By gaetanludon Last updated: April 19, 2022

How to Learn Spanish Grammar the Unconventional Way

Learning Spanish grammar can be tedious, especially when you have a sheet full of rules in front of you. It can take a lot of time and effort to memorize these rules.

But once they’re memorized, how well can you actually speak?

Sometimes the key to learning grammar isn’t by studying it, it’s by using it.

So how do you learn Spanish grammar by using it instead of studying it?

Learn Only the Present, Subjunctive and Preterite Tenses at First
Keep a Spanish Grammar Cheat Sheet Handy
Soak Up Spanish Grammar by Watching Spanish Videos
Let Your Favorite Book Teach You Spanish Grammar
Write Daily About Your Day and Translate It to Spanish
Talk with a Native Spanish Speaker to Internalize Grammar

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

Learn Only the Present, Subjunctive and Preterite Tenses at First

These three tenses—the present, subjunctive and preterite—are the most useful in Spanish. Everybody uses them hundreds of times every day, so if you have to learn some grammar (and indeed you do have to learn at least the basics), start here!

Now, remember I told you before that I had all the grammar rules printed out, but that I never ended up following through on learning them? There are a couple of tips I can give you to learn those three tenses by yourself without having to spend interminable hours reciting them, because who seriously likes to do that?

Here is what you do: Write down 10 phrases in English in the present tense. Then, take out your Spanish grammar book, dictionary app, or whatever you need, and translate the 10 sentences into Spanish out loud. Do it two or three times for each phrase, and then do the same by writing these Spanish sentences down on a piece of paper.

Once you feel you’ve got the hang of it, translate the same sentences into the preterite tense. Follow the same process: Speak the phrases out loud a couple of times, and then write them down.

Next, write down the 10 sentences in the present tense again, just to refresh your mind. Finally, write down those phrases again in the preterite.

Now, to practice the subjunctive here is what you do. Take the 10 verbs you used in your English sentences and write them down in Spanish in the infinitive form. Then conjugate each of those verbs in Spanish in the present tense and conjugate them in the subjunctive form right after.

This little exercise will show you how the formation of the Spanish subjunctive is linked to the present tense. You simply use the opposite ending for each, either -AR or -ER/IR verb endings.

For example, if you want to conjugate the verb comer (to eat) which is an -ER verb, the subjunctive form will correspond to the -AR verbs. If you want to conjugate the verb desear (to desire) which is an -AR verb, the subjunctive form will correspond to -ER/-IR verbs. Believe it or not, it’s pretty straight forward when you get it and this exercise will help you do just that!

This whole process should not take you more than thirty minutes to one hour. The point is to engage your mind in the learning process via writing and speaking out loud without having to repeat conjugations out loud like you’re reciting them in school. Next time you sit down to do this exercise, write down 10 simple new phrases and start the process again.

Do this for about a week and you should already have a strong grasp of these three main Spanish tenses.

Keep a Spanish Grammar Cheat Sheet Handy

Having reference material is crucial if you want to learn Spanish grammar. The goal here is to give you insights on how to use Spanish grammar without subjecting yourself to repetitive memorization exercises.

Therefore, get a well-written Spanish learning book or download a Spanish grammar cheat sheet from the internet (like this one) where the main grammar rules are clearly laid out.

If you’re looking for a grammar workbook, the books from the “Practice Makes Perfect” series are good options, such as “Practice Makes Perfect Complete Spanish Grammar.” And for complete beginners, the “Easy Spanish Step-By-Step” book is reputed to be pretty efficient.

But don’t sit down and try to learn it all by heart (unless that’s your thing)! You will use this material as an occasional reference to help teach yourself targeted rules to address specific language situations you’re unsure about.

For example, say that you are reading a book or watching a movie with Spanish subtitles and you see a verb that seems familiar, but is conjugated in a tense that is unknown to you. Yes, you could just type it in Google translate to get its definition, but thanks to your Spanish grammar cheat sheet you can get clear information about the actual verb (whether it is a regular or irregular verb, for example) and the tense used (when to use it, example sentences, etc.).

Another example: Say that you want to improve your Spanish by writing (which is an excellent way to do so, by the way). And like many Spanish students, you are having a hard time knowing when to use ser and estar (the two forms of the verb “to be” in Spanish).

Again, you could use translation devices to just get the raw translation, but it’s a much smarter idea to take advantage of your Spanish grammar cheat sheet to understand the rules and reasoning behind the usage. Then, you’ll be able to use ser and estar correctly on your own instead of falling into the trap of relying on a translation website.

Grammar can be pretty boring when you learn a new language, and it’s one of those things that you cannot afford to get wrong. Indeed, misunderstanding grammar when you learn a new language can cause you to misinterpret any form of communication (what you say, what you are being told, what you read and what you hear). Therefore make sure to have a solid grammar reference manual so you don’t get into trouble down the road.

Soak Up Spanish Grammar by Watching Spanish Videos

By watching Spanish videos, your ears become tuned to the way Spanish grammar should sound. You can also learn when it’s appropriate to use certain tenses depending on the situation.

Let’s look at some resources for watching Spanish videos.

YouTube. YouTube is great for discovering Spanish videos. A really good channel to watch if you want to hear Spanish used by native speakers is the Easy Spanish language channel. Spanishpod101 also has a great channel where they cover different topics related to learning grammar or showing various grammar concepts in use.
FluentU. With this program, you can learn new grammar aspects directly from native speakers through authentic Spanish videos like movie clips and news segments. These videos also offer customized quizzes to review what you’re learning, as well as interactive subtitles that contain information about the grammar of each word in that specific context.
Netflix. Netflix offers a wide range of Spanish-language shows and videos, most of which are subtitled in English and sometimes Spanish. You can brush up on your Spanish grammar by watching your favorite Spanish movie!

Let Your Favorite Book Teach You Spanish Grammar

To use this effective technique, first you’ll need to find a Spanish copy of your favorite book. You can check out your local library or Amazon for either a physical or digital copy.

Take 5-10 minutes a day to read one page of your new Spanish book. Get out your dictionary, Word Reference, Google Translate and/or your Spanish grammar reference book to help you understand as precisely as possible the meaning of each sentence you read.

After that, in a notebook write down everything you learned as a result of your reading—knowledge that you want to remember. This is going to be your personal reference notebook. You will find out after a couple of pages that a lot of different words and tenses repeat pretty regularly.

After a couple of weeks of doing this every day for no more than 5-10 minutes at a time, you’ll observe that Spanish grammar has found its way into your head through this fun exercise of daily repetition!

Write Daily About Your Day and Translate It to Spanish

This technique, again, uses the power of writing to learn a language. Set aside 5-10 minutes every day (in regularity lies progress!) and write a couple of paragraphs in English about something worth remembering that happened to you that day, whether it be funny or serious.

Then, simply translate what you have just written into Spanish using your Spanish grammar cheat sheet and Word Reference. Always use your Spanish grammar book as an aide, since it will allow you to understand how and why to write a phrase in a certain way. Google Translate only gives you a simple translation, which is often incorrect when you get to full sentences and longer phrases.

Why write in English first? If you only write about your day in Spanish, you’ll be less likely to explore new verbs, vocabulary and sentence structures. You’ll keep it simple and stick to what you already know. But if you write as you normally would in English and then translate, you force yourself to expand your grasp of the Spanish language, furthering your knowledge on all fronts.

This exercise is great since you will most likely have different things to write about every day, and therefore have a variety of sentences to translate. You’ll stay interested because you’re translating things that you’ve written yourself, so you’ll learn vocabulary and grammar that is useful to you.

Talk with a Native Spanish Speaker to Internalize Grammar

This last technique consists of finding a language exchange buddy and spending time talking with him or her. I can assure you that you will learn more this way than by sitting in a classroom with a Spanish teacher lecturing at you. Once again, use Word Reference or whatever dictionary/translation app you prefer to help you with the words and phrases structure you don’t know how to express yet.

If you are doing this language exchange over Skype (go to conversationexchange.com to find people who are willing to do that), it’s even more convenient. For future reference, make sure to jot down (or copy and paste) every word and sentence (in English and in Spanish) that you search for during the course of your conversation.

You can add these to your “personal reference notebook” that you started earlier, which ensures you’re reaping all the benefits of your language exchanges.

In closing, it’s absolutely possible to get a strong understanding of Spanish grammar without having to spend an infinite amount of hours repeating the different rules. Not only this is not fun (which will probably not help you learn as quickly as you would like to) but you might end up focusing on accumulating grammar instead of actually using it in the real world.

Therefore, choose the techniques from this post that resonate the most with you and use them regularly in order to learn Spanish grammar quickly and effectively. ¡Buena suerte!