askchapo

I took two or three years in high school, and upon graduation I also could not really speak the language. Neither my parents nor anybody else on my side of the family speaks any Spanish. But out of personal interest, I continued learning it on my own, mostly by using music and movies. If anybody is interested I could detail some things that I did which I think most helped me.

Later, I met my first wife who is a Spanish speaker, we were married for several years and spoke mostly Spanish at home because her English wasn’t that great. I also spoke Spanish with people in the community all the time and still use it all the time at work and in my personal life (I’m remarried and the main language for communication at home with my wife and children is Spanish). I’m completely fluent now at a high level. Ive spent time living in several Latin American countries and the Spanish I learned while I was in the U.S. allowed me to understand and be understood by everyone without problems.

The high school class only served to provide a basic foundation of grammar, conjugation rules etc which my later self study and purposeful use of the language could fill in.