How to Prepare for a College Level Spanish Course

If you anticipate taking a Spanish course in college, you're making a smart move. Fluency in Spanish is a must in the business world today, and bilingual speakers are needed in every career path from child care, to nursing, to teaching, to sales. While most high school graduates have taken a course or two in Spanish that gave them a brief overview of the language, college courses will demand a much higher level of sophistication in terms of speaking, reading, and writing skills. Many professors even conduct their entire classes in Spanish from the very first day, which can make it difficult to grasp lessons and ask questions if one is not properly prepared. In other words, you will be expected to have a basic working knowledge of the language before you ever set foot into the classroom! So where do you start? Well, put down that Spanish-English dictionary and print out the following guidelines.

Step #1: Learn Spanish verbs. Many make the mistake of trying to learn entire Spanish phrases first, without truly understanding how the sentences are developed. This will greatly inhibit your ability to compose properly structured sentences later on. Like the English language, the verb in the Spanish sentence dictates the actions of the pronouns and nouns, and gives the reader a vague sense of what is going on in the sentence as a whole. In other words, if you can read the verbs, you will likely be able to piece together what is being said. Buy a large pack of Spanish vocabulary flash cards that also list the part of speech that each word belongs too (several excellent packages can be found at Barnes & Noble).

Step #2: Learn Spanish pronouns. You might be wondering why you shouldn't learn the nouns in the Spanish language first, but those are often taught in Spanish classes as you go along. Pronouns, however, must be learned before a sentence can be interpreted at all (after the verb, that is). Pronouns dictate how verbs will be conjugated, and therefore absolutely must be learned next. Otherwise, all of those verbs you learned first will amount to nothing!