4. June 2026
Is 2 days enough to start speaking Spanish? What I learned from an intensive beginner’s course
“¿Tarjeta o efectivo?” The cashier looks at you expectantly. Your mind goes blank as you struggle to assemble various Spanish fragments you learned from Duolingo.
“Un momento…” You open Google Translate, start typing, and stumble over the Spanish with rising panic.
“No entiendo… er… English?”
Someone behind you in the queue sighs. Apologising profusely, you hand over the contents of your wallet, hoping they’ll know what to do with it.
Learning a foreign language as an adult can be overwhelming, and speaking the new language in context is one of the biggest hurdles for beginners. Before I went to Spain last year, I made a decent effort to improve my travel Spanish, only to completely chicken out of any opportunity to use it once I was in the country.
That’s why I joined the Picos Travel Spanish Bootcamp, an immersive Spanish course in Sheffield, in the hope it would give me the confidence boost I needed.
The objective: Overcome the fear of speaking Spanish
As a former English as a Foreign Language teacher, I understand the importance of speaking in language learning. But that isn’t the same as actually doing it. For me, going straight from studying Spanish on my own to getting tongue-tied in Spain was too big a leap. I was hoping the bootcamp would act as a stepping stone: a safe space to practise speaking and make mistakes, while injecting some life into my neglected Spanish. But it still involved speaking an unfamiliar language in front of strangers. Luckily, there were only six students in the group, and it turned out we were all nervous.
Over the weekend, we bonded over the vulnerability, awkwardness and funny moments of learning a language as an adult.
Both Nory, the organiser, and Eduardo, the teacher, made every effort to set us at ease throughout the weekend. They both have experience of learning languages as adults – Eduardo is learning Polish – and this helped them empathise with our beginner-level nerves. They also sent us self-introduction videos in a WhatsApp group before the weekend.
Was the Travel Spanish Bootcamp beginner-friendly?
Everyone in the course was at an early A1 beginner level, with no real foundation in Spanish. It was clear that Eduardo and Nory had put a lot of thought into making sure the course wasn’t too overwhelming. Instruction used a mixture of English and Spanish with just enough grammar detail to answer our questions in a beginner-friendly way.
The course was two half-days, leaving the afternoons for consolidation or rest. The first day finished around 1:30, and Eduardo asked how we all felt. Someone said, “optimistic”, which was accurate, but “slightly overwhelmed and knackered” was also true!
Learning Spanish for an entire morning as a beginner is a lot. The general consensus was that our brains were maxed out and couldn’t take in any more Spanish.
On Day 2, there was a noticeable transformation. Having the previous afternoon off to take a break from learning Spanish – and, for the more conscientious among us, to reorganise our notes – turned out to be just what we needed. We came back refreshed and ready to learn. We were also more confident in the class after getting to know each other the previous day.
Phrases that travel with you
We launched straight into the basics of introducing ourselves, along with useful vocabulary for lessons and real-life interactions, such as “How do you say...?” (“¿Cómo se dice…?”) and “What does this mean?” (“¿Qué significa…?”).
Something I really appreciated about Eduardo’s teaching was his focus on short, reusable phrases that can be combined in different ways, in different situations. The phrases were also immediately useful for travelling in a Spanish-speaking country, unlike the sentences you sometimes learn on apps.
Interactive learning
Eduardo encouraged us to reuse the language we’d learnt to interact with one another in different contexts throughout the weekend. We created our own dialogues in pairs, navigated a “city” in the break room and had plenty more opportunities to put the language to use.
From my teaching days, I know that rehearsing and revisiting a small number of useful phrases beats trying to learn a long list of vocabulary, especially at the beginner level.
Remember your why
Eduardo also made the lessons relevant to our personal goals. For example, one participant was planning to go on the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route. Eduardo modelled how to apply the phrases we had learned in that context, without getting sidetracked with niche vocabulary.
When we reached the part everyone had been waiting for, navigating a Spanish menu, I learnt that I have been pronouncing “paella” confidently wrong my whole life. We even learned how to order coffee in a way that might actually get us what we wanted. Strong black coffee with a drop of milk can be tricky when translated across languages and cultures.
With Eduardo playing the role of waiter, we could troubleshoot some of the issues that might throw a spanner in the works. "Oh, you don’t have sangria? How about red wine?"
Somehow, practising in a simulated setting helped bring back vocabulary I thought I’d forgotten. I relished the chance to rehearse all the ways I would normally be awkward in a restaurant setting.
Can we share the paella? Is the paella vegetarian? Do you have anything that is vegetarian?
The verdict: Would I recommend the Travel Spanish Bootcamp?
Of course, I wasn’t fluent in Spanish after 2 half days. But I did overcome my fear of speaking Spanish in front of others, in as close to a real-life context as I could get without travelling to a Spanish-speaking country.
In one weekend, I’d learnt some very useful Spanish phrases, rehearsed them in different situations, combined them in different ways, and used them to have my first full Spanish conversation. I’d call that a win.
If you're a complete beginner or rusty learner who wants to travel to a Spanish-speaking country, this course was designed for you.
Thinking of booking onto a Spanish Immersion Retreat?
Picos offers a range of retreats at different levels, from beginners to advanced.
Explore Picos Immersive Retreats
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Thank you, Amy, for writing this amazing post/ review. It was an absolute pleasure having you on the course, and super proud of what you have achieved in two days.
Amy Nelson is a Sheffield-based copywriter and former teacher with 15 years’ experience in education, including teaching English as a foreign language. Find out more at amynelson.co.uk.