You Learn Spanish. Spain Decides to Speak Something Else
You Learn Spanish. Spain Decides to Speak Something Else
You've been practising for months.
Buenos días.
Una cerveza, por favor.
¿Dónde está el supermercado?
Your Duolingo streak is now longer than some relationships. You know verbs you didn't even realise existed a year ago, and you've accepted that a table is feminine while a book is masculine.
Why?
No idea.
But you've accepted it.
You're ready.
Then you arrive in Spain.
You walk into a café, take a deep breath and order in Spanish.
The waiter understands you.
Success!
Then he answers.
And that's where everything falls apart.
Approximately 340 words per minute come flying in your direction. Some of them don't appear to have a beginning or an end, and somewhere in the middle you think you recognise a vale.
You smile.
You nod.
And say:
“Sí.”
You have absolutely no idea what you've just agreed to.
Welcome to the difference between learning Spanish and actually understanding Spanish.
Everyone in your language course speaks suspiciously clearly
A language app has one enormous advantage: the person on the other side has all the time in the world.
"¿Dónde... está... la... estación?"
Excellent.
We understand that.
In real Spain, the same sentence can suddenly sound as though somebody has played it at double speed while throwing away a few letters for convenience.
That's not necessarily your fault.
Spoken language almost always sounds different from the beautifully polished version beginners are taught.
Dutch people do exactly the same thing.
Someone can spend years learning Dutch and then arrive in Amsterdam only to hear:
"Kweenie hoor, ff kijken, komt wel goed."
Good luck with that.
Spaniards don't talk to each other as though they're recording an audio lesson for beginners either.
Words run together, sounds disappear and every region has its own accent.
So your Spanish course didn't lie to you.
It simply forgot to mention one small detail:
Spain isn't taking the course with you.
And then you discover Spain has more than one language
You've learned Spanish.
Very sensible.
Then you move to somewhere like the Valencia region and suddenly start seeing words you're quite certain weren't in yesterday's lesson.
Welcome to Valencian.
Spain is much more linguistically diverse than many foreign buyers realise before arriving. Castilian Spanish is the official language of the Spanish state, but several regions also have other official or widely used languages.
In Valencia, you'll encounter Valencian alongside Spanish. Catalan is prominent in Catalonia, Galician in Galicia and Basque in the Basque Country.
You'll notice this on things such as:
- street signs;
- municipal websites;
- schools;
- official documents;
- road signs;
- local media.
Fortunately, this doesn't mean you need to learn four languages before moving.
Spanish will take you a very long way.
But if you're considering where to live on the Costa Blanca, it's useful to know why some words on a sign suddenly look nothing like the Spanish you've been studying.
You haven't suddenly forgotten everything.
They've simply added another language.
“But I speak Spanish, don't I?”
Yes.
Until you meet someone from Andalusia.
Or Murcia.
Or Madrid.
Or a tiny village where everybody has known each other for forty years and complete sentences have apparently become optional.
Just as someone from Limburg can sound different from someone from Groningen in the Netherlands, Spain has significant regional differences in pronunciation and vocabulary.
This can make learning Spanish frustrating at first.
You understand your teacher perfectly.
You understand the woman on the beginner Spanish podcast.
You even understand the man in the YouTube video.
Then your neighbour asks you something.
Nothing.
Not a single word.
You begin to seriously suspect he's speaking Portuguese.
He's from Alicante.
The good news: your ears learn faster than you think
During the first few weeks, you try to understand every individual word.
That works for approximately five minutes.
Then your brain gets tired.
After a while, something interesting happens. You stop listening for every separate word and start recognising entire chunks of language.
Suddenly you know what somebody means without being able to explain the grammatical construction they just used.
Much like the way you originally learned your own language.
You hear the same words at the bakery.
The same questions in restaurants.
The same greetings from neighbours.
And the same phrases during property viewings.
Slowly:
“What on earth did he just say?”
becomes:
“I think he said the garage is downstairs.”
That's progress.
Buying a property suddenly gives you an entirely new Spanish vocabulary
Just when you've finally learned how to order coffee, you decide to view a property.
Congratulations.
We're starting again.
Escritura.
Catastro.
Registro de la Propiedad.
Comunidad.
Hipoteca.
NIE.
Words that don't appear particularly often during an average afternoon on a terrace, but suddenly become rather important when you're buying property.
That's why it's useful not only to learn the language, but also to understand the process around buying a Spanish home.
You can find practical information about this in our CasaOthers guides.
You don't need to memorise every legal and administrative term.
What you do need to know is when you don't understand something and when you should ask for an explanation.
That's an extremely useful skill in any language.
The most dangerous Spanish sentence for beginners
It isn't:
"No hablo español."
It's:
“Sí, sí, entiendo.”
Yes, yes. I understand.
When you absolutely do not understand.
We've all done it.
Someone starts explaining something.
You miss the first three words.
Then you lose the thread completely.
But the other person continues enthusiastically and eventually it feels socially too late to admit that you haven't had the slightest idea what's happening since minute one.
So you nod.
"Sí, sí."
When ordering tapas, this probably won't end in disaster.
When discussing a contract, mortgage or property purchase, we'd recommend a slightly different strategy.
Ask again.
Have important information translated.
And have legal or financial documents checked by someone who understands exactly what they say.
You don't need to prove your Spanish is good enough by accidentally signing a contract you don't understand.
You actually need far fewer words than you think
One of the nicest discoveries once you're living in Spain is that you don't need to become a walking dictionary.
With a relatively small vocabulary, you can get surprisingly far.
And a few Spanish words appear to have almost supernatural powers.
Vale
You'll hear this everywhere.
Depending on the situation, it can mean something along the lines of:
okay, fine, good, agreed, understood, all right then.
Vale.
Beautiful word.
You can survive a considerable portion of your first few months in Spain with it.
Bueno...
Extremely useful when you need a few seconds to think.
Claro
Of course.
Even when there is absolutely nothing obvious about the situation from your point of view.
Gracias
Always works.
¿Cuánto?
And there it is.
Possibly the most important word when you're looking for property.
How much?
Some parts of a new language are remarkably easy to learn.
Google Translate temporarily becomes your best friend
There will probably be a period when your phone feels almost permanently attached to your hand.
Photograph the menu.
Translate.
Photograph a letter.
Translate.
Copy a WhatsApp message.
Translate.
An unfamiliar word on a sign?
Translate.
There's nothing wrong with that.
Technology has made moving to another country considerably easier.
But automatic translation has its limits.
If pulpo receives a rather creative translation on a restaurant menu, the consequences are limited.
Legal documents, taxes and purchase contracts are a different matter.
There, you don't want a translation that's approximately correct.
For practical information about buying in Spain, you can also explore the free CasaOthers guides.
Speak Spanish, even when it sounds nothing like Spanish
This may be the hardest part.
You have to talk.
Not once your Spanish is perfect.
Because that moment probably isn't coming.
You'll make mistakes.
You'll treat a masculine word as feminine.
You'll conjugate a verb as though you have a personal disagreement with Spanish grammar.
You may ask for something completely different from what you intended.
And people will often understand you anyway.
In fact, many people appreciate it when you make an effort to speak their language.
So order the coffee.
Ask where something is.
Talk to your neighbour.
And when someone corrects you, remember it.
Or immediately forget it and make exactly the same mistake tomorrow.
That's part of the process too.
And no, speaking Dutch louder is not a translation
We need to discuss this.
The classic tourist technique:
“HEEFT U OOK EEN GROTERE?”
Followed by:
“A BIGGER ONE?”
But with exactly the same Dutch accent and approximately 40 percent more volume.
Interestingly, people who don't speak Dutch generally don't understand Dutch any better when it's spoken louder.
Strange but true.
A few simple Spanish words, pointing, hand gestures and a smile usually work much better.
Living in Spain is ultimately the best language course
You can take a hundred lessons.
Use apps.
Listen to podcasts.
Practise verbs.
All useful.
But once you actually live in Spain, language stops being an exercise and becomes something you need.
You want to know what your neighbour is saying.
You want to understand why the shop is closed.
You want to reserve a table.
You need to explain that the air conditioning isn't working.
And above all, you want to understand why someone said at 11:30 that he'd be there “ahora” and at 13:15 is still nowhere to be seen.
We've already learned a little about that in our article about the Spanish mañana mentality.
Language and culture turn out to be rather difficult to separate.
Do you need to speak Spanish to live in Spain?
No.
But it makes life much more enjoyable.
In international areas along the Costa Blanca, you can get by with English in many places, and you'll naturally encounter plenty of Dutch people and other international residents.
But if you remain entirely inside that international bubble, you miss something too.
A chat with the neighbour.
The local market.
A tiny restaurant where the menu is only in Spanish.
A joke that suddenly makes sense.
That moment when someone has been talking to you for half a minute and you suddenly realise:
Wait. I actually understand this.
That moment is worth more than a hundred perfect scores in a language app.
Moving to Spain without perfect Spanish
Don't let language stop you if you're seriously considering moving to Spain.
You don't need to speak fluent Spanish before deciding where to live on the Costa Blanca.
Start.
Learn.
Listen.
Make mistakes.
And for important matters, make sure you have people around you who understand both the language and the system.
That's particularly important when buying property.
Misunderstanding a coffee order may result in an unexpected drink.
Misunderstanding a legal document can be slightly more expensive.
CasaOthers fortunately speaks a little slower
At CasaOthers, we try to make buying and living in Spain easier to understand for people who don't yet know every part of the Spanish system.
You can browse properties, discover different areas and read our information and guides without someone firing 340 Spanish words per minute at you.
Or start with our guides to buying and living in Spain.
And when you eventually find yourself in Spain while someone delivers an entire monologue from which you've understood exactly one word?
Smile.
Nod.
Vale.
Works surprisingly often.
