So if you’re anything like me, you decided taking Spanish in college made the most sense. After all, if you took it in high school it should be a piece of cake now, right? Well, not so much.Some language programs focus more on language immersion, others on testing, basically there are more than you can shake a stick at.

If you’ve been struggling with Spanish I want to first encourage you not to give up, and help equip you to study better so that you not only get good grades but that you are able to become bilingual. One thing that most professors, or profes agree on is that comprehension comes first, followed by speaking. I can attest to that, as I was able to read and write fairly quickly, but the speaking took a lot longer. Part of that comes from embarrassment at making mistakes, and here is the hard truth; you will make mistakes. Lots of them.

You’ll accidentally use ser instead of estar, or try to say that you are embarrassed and end up telling people you’re ‘embarazada’ and they’ll look you up and down and ask how far along in your pregnancy you are. Or if you’re like me, you’ll say you’re going to study at the bicicleta when you meant biblioteca. And you know what? It won’t be the end of the world. People will laugh, correct you, and then the conversation will continue and you’ll have a funny language acquisition story.

It is definitely a journey, but all that hard work that you’re putting in will pay off if you use your time and resources wisely. So, here are some tips and tricks of the trade that I learned from when I was a Spanish minor in undergrad.

1.Listen to Spanish music

This is an oldie but a goodie. There is something listening to Spanish music that helps with the immersion process. Watching videos on YouTube with the lyrics on works wonders too! One of my first Spanish profes had the class listen and translate the lyrics of a Juanes song, “A Dios Le Pido." Now that took some doing! Some great beginner songs “Propuesta Indecente”, by Romero Santos which, in addition to being a bilingual song, has a ton of Spanish cognates, aka words that sound very similar to their English counterparts. “Dimelo” by Enrique Iglesias is another great song that uses a lot of beginner verbs like querer, hablar, ver, gustar, and tener. And it’s a sweet love song too. And speaking of love songs, no list is complete without “Como la Flor” by the Queen of Tejano, Selina Quintanilla. Selena had the voice of an angel and was taken far too soon, but her music still lives on thanks to her many fans. There was a movie made about her that stars Jennifer Lopez that is totally worth checking out. And, if you listen to the Selina, you might just be able to finagle your professor into letting you write a one-page extra credit essay on her cultural significance. You’re welcome.

2. Practice Daily like a S.M.A.R.T person

You can’t just say you have to practice. You have to set Smart, Manageable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time sensitive goals. For example, “I have to study for my Spanish test” is vague. But if you write it down in your planner, study verb conjugation on MWF at 2:30 with the study group, now that is a S.M.A.R.T goal and one that will yield better results in the long run. Language isn’t something that you can cram, it has to be practiced daily. Think about how babies practice learning their first language everyday even when they make mistakes. Even if you can only manage ten to fifteen minutes a day in the morning before rushing off to your morning class, use every second of it.

3. Flashcards

I would never have passed my first Spanish class if I didn’t study with flashcards. Seriously, writing out the verbs, vocabulary, and common phrases in English and Spanish and then quizzing myself out loud to practice my accent helped immensely. It helps to keep them organized by chapter. I’ve seen some people use color coded cards, using pink for verbs, yellow for vocabulary, and green for phrases, but whatever system that you use stick with it! I like to warm up by going Spanish to English, and then English to Spanish because it is important to work the brain both ways but you may be the opposite. Try it both ways and see what works best for you!

4. Journal

My Spanish linguistics profe highly recommended this as a study tool. Writing a paragraph daily not only helps your handwriting but it makes you put what you’re learning into your own words so that you remember it better and it helps maintain your vocabulary. You’re not going to forget the word for ‘today’ if you’re using it a lot!

Lastly, it allows you to see how your language skills are progressing with new verbs, conjugations, and vocabulary. And then, after you’ve written it, read it aloud to practice rolling those r’s. If you don’t write anything too personal you might ask your profe to look over your journal entries to ensure that you are using the proper accent marks, the tricky subjunctives, or estar/ser.

5. Immersion

I was fortunate enough to study abroad in Spain in 2014 with the help of several scholarships that I received, and I highly recommend it to anyone studying Spanish. If you plan for it by learning what scholarships are available, working over the summer, and using financial aid it can definitely become a reality. But there is definitely a more immediate way to achieve immersion if only for a day. One way is to spend the weekend with a Spanish speaking friend. You’ll probably have to ask for people to repeat themselves or slow down, but you’ll also probably be able to catch the gist of what people are saying or guess by context because again, typically, your level of comprehension is higher than your level of speaking. Another way is to organize a day or a couple of hours where you and your Spanish classmates speak only Spanish to each other. It definitely helps to have a fluent or more advanced speaker who can clarify or answer questions otherwise, it might turn into a game of Charades.

The important thing is that your study of Spanish is broken down into achievable goals and that you celebrate the milestones to becoming bilingual. Learning another language involves studying the culture, the music, the history, and yes, the grammar and linguistics. It takes time and it has to have real world rewards – a great line on a resume that you are bilingual, getting double the amount of cinema, music, and theatre to appreciate, the ability to switch from English to Spanish to help a customer, or help a sibling with their Spanish homework- to encourage you to continue. And you should continue, because Spanish is a language of the future, and one of the most beautiful in my humble opinion.

Happy studying, and buena suerte on all your exams!