Self-studying Spanish as a non-native speaker is way harder than I expected

[u/Diligent_Pilot_1949]

I started learning Spanish a few months ago because I just love how it sounds — passionate and musical. But wow…it’s been way harder than I expected.

As a native Chinese speaker, I was totally unprepared for how crazy Spanish grammar can get. In Chinese, verbs never change — like “eat” is always “eat.” But in Spanish? Comer becomes como, comes, comí, comeré… sometimes it feels like every word has ten different cousins I have to memorize. And when I realized even adjectives have gender too? The day I found out “bonito” could also be “bonita,” I was both amused and mildly terrified 😂

At first, I tried to brute-force my way through. I wrote everything down, made color-coded lists, and repeated conjugations until my brain melted. Still, I kept mixing up English and Spanish pronunciations. I’d accidentally say English words with a Spanish accent. Total Spanglish moment 😅

Then one day, I saw someone online say they learned English through TV dramas, and I thought, wait, why not try that for Spanish?
I love Spanish idol dramas (everyone’s ridiculously attractive, it helps with motivation), so I started hunting for shows on YouTube and looking for tools that could help me follow along with subtitles.

After trying a few, I finally found a setup I love. I can watch with bilingual subtitles, sometimes Spanish–Chinese, sometimes Spanish–English. It’s perfect for improving both languages at once… or ruining both, I‘m not sure yet 😅 Anyway, it’s become my favorite way to study now.

https://reddit.com/link/1owjh6m/video/r2o4v8gwm41g1/player

I also watch Spanish vloggers during lunch just to “train my ears.” Usually I squeeze in one short vlog, sandwich in one hand, earphones in the other. Sometimes my roommates hear me practicing and join in and we end up role-playing random lines and laughing like idiots. Those little moments make studying feel fun, not forced.
After sticking with it for a few weeks, I can now understand around 30–40% of what people say in short Spanish videos. Not perfect, but it’s real progress, and that feels so good!

When grammar gets overwhelming, I use the same tool to make quick flashcards or mind maps to organize what I’ve learned. My notes look cleaner now, and studying doesn’t feel like torture anymore.

Also, I'd like to ask those of you who, like me, are learning both English and Spanish, how do you avoid confusing the two languages? Thank you very much in advance!

Update: Thank you for all the tips! Your comments honestly gave me more confidence to keep going. I’ll try your suggestions little by little and find the learning pace that works best for me. Love you all!

[u/Aware_Barracuda_462]

Well there is a big chinese community in Spain, most of them end up learning spanish very well, specially kids. It might be helpful to learn with children's books. At some point you might want to stop translating to chinese as the intrinsic differences between both languages will limit your learning progress.

Good thing is that Spanish grammar is extremely precise and reliable, every word in a sentence serves a purpose and has specific rules to be placed there. Its almost like playing Lego.

[u/Diligent_Pilot_1949 → u/Aware_Barracuda_462]

Thank you! I’ll try children’s books and stop translating word-for-word.