Spanish Vocabulary Practice

No matter your skill level in your Spanish language studies, it’s always important to keep expanding your vocabulary. Even if you are already pretty advanced with the language, you may still be asking yourself which is the best way to go about your Spanish vocabulary practice. If you have not yet gained fluency in the language, but would like to, you’re going to have to buckle down and improve your vocabulary, and you’ll find that with enough use, these new words will seem to become part of your subconscious. Of course, being totally immersed in a Spanish language culture will allow you to build your vocabulary with minimal effort, but if you aren’t living in such an environment, there are still things you can do to build your vocabulary.

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It may seem like a simple idea, but doing so is a good way to establish some Spanish vocabulary practice into your daily routine. Sort out your lists by creating families of words, such as cooking vocabulary words, or train station vocabulary words. You can find such lists already in existence online, as well as in books. Sorting vocabulary into families of words can make the words easier to retain. Making your own lists is a good idea (it’s said that if you look up a word in a physical dictionary, you are more likely to remember it), but check online lists to see if there are any words you may have missed on your particular theme.

Like any language, Spanish uses the same prefixes and suffixes over and over again, so it’s a good idea to memorize as many as possible. You’ll even find that many prefixes are the same in both Spanish and English, and that learning them is none too difficult. In many cases, being able to identify parts of words will also enable you to identify the kind of word you are dealing with. For example, words ending with “dad” are nouns. Just like you can make lists out of word families, you can also make lists with a particular prefix or suffix in mind. Simply pick one and see how many different words you can make out of it.

A fun way to learn new Spanish vocabulary words is to sign up for a word-a-day emailing service. These are usually connected to blogs that send out daily emails listing a word, the word used in a sentence, and sometimes a bit of history on the word or how the word relates to Spanish culture. There are also Spanish learning sites that offer this service. Choose a word-a-day email service based on how much information is provided in the emails. Why settle for a service that gives you only a word and a definition when the alternative is so much more enlightening?

And, last but most important: practice speaking with Spanish speakers. Building your vocabulary becomes that much easier if you practice what you’ve learned by using the words to communicate. Join Spanish learning tables at your local library or other public workshops in your community, and you’ll begin to see real results in your Spanish vocabulary practice.