Lose Your Accent In Spanish: 4 Tips & Tricks To Avoid Sounding Like A Beginner Student

Want to speak perfect Spanish, just like a native? Then you have to lose your accent in Spanish!

Losing it completely is very hard, but these tricks will help you to considerably to reduce it, and hide your foreigner status for much longer! 

Spring Spanish teacher Paulisima will tell you all about these tips:

1. Escuchar – Listen to native speakers to lose your accent in Spanish

You will not be able to speak Spanish using only the sounds of English, that has to be very clear.

So, step number 1: listen, listen, listen.

Listen to a lot, a lot, a lot of Spanish, and listen very carefully. If you can’t hear the sounds, you won’t be able to produce them, that’s why it’s so important to listen.

The good news is that there are tons of content in Spanish available. Probably more than ever.

So, you have to be obsessed with Spanish. Everything, absolutely everything you hear, must be in Spanish to lose your accent in Spanish.

As you have probably already noticed, when Paulisima speaks English, she has an accent, of course.

However, the more time she spends with English speakers, the better her accent becomes.

Why? Because of the exposure to the natural sounds of English, and so it will happen to you too, the more Spanish you listen.

2. Shadowing – Repeating after Spanish speakers

You can repeat what Spanish speakers say, whether in a series, or a movie, or a YouTube video. Something like that.

Tú sin pena, ponle pausa y repite. (With no shame, pause, and repeat.)

Don’t pay much attention to understand what each word you are repeating means here, we are just trying to say the sounds well.

You can learn more about this Spanish shadowing method on our partner website, Effortless Conversations.

3. Pretend you are Mexican to truly lose your accent in Spanish

Take some common phrases, and say them imagining that you are Mexican.

Here I share 5 phrases with very useful Mexicanisms:

Greet your Mexicans friends saying: ¿Qué pedo wey? 

¿¡Qué pedo wey!? ¿Cómo has estado?
(What’s up bro!? How have you been?)

Súper bien, wey, ¿y tú?
(Super well, bro, and you?) 

When you want to comment on how lazy or uninterested you’re feeling: ¡Qué hueva! (How boring!)

El evento de la empresa es mañana a las 8 am. 
(The event of the company is tomorrow at 8 am.)

Qué hueva. 
(How boring.) 

When you have no freaking idea about something: Sepa la bola.

¿A qué hora es el evento de la empresa? 
(What time is the company’s event?)

Sepa la bola. 
(I have no idea.) 

When you’re toasting: Arriba, abajo, al centro y pa’dentro (Up, down, to the center, and to the inside.) 

¡Es agua! (It’s water!)

When you want to make sure your friends don’t chicken out: ¡No te rajes!

In a real Spanish conversation, this could sound like this:

Paulísima, eres la maestra de ceremonias del evento de la empresa.
(Paulísima, you’re the MC of the company’s event.)

¡Ay no, qué hueva!
(Oh no, how boring!)

Tú te ofreciste y ya estás en el programa. No te rajes. 
(You offered, and you’re already in the program. Do not take it back.) 

The idea of ​​imagining that you are Mexican, can help you not to feel self-conscious or nervous with your accent. For a second you’re not you, you’re someone else. So, it doesn’t matter if you make mistakes. 

4. Record yourself while you speak Spanish

Record yourself while you speak, and then listen to the recording. Compare it with the way a native speaker would say it. 

¿Escuchas la diferencia? (Can you hear the difference?)

This is a great exercise. 

We highly recommend Speechling for speaking practice, it’s a good resource where you can record yourself, and even get feedback from pronunciation coaches who will listen to your audio recordings. Link is in the description. 

With these tips, you will be able to improve your accent in Spanish so much!