¡Feliz año nuevo! This is traditionally a time for making resolutions and many people resolve to learn another language. Spanish is an 
excellent choice as it is one of the most widely-spoken languages in the world and the number of speakers is growing all the time, so it’s one of the most useful languages you could acquire. As we’ve mentioned previously, Spanish is a very phonetic language, and its Latin roots make it one of the easiest languages for English speakers to learn. This means that there’s absolutely no reason to feel daunted as you embark on your Spanish course because you’ll come across a lot of words whose meaning you can easily understand.
One of the things that learners, and particularly adult learners, often struggle with is gaining the confidence to attempt to converse with native speakers of their new language. They fear making mistakes and appearing silly, but these self-imposed barriers to communication are really not necessary with Spanish. Whilst some languages like English and German typically demand that people speak to a high standard, especially if they are using the language for business purposes, the Spanish-speaking world is much more relaxed and nobody will think the worse of you if your first attempts at conversation are a little hesitant or not entirely correct grammatically. In fact, most people will applaud your efforts and do their best to help you, so there’s no need to feel nervous about those first attempts at Spanish outside of the classroom.
Of course, good preparation will help both your language skills and your confidence, and the best preparation is to undertake a course with a patient and experienced native tutor, such as those at Lingua Clinic.