The Spanish/Portuguese department at UMass definitely prioritizes teaching about culture and history just as much, if not more, than teaching about language. This being said, the courses definitely still provide opportunities to improve fluency and pick up vocabulary. 

Throughout my time in the Spanish department, and even more so my time studying abroad in Spain, I have been able to take note of the kind of techniques and situations which inspire a Spanish lesson to stick in my mind. Of course, everyone is different, so my findings may not be universally applicable. However, if there is anything this post leaves with you, it is that there is great benefit in making a conscious effort to understand your own learning style by reflecting on the moments or habits during which you have picked up a new concept or vocabulary word, and strive to discover what connects them.

If you learn a new word, for example, and find that you are naturally incorporating it in your speech, it’s helpful to take a moment to stop and figure out what made this learning moment so successful. It might seem trivial, but oftentimes it is not a coincidence when one word remains in your memory even while you forget the rest.

For instance, I remember walking down the street talking to my friend in Spain. For the most part, we could understand each other fine, but sometimes I would pop in and ask him how to say something by describing what it was I wanted to say. Other times, I didn’t recognize a word he used. In particular, I remembered he made an offhand comment: “Te van a pillar.” In the moment I asked him what it meant, and it led us down the path of discussing the different meanings of the word, how it could mean “to catch” in the sense of “the cops will catch you if you commit a crime” or “to catch the flu” or even “to be run over by a car”.

Later I remembered a series of new words I’d learned with him, almost as if I’d been handed a vocabulary sheet in class and memorized it. What, I wondered, was the common link between these new words? First off, I’d learned them naturally, in conversation. It’s common knowledge that this is the best way to learn. But — and this part is less demoralizing, because it’s not always realistic to learn from a native speaker — another common theme is that I learned the most vocabulary when they were couched in plenty of context. 

Learning words in the context of a memorable conversation, or with any sort of context at all, is useful because it means working with your brain instead of against it. Think of the way kids learn: they don’t read off a list of vocabulary, or even study flashcards; they hear words spoken naturally, and their motivation to understand the content of the conversation triggers their brain to register the word’s importance and store it for future reference. 

Similarly, I noticed that in my English class, after reading a few books in Spanish, I could recall a whole group of words from a certain scene in the novel and informally categorize them based on the scene’s environment. For example, in the garden scene, I could remember the words for “flower pot,” “spigot,” etc. Again, this was proof that context helps, and so does categorizing words based on their theme.

Finding commonalities amongst the moments which inspired my retention of new Spanish words was helpful because I could take the characteristics of these successful lessons and try to apply them to my personal studies of the language. For example, if you find that context helps you retain Spanish, and you were expected to learn vocabulary for a class, you might write down an interesting sentence about each word. Also, sometimes I watch Spanish movies and make note of some of the new vocabulary words in important scenes. It is more likely that I will be able to remember them due to the memorable, emotionally provocative nature of the film. Humans are more likely to remember moments which trigger emotion.

Overall, it makes sense to use psychology, and use past experiences, to inform you about how you can set yourself up for the best success on your journey to learning Spanish.