I’m taking Spanish and need some good ways to study for tests. Do you have any tips?
Learning a new language can be tough, but there are definitely ways to make studying easier. If you have trouble remembering vocabulary words, one trick that always helped me was to make up my own silly sentences (in Spanish) that use the word in them. The funnier the better, because it really helps the word stay in your brain before the Big Test.
Cramming isn't the best way to really know a language because it forms short-term memory. Once the test is over, that knowledge leaks out of your head.
The best way to learn a language is to engage in it as much as possible. If you're bored on the Internet, check out a Spanish news site and see how many of the articles you can read. Or watch a Spanish soap opera on TV . . . they can be very entertaining even if you don't understand everything!
Most of all, don't be afraid to make mistakes. Feel free to have goofy, Spanglish conversations with your friends until you feel comfortable making short sentences on your own.
Have fun with the language as much as possible, and, if you need an incentive, think about how great it would be after all your hard work to eventually travel to Spain or South America and be able to converse with the locals. Good luck!