Learning to speak Spanish, or any new language, can be a daunting task. Learning the nouns and basic conversation is hard enough for your average adult; conjugating verb tenses can be outright overwhelming. I took four years of high school Spanish and two years in college and my Spanish was no more than so-so until I took the plunge and immersed myself in the Spanish language and culture.

My sophomore year in college I took a six-week study abroad program in Granada, Spain. For that month and a half, I lived with a family that spoke no English, I shopped in stores where no English was spoken, and I went to a school where no English was spoken. This ‘sink or swim’ immersion seems frightening, but I truly believe that there is no better, certainly no faster, way to learn a new language. According to Plato, “Necessity is the mother of invention.” When it comes to learning a new language, necessity will lead you to communicate better than you imagined possible.

Immersion is not the method for everyone. For one thing, unless you already happen to find yourself in or near a Spanish-language culture, it is very expensive. The cost of providing travel, lodging, and food for a month or more may be a deterrent to the immersion method. But if these cost factors can be overcome, this method will offer more learning opportunities than years in a classroom as well as memories that will last a lifetime.

In addition to the considerable cost, jumping into a foreign culture without a safety net is a frightening proposition. Participating in a study-abroad or cultural exchange program allows a student to enter into the culture and learn Spanish quickly while still providing a life-line back to your native language and culture. In my case, lost as I was in the sea of Spanish language and customs, I had sixteen equally befuddled American students studying alongside me.

When I arrived in Granada at the beginning of my journey, I spoke Spanish haltingly, using only present-tense verbs. I fumbled for words and anyone speaking to me had to talk slowly and enunciate. On the day before I left, I had a conversation lasting just a minute or two in an elevator with a woman. At the end of our brief talk, I made a reference to being from America and she was genuinely surprised. That was the moment that I felt it.

Fifteen years later, I still remember the moment in an elevator that I realized that I had learned Spanish – really learned Spanish – and could communicate on a whole new level, far beyond the classroom version that I had been limited to until that time. Without that immersion experience, I may never have achieved that level of proficiency.