A multicultural metropolis like London offers ample opportunity to learn and practice your Spanish. Perhaps you started learning Spanish with Duolingo and now want to reach the next level?

Find a Spanish tutor in London whose mother tongue is Spanish, qualified, experienced and has a track record in teaching Spanish. Learning face to face beats everything else. You can hear the nuances and build a rapport with your teacher that is impossible to do online. After all, you also want to understand the countenance and gestures of Spanish speakers. That is not to say that you cannot move lessons online if needed.

Why does the tutor have to be a native speaker? You want to learn the correct pronunciation, colloquial terms, and the culture in Spain or South America.

When learning Spanish for work, the tutor’s experience is indispensable. Perhaps the tutor understands the business culture here in the UK and Spanish speaking countries.

The track record is beneficial to ensure continuity. After all, learning any language is a long-term commitment, and you would like to learn with a Spanish tutor who knows your progress, strengths and where your Spanish requires improving.

Many countries are still in lockdown, and people are working from home. Plenty find extra time at their hands. 

An extra 90 minutes a day in London if a one-way commute takes 45 minutes. Multiplied by five working days, and there is 7.5 hours’ worth of time that needs filling. Many use this newfound time to up-skill. Learning a language is one of the many options. 

With Spanish being a popular foreign language for holidayers, businesspeople and second homeowners in Spain, there is consequently high demand for online Spanish tutors. There is a network of excellent tutors worldwide offering their services. But where would you want your tutor to be based? A Spanish tutor living in the same time zone helps. 

After all, you want to sit in front of your computer screen and have a conversation in Spanish about local and national current affairs with someone with local knowledge that you can both relate to. Perhaps you are looking for a Spanish tutor who has experience teaching Spanish to speakers of your mother tongue? They will be able to draw parallels between your mother tongue and the Spanish language understand the differences between your own culture and the Spanish one. 

Should you live in the UK, it may be best to choose an online Spanish tutor who understands the subtleties of English and the culture you’ve grown up in. Plus, you want a tutor with a proven track record in delivering structured Spanish lessons. Those native speaking tutors you often find closer to home and make Spanish learning a lot easier.

Sofia Vergara is another Hispanic actress, TV presenter and model who has successfully crossed over into  the English-speaking market. Her full name, according to the usual Spanish naming convention, is Sofía Margarita Vergara Vergara and she was born in Colombia on July 10 1972.

Her television career began on Spanish-language network Univisión back in the 1990s where she became very well known for presenting two popular shows. She made her move into English-speaking movies in the 2003 film Chasing Papi and subsequently went on to roles in many other films, among them The Smurfs, Happy Feet Two and Hot Pursuit. However, it is her television acting for which she is best known, playing Gloria Delgado-Pritchett in the hugely successful series Modern Family. The role has won her multiple award nominations and seen her named top-earning actress on US television two years running, in 2012 and 2013.

Vergara moved to Miami in 1994 to escape unrest in her native Colombia, where one of her brothers was murdered. She was naturalised in 2014 after achieving a score of 100% on her citizenship test. Her story is testament to the fact that anyone can adjust to a new country and language, but even if you don’t plan to move to a Spanish-speaking country, acquiring the language is very useful both for business and pleasure. If you are thinking of taking it up, our Spanish lessons in London are the ideal starting point.

When it comes to artists who have successfully crossed over into the English-language market there can be  fewer who are more successful or better known than Colombian singer-songwriter Shakira, full name Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripol, who was born in Barranquilla on 2 February 1977.

After showing early promise in school performances, Shakira began her career as a recording artist in the early 1990s but commercial success did not come immediately. She released several albums before rising to prominence after signing with a major label in 1996. It was her third and fourth studio albums, Pies Descalzos (Bare Feet) and Dónde están los ladrones? (Where Are the Thieves), in 1996 and 1998 respectively which finally brought her widespread fame in Latin America as well as two Latin Grammy awards.

She entered the English-language market in 2002 and scored the best-selling single of that year with Whenever, Wherever from the album Laundry Service. In 2005, Hips Don’t Lie became the best-selling song of the 21st century, and she also holds the record for the biggest-selling official World Cup song ever with 2010’s Waka Waka (This Time for Africa).

Aside from her hugely successful recording career, Shakira is also known for her philanthropic work. In 1997 she founded the Pies Descalzos Foundation, named after her third album, which runs special schools for poor children in Colombia. She is also a founder and prominent member of the America Latina en Acción Solidaria (Latin America in Solidarity Action) (ALAS) Foundation, which is dedicated to Early Childhood Development programs for children in Latin America and is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. Shakira speaks fluent English, good Portuguese and several other languages as well as her native Spanish. If you would like to learn Spanish, find out about our Private Spanish Lessons in London.

This week we are going to start a series of blogs looking at bilingual artists who come from Spanish- speaking countries but have also achieved phenomenal success in the English-speaking world. We start with actress, director and producer Salma Hayek who was born Salma Hayek Jiménez in Veracruz, Mexico on 2 September 1966 and educated in Louisiana, USA from the age of twelve.

We’ve mentioned in previous blogs the popularity of TV telenovas in Latin America, and that is where Salma’s career began in the series Teresa. She progressed to starring in Spanish-speaking films, notably El Callejón de los Milagros (Miracle Alley), for which she was nominated for the prestigious Ariel Award, the Mexican equivalent of the Oscars.

In 1991 she moved to Hollywood and gained fame starring in films such as Desperado (1995) and Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003) alongside Antonio Banderas. The role which really won her critical acclaim, however, was the 2002 film Frida, which she co-produced, and in which she played Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, whom we have also profiled in a previous blog. The role won her Best Actress nominations at the Academy Awards, BAFTAs, Screen Actors Guild Awards and Golden Globes.

Hayek’s stellar career is all the more impressive when you consider that she had limited fluency in English when she moved to America, and also suffers from dyslexia. It goes to show that with determination and perseverance, it is possible to achieve almost anything. If you have the drive to master another language, and are looking for a Spanish teacher in London, then get in touch and find out how we can help you.

Prospective students often ask us which is the most effective way to learn Spanish. There are, of course, many different ways of learning a language, and many different types of student with their own learning styles. For a great many people, their word ‘lesson’ is synonymous with being in a classroom with a group of other students; they feel comfortable in this traditional setting and they may decide to enrol on a Spanish course at their local night school. While we certainly don’t want to be disparaging about this type of course, they are bound to a great degree by the curriculum which is set for them by their local authority and they are obliged to cater for a wide range of students with different abilities and learning objectives. Classes will go at a pre-determined pace and quicker learners can sometimes feel held back by the slower ones.

This is why we always recommend Private Spanish Lessons over group ones. With a dedicated tutor of your own, you benefit from expert one-to-one tuition that simply can’t be matched for its effectiveness. Lessons are geared around your own abilities and learning objectives, so you need never feel that you are waiting for others to catch up or, conversely, that you are struggling to keep up with your classmates – instead you learn entirely at your own pace. Any questions you have can be answered right away and you get to maximise the time you spend in Spanish conversation, instead of waiting to let others take their turn. Your tutor can then help you to hone your pronunciation and grammar much quicker, so you become a confident Spanish speaker in the shortest possible time.

If you’ve ever tried studying a foreign language, whether it be Spanish or any other, the thought has probably occurred to you at one time or another how much easier it would be if you could pick it up as easily as you picked up your native language. So why don’t we?

When we learn our mother tongue, we do so at a crucial stage of cognitive development that simply cannot be replicated when it comes to learning a second language later on in life. As children we are driven to acquire language because it is essential if we are to interact with others and enjoy a full role in society. We are not even conscious of the complex rules of grammar that we are absorbing; these simply become second nature to us. However, unless we grow up bilingually, we don’t learn a second language in the same unconscious way – we have to study and memorise grammar. The rules we don’t even think about in our own language cause a sort of ‘resistance’ in our minds which make the new language seem, well, foreign!

That said, learning a second language is not as hard as it might sound. Though we will never again be at the same stage of cognitive development at which we learned our native language, we can use some of the same methods. We learn our first language primarily through natural and continual conversation with our parents. This is something we can replicate to some extent and lots of people find Intensive Spanish Lessons are a great way to break down those mental barriers and get fast results.

Few would dispute that a second language looks great on your CV, and Spanish is certainly one of the most useful when you consider the number of speakers it has worldwide, but can learning Spanish actually

improve your mental well-being? Many believe it can, and here are just some of the reasons.

Getting to grips with Spanish, or indeed any foreign language, certainly brings a great sense of achievement which will help to boost your confidence, but it’s also been proven by physiological studies to bring a wealth of other mental benefits besides. The mental stimulation of learning a foreign language helps to improve cognitive processes, which has been shown to improve concentration, the ability to multi-task and problem-solve as well as sharpening your reading, negotiation and decision-making skills.

Strange as it may sound, learning a second language also helps to improve your first language because it makes you think more carefully about grammar, conjugations and sentence structures. This can help you to become a better communicator and writer, so by enrolling on our Spanish lessons in London, you could gain the added bonus of improving your English into the bargain.

There have also been various studies which consistently link bilingualism to improved memory. Memorising the rules and vocabulary of a second language exercises the brain, encouraging it to function more effectively, just as physical exercise helps keep the body fit. These studies also show that adults who speak only one language suffer the first signs of dementia on average four years earlier than those who can speak two or more languages –compelling evidence that learning Spanish is good for you!