A series of tables form a rectangle and people are sitting all around it watching the teacher present their lesson. A screen in the front is used to display the computer slideshow for the people learning

Learning Spanish Meetup (6/30/25)

On June 30th we had our first learning Spanish meet up run by Edison Robayo. The meetup saw about 30 people come out to get suggestions on how to become more versed in simple conversational Spanish. Our immigration committee realizes how important it is that we are able to have basic interactions with people who are Spanish speakers and Edison put together some tips on how each of us can progress towards that goal.

Edison will be sharing resource with the people who attended but he also gave us some very important tips that we would like to share in the list below

  • Surround yourself with Spanish for the more you see it and hear it the more your brain will start to pick up on the patterns. Don’t worry if you aren’t understanding anything at the beginning, with time things will become more familiar
  • Don’t aim for perfection but for communication. If you are able to get your ideas across you have achieved your goal
  • Don’t worry if you have an accent when you are speaking. Your New Jersey accent will make you special
  • Focus more on learning phrases instead of individual words. The more you reuse the same phrases the stronger they will become for you and the naturally they will come out
  • Every letter corresponds to a single sound. Once you learn a sound it will never change. Practice sounding out every single letter
  • The names of the letters are not important but the sounds they make are critical
  • When meeting people for the first time, use the formal not the familiar
  • Use your Spanish daily 5 to 10 minutes a day at a minimum
  • Google Translate is probably the best online translations and you can use it for practice
  • Find a buddy and do things together
  • Work on numbers for you will use them a lot

Here are the materials that have been shared with us