You Don’t Need to “Study” Spanish to Travel Confidently

A few years ago, I travelled to Colombia.

Beautiful country. Very loud. Very colourful. Very “wow, I thought I knew Spanish.”

But Colombian Spanish is its own thing.

People speak fast. Very fast. They say parce instead of tío. They say ¿qué más? when they mean how are you? And they look at you very confused when you say vosotros.

So there I was in Medellín thinking: “I speak Spanish. I teach Spanish. And I understand approximately 40% of what is happening.”

And that’s the thing about travelling.

You don’t need perfect Spanish. You need survival Spanish.

You need to know what to say when: you don’t understand, you need a doctor, you want to order food, you’re lost, someone speaks too fast and your brain leaves the building.

Spanish Travel Survival Kit

• No entiendo. — I don’t understand.
• ¿Puede repetirlo más despacio? — Can you repeat it more slowly?
• Necesito un médico. — I need a doctor.
• ¿Dónde está el baño? — Where is the bathroom?
• Una mesa para dos, por favor. — A table for two, please.
• Estoy perdido/a. — I’m lost.

No grammar trauma. No perfection. Just useful Spanish you can actually say.

Why “studying” is the wrong goal for travel

Here’s the trap most travelers fall into: they open an app a few weeks before the trip, grind through vocabulary lists about colors and classroom objects, and land in Medellín or Mexico City able to conjugate a verb they’ll never actually need — and unable to ask where the bathroom is.

Studying Spanish and being ready to travel in Spanish are two different skills. Travel Spanish isn’t about knowing more — it’s about being able to instantly produce the handful of phrases that get you unstuck: understanding you’re lost, ordering food, asking someone to slow down.

That’s also why “confidence” beats “correctness” on the road. A traveler who can say estoy perdido/a with a shaky accent gets help faster than one who’s silently trying to remember the right conjugation. Locals respond to effort, not perfection — in Colombia, in Mexico, anywhere.

If you’re planning a trip and want to walk in able to actually use Spanish — not recite it — How to Speak Spanish is built around exactly this: real, spoken language you can use immediately, not grammar you’ll forget by your connecting flight.

Un saludo, Mónica

— Monica Bernabe Perez