the word for custard completely escaped me so I tried to say it in English to no avail. We resorted to google translate that moment but it was a success to say that was the only time we used it!
Looking for speaking opportunities
I spent almost 10 days in Granada, wandering the streets and trying the cuisine. The majority of the conversations I had were in restaurants or cafes. Finding an opportunity to speak in Spanish was one of the challenges that surprised me.
I assumed I’d be speaking it all the time with everyone, but you have to put yourself in a position where the opportunity to speak arises. Unless you’re super confident and you just talk to strangers, good for you if you’re happy doing that, but I’m always afraid of annoying someone.
So I went into shops and tried to make small talk, went into cafes and asked how to say ‘carrot’ to strike up a conversation (I ordered the carrot cake), sat at a barrel in bars ordering wine and tapas, having longer conversations than necessary when people tried to sell me a lottery ticket or a bracelet.
Each of these moments I was nervous, but I was learning. Learning different accents, learning to think in Spanish, learning natural replies and colloquial phrases. It was a challenge but I was in my element.
Feeling a bit lonely
Some days were more successful than others in my Spanish speaking pursuit. Some days I spoke to one person, and it did feel a little lonely at times. I’d been so used to travelling with Ben 24/7, to go from that to spending the majority of my days alone was an adjustment.
I did end up meeting a few people through an online facebook group for female expats in Granada. Two women I met up with for wine and some tapas, and another day I joined in on a 10 km, turned 20 km walk, enjoying lunch and some sangria with one of the girls from the walk.
Everyone I met through this group spoke English, but I was happy to be passing the time with some good company and not drinking alone!
A beautiful place, an honourable mission and a hope to return
Despite the touch of loneliness, I just drank up my time in Granada. In a heartbeat I’d go back. The food, the culture, the weather, everything seemed like the perfect way to wrap up my eat-pray-love adventure.
If you’re learning another language and are a bit daunted by the idea of travelling to a country to practice it, go! This is your sign. Learning the culture alongside the language will give you more of the bug to reach your language goals.
Are you learning a language at the moment? Tell me in the comments, I’d love to know (especially if it’s Spanish, practicemos!).
