Today has been a milestone day in my efforts to learn Spanish.  One of those watersheds in progress that I’ll remember forever.

Yesterday I told you all about using the forums and discussion boards to help you learn Spanish well today I want to give you something that will help you propel your progress forward.

I am sure you are aware that the more practice you can get with another Spanish speaker the better.  It makes logical sense that you spend as much time as possible conversing in the language.  But have you done that yet?  If not why not?

I am sure you can come up with lots of reasons (ahem excuses) and I bet top of the list would be not having a Spanish speaker to speak Spanish to.  Well I am about to change all that for you.

Not long ago, Jade from edufone.com sent me an email about a recent podcast that announced a new free service they were offering.  They were going to act as an introducer for native Spanish and native English speakers to get together to practice each other’s language using Skype.

If you don’t know what Skype is, it is free telephone calls via the internet to anyone else in the world who also has a Skype account.

This evening, I decided I would check out the edufone Spanish Podcast site and see how the introduction process works. 

It is really very simple, just register as a member (it is free), add your Skype username during the registration process and then once you are logged in just click on the link that says "Practice Spanish Using Skype".  If you follow that link, you will be taken to a page which lists people who either want to practice Spanish or English.  By their name is their Skype handle, what country they are from and when they’d like to practice their Spanish.

All you have to do then is simply choose a name and then contact them via Skype.

I chose four people and then got onto Skype, added them to my contacts list and then sent them each a brief message telling them who I was, that I got their details from edufone.com and that I’d like to help them with their English in return for a few tips about Spanish.  And that was that….so I thought.

About 10 minutes later my laptop burst into life and it was Skype announcing that someone instant messaging me.  It was one of the people I had contacted - Gonzalo from Chile.  We exchanged a few words on the IM and then he rang me.

Well what an experience.  After the usual Hola, my name is…, I live in… I like…..etc, I ran completely dry.  It seemed that everything I had learnt up to now just disappeared - whoosh - gone.  I was left like a bumbling wreck and kept muttering los sciento, no entiendo.  The conversation just stopped…poor old Gonzalo - he must have thought I was an idiot!

Anyway I realised that I couldn’t just stop there at that so I just started reciting random words in Spanish to Gonzalo - la cuchara (spoon), el tenedor (fork), los cubiertos (silverware) - anything that I could remember.  Now I hadn’t realised it but this was a great opportunity for Gonzalo to practice his English because as I said the Spanish word, he translated it into English and said it back to me.  Just as Jade at edufone wanted - me speaking Spanish whilst Gonzalo spoke English.

After a while Gonzalo asked me if there was anything that I wanted to ask him.  At first I couldn’t think of anything but then I asked him how to say "to spell" in Spanish and got an answer to a question that has been bothering me for a week now.  We then got onto some useful phrases to help the conversation like "how do I say…" or "did I say that right?".  Each time Gonzalo gave me great feedback on my pronunciation and complimented me on my Spanish.  He couldn’t believe that I had only been learning for 20 days (seems a lifetime to me now!) - I told him I was keen (obsessed more like :-)).

Anyway to cut a long story short, I got so much out of my short 20 minute chat with my new friend from Chile.  The big thing I realised is that listening to podcasts, no matter how good they are, is no subsititute for the real thing.  I am humbled by the generosity that Gonzalo showed and we have planned to speak again, I hope that next time I can give back as much as he gave to me.

Althought I stumbled, made mistakes, muttered words that no Spanish speaking native would understand and probably overused the phrase "los sciento, no entiendo" I sit here proud and exhilerated that a) I did it and b) that I got so much out of it.

I can strongly recommend that you try this out for yourself to practice and improve upon what you know - believe me the effort is worth it.

Let me know how you get on.

Hasta mañana