FOCUS on what you KNOW, not what you don't know

Not enough people do this. It's your brain's natural tendency to focus on the negative (good for survival purposes, but not for learning Spanish!)

As you're fixated on trying to decipher that one word you don't know, you get stuck and now you can't move forward until you do.

It means nothing to you. Focusing on it will not change that.

It will only get you stuck and the longer you're stuck, the more feelings of embarrassment, inadequacy and even stupidity start to arise.

But if you'd just zoom out a little, you'd see that there are so many other words within the phrase, within the conversation, that you DO know.

And if you shift your focus towards the pieces of the puzzle that you're familiar with, as you start putting them together, the missing pieces will start to reveal themselves.

In most cases, you only need to know about 70-80% of the words in order to understand the overall message and when you do, your subconscious will internalize the rest and begin to define its meaning.

The more you do this, the better you will understand the missing pieces and gradually they will become part of your long-term memory.

This method allows you to learn words instinctively, much like you learned most of your native tongue.

When you learn this way, you don't need to translate, you don't need rote memorization and you don't need to study grammar rules (You can still do all of that and it can be helpful, just as long as it's not your main focus!).

With consistency you will be amazed at what you can learn without putting forth any "conscious" effort.

Give it a try and enjoy the gratifying feeling of learning words that you never deliberately studied ;)

Have fun!