The main struggle for college Spanish students is mastering the grammar. Many college professors expect their students to know lots of grammar rules and be able to reproduce them on tests. Many students over the years have told me that their biggest struggle is with the grammar. My response often shocks them:
Studying grammar is not the natural way to learn a language and it will not lead to any real fluency.
Think about it. When you were a toddler learning English (or whatever your native language happens to be), you didn't spend a single second learning the difference between a participle or an infinitive, or how to use double object pronouns while in the imperfect subjunctive mood. Instead, you focused all your attention on receiving and sending messages to those around you. After mentally processing for thousands of hours in your native language, your brain built a grammar around the messages you had received. Now, your brain automatically knows how to use words within the rules of your own internal grammar structure. You don't even have to think about it. You simply think about the message you want to express and the words just bubble up from your subconscious, like the carbonation bubbles in can of soda.
When you spend too much time studying grammar rules, you begin to consciously think about how to say things, instead of what to say. Indeed, studying grammar rules will only help you pass a grammar test. Admittedly, sometimes passing the test is all we need to do. But too much focus on how to say things will lead to a shallower fluency. If you really want to speak Spanish well, you need to learn grammar through vocabulary building. And the best way to build vocabulary is through reading.
