What are the first words learned when living in a foreign country? Well I can tell you when I started to learn Spanish words the first ones I picked up and began to use were the swear words. Why is that? Why do we focus on the negative aspects of a language first? The first thing we want to be able to do is yell at people and express our displeasure eloquently. Why do we not instead ask how to say something is amazing, or delicious, or fabulous? So to learn these important Spanish words the first thing we do when we get of the plane is make friends and ask them how to swear.
Well what about learning other Spanish words? Reading is a good way. Pick up the local newspaper and translate all the words you don’t know. This takes a long time and can be frustrating but is very effective. I have also found it helps to write down the words you learn to get a visual of them as you memorize them. It is a lot easier to remember a word when you know how it is spelled. You can figure out the pronunciation and remember it better than simply listening to your friend with the very strong Spanish accent say it and trying to imitate.
Unfortunately sometimes it seems like the more words you learn the more you don’t know. I constantly learn new Spanish words and think I can now say what I want until I try to formulate a sentence and realize there are 5 other words I need. It is a never-ending uphill battle to learn all I need.