How Not to Learn Spanish: Memorize It and Hope It Sticks
The voice says it. You repeat it. For a moment, the Spanish comes out perfectly.
Then you close the lesson.
You remember that you learned how to ask someone their name, say how you are, and greet a friend. But the words themselves are already getting mixed up.
Now imagine meeting the same phrase after some of its words are already familiar. You recognize a sound, connect it with a meaning, and have a place to start.
Knowing some of the words already can make a new phrase easier to understand and remember. You're building on familiar pieces instead of trying to learn every part from scratch.
When every word is unfamiliar, there is more new material to hold on to at once. Repeating the whole phrase can feel successful while the prompt is there, then leave you with little to recognize when it is gone.
If we wanted to make a first Spanish lesson easy to forget, we could start here: collect several phrases, repeat each a few times, and move straight to the next list.
Let's take that bad advice apart.
1. Make every word new at once.
One of your first examples might be ¿Cómo estás? It means How are you?
Consider two ways to meet it. If neither Spanish word is familiar, you need to learn both sounds, their meanings, and how they fit together. If you already know that cómo means how, the opening part already means something to you. You can recognize it while learning the rest.
Same phrase. Different starting point.
Every word is new
¿Cómo estás?
How are you?
Two unfamiliar words to connect with the meaning.
You already know cómo
¿Cómo estás?
How are you?
You recognize how. There is one familiar piece to build on.
The phrase is the same. What you bring to it is different. Knowing a word gives you something meaningful to recognize, which can make the whole expression less of a guessing game. Knowing more of its words can give you more of those connections.
In a memory experiment with unfamiliar Italian words, learning their English meanings increased how many of those words participants could repeat back. This measured immediate memory for word lists rather than long-term learning of phrases, but it shows how learning words can change what people can hold on to.
An unfamiliar phrase can also leave you wondering how it fits together. Where is "you" in this example? Why are three English words becoming two Spanish words?
Three English words. Two Spanish words.
The meaning is shared. The words don't line up one for one.
In this question, cómo means how. The form estás expresses you are when speaking informally to one person.
The verb form already identifies who you are addressing, so Spanish often doesn't need a separate word for "you" here. The Universidad Complutense's grammar guide explains how Spanish verb endings allow a subject pronoun to be left out.
Nothing has gone missing. The two languages put the meaning together differently.
You don't need to study every form of the verb before using this greeting. Start by making a word or a small part familiar, then connect it with the whole phrase. Understanding one part gives you more to work with than trying to reproduce an unfamiliar password.
Learning a whole expression can help, too. Boers and Lindstromberg's review of research on common word combinations describes benefits from building a collection of useful phrases. You can use a greeting while gradually learning more about the words inside it. You don't have to know every word beforehand.
Keep the expression. Give it a meaning, a situation, and a little more understanding as you go.
2. Repeat it perfectly while the answer is right there.
With a recording in your ears or a sentence on the screen, you have plenty of help. That makes it a good time to listen carefully and practise the sounds.
It doesn't tell you everything about what you will remember without that help.
Try a small meaning check with the word we just explored.
Find the meaning
We've just looked at the question ¿Cómo estás?, meaning How are you?
Show the answer
Cómo means how in this question.
Recognizing the meaning is one step. Another is trying to bring a word back when you can't see it. We'll give you a chance to try that further down.
In a 2008 vocabulary experiment, college students learned Swahili-English word pairs. After a pair had first been recalled correctly, continuing to practise recall produced better memory a week later than continuing to study it without further recall practice.
For your own Spanish practice, add a small pause without the answer. Think of what you want to say, try remembering, then check. If you get stuck, look again and give yourself another chance later.
Repeating after a voice is useful practice. Make some room for remembering without the voice, too.
3. Learn your line. Ignore the reply.
You've practised asking a friend how they are. What might happen next?
Someone answers.
It helps to meet the greeting as part of a tiny exchange, with the meaning of both sides clear.
- You¿Cómo estás?How are you?
- Your friendBien, gracias.Fine, thanks.
You don't need a page of possible replies. One clear example gives your question somewhere to go.
Picture a friend arriving at your table. You ask how they are, listen to the answer, and continue from there. Now the expression has a purpose beyond completing a line in a lesson.
You can also start smaller. A familiar word, an understandable situation, and a clear meaning can give you a place to begin before you add more language. We explore that approach in Learning Spanish? Here's Why New Words Don't Stick.
4. Finish the lesson. Start a new list.
Five phrases today. Ten tomorrow. A growing collection can feel satisfying.
But yesterday's greeting still deserves another turn.
Understanding it once doesn't guarantee you'll remember it. Give yourself short chances to return to its meaning, hear it again, and try using it without the prompt.
Rice and Tokowicz's review of adult vocabulary learning describes how repetition can become more effective when combined with spaced recall and activities that connect words with meaning.
You can build that into a small routine:
- Check the meaning
Know what you are saying and when it fits.
- Find a useful clue
Ask about one word or confusing part.
- Try it in a situation
Picture a person you would say it to.
- Come back to it
Hide the prompt, try remembering, and check.
You can learn something new while keeping earlier words in the mix. You don't have to remember everything perfectly before moving forward.
Here is one small return to the greeting from earlier.
Can you bring one word back?
A friend joins you at a cafe. You want to ask how they are.
Show the answer
Cómo. ¿Cómo estás? means How are you?
If that took a moment, you have something specific to revisit. Check the word, connect it with the question again, and return to it another day.
Give your next phrase something familiar to build on
There is no need to throw away useful expressions or wait until you understand every piece of Spanish grammar. A small phrase can be a good beginning.
Before collecting the next ten, spend a little time with one. Look for words you already know, or make one of its unfamiliar words meaningful first. Connect those pieces with what the whole phrase means. Then imagine when you would say it, try remembering it without the prompt, and come back to it.
The next time you learn ¿Cómo estás?, give it a friend arriving at your table and an answer you can understand. Then try bringing it back when the lesson is closed.
Sources and further reading
- Hulme, C., Maughan, S., and Brown, G. D. A. (1991). Memory for familiar and unfamiliar words: Evidence for a long-term memory contribution to short-term memory span. Journal of Memory and Language, 30(6), 685-701.
- Karpicke, J. D., and Roediger, H. L., III (2008). The Critical Importance of Retrieval for Learning. Science, 319, 966-968. A vocabulary experiment comparing continued study and recall practice.
- Rice, C. A., and Tokowicz, N. (2020). A Review of Laboratory Studies of Adult Second Language Vocabulary Training. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 42(2), 439-470.
- Boers, F., and Lindstromberg, S. (2012). Experimental and Intervention Studies on Formulaic Sequences in a Second Language. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 32, 83-110.
- Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Sujeto. Grammar guidance explaining the information carried by Spanish verb endings and the omission of subject pronouns.