You may have a good reason for wanting to learn Spanish – for work, for travel or for fun, to name just a few – but find that tackling a foreign tongue as an adult is a challenge. But it doesn’t have to be. With these tips, you can learn Spanish fast.

If you can, consider checking out your local community college for a course that fits into your schedule. Having a teacher and interacting with other students makes learning a new language easier than doing it on your own. But a great idea is to supplement your class work by doing home study with a great Spanish language software program. The majority of these language learning programs can even evaluate your speaking accent, which can speed up your Spanish skills and increase your confidence.

This next tip will help whether you take a course or do self study only – start watching Spanish language programs on TV. It will help train your ear to hear Spanish, and you will find that you absorb some of the language. News shows are helpful because, with the visuals and graphics, you can usually tell what the news story is about and that makes it easier to make more sense of unfamiliar Spanish words. And try some telenovelas, too. If nothing else, they’re a lot of fun!

Buy Spanish flash cards, also called memory cards, to carry with you. Then whenever you have a few minutes during the day, you can test yourself and speed up your learning. Make flash cards of your own using plain index cards to reinforce additional vocabulary or tricky verb conjugations.

Another way to learn Spanish fast is to label everything in your home with its Spanish equivalent. As you walk by them, get in the habit of repeating the words in Spanish. Before you know it, you won’t need a label to know how to say door, plant or dresser.