How our three learned Spanish — and how long it really took

"Children just pick it up." We heard that roughly forty times before the move. It is true. It just says nothing about how it feels while it's happening, or how long the road is.

The silent period

All three said essentially nothing for a while. Six weeks for the youngest, three months for the middle one, six months for the eldest. During that time nothing happens on the outside and everything happens inside: they listen, sort, understand more and more — they just don't speak.

That was the hardest part for us, because it looked like stagnation. The turning point came differently for each. For the middle one it was a birthday party invitation. For the eldest it was an argument in the playground that she wanted to win.

What actually helped

The club. By far the biggest lever. Sport two or three times a week, with the same children, in a context where language is beside the point. For us it was swimming and football. After four months of the club, our middle daughter was speaking more than after eight months of school.

Neighbourhood children. One afternoon on the street beats a week of lessons. That's why the question of living in town or in an out-of-the-way urbanización was also a language question for us.

ATAL. Andalusia's language support programme for newly arrived children (see our piece on choosing a school). Free, sensible, but you have to ask.

Series in Spanish. Not the educational ones — the ones they already know, switched to Spanish. When you already know the plot, listening happens by itself.

Let them read aloud, don't test them. Ten minutes in the evening, a Spanish children's book, us listening and not correcting. Correcting reliably resulted in nobody wanting to read.

What didn't help

• Language apps. Fine for adults, pointless for children with real immersion. Nobody touched it after two weeks.
• Early tutoring. For the eldest in the first term — too soon. She was in the silent period, and another hour of Spanish in the afternoon added pressure rather than language. From year two, targeted at subject vocabulary, it was right.
• Comparing. Three children, three speeds. For a while we said out loud how fast the youngest was. That gave the eldest nothing except a sense of being slow.

And German?

This is the part we underestimated. After a year the children started speaking Spanish to each other. After eighteen months our middle daughter began searching for German words. And spelling — German spelling — is the weakest area for all three.

What we've made of that:

• German at home, consistently. Even when the answer comes back in Spanish, we stay in German. No pressure, no penalty, just consistency.
• German books. They don't have to be demanding. Comics count. What matters is that there is German reading material within reach.
• Saturday school or a distance course — there are German-language options along the coast. We use one for our eldest, because her written language was the most developed and has the most to lose.
• Contact with home. Video calls with grandparents and friends — not as a duty, but because it is the only reason children speak German voluntarily.

And the adults?

Considerably slower. That's the uncomfortable truth. Children get eight hours of immersion a day and have no shame; we work in German and have a finely tuned sense of embarrassment. What worked for us: a fixed course with a fixed time (not "learning at some point"), deliberately doing the shopping and the parents' evenings ourselves instead of delegating, and being willing to speak very bad Spanish for the first few months. If you wait until it's good, you never start.

The honest timeline

Based on our experience, for a primary-school child with no prior knowledge:

• Months 1–3: silent period, a lot of exhaustion, early bedtimes.
• Months 3–8: everyday speech arrives, first friendships, the playground works.
• Months 8–18: lessons become comprehensible, marks recover, the child starts making jokes — the real breakthrough.
• From month 18–24: language is no longer an issue. Now the work on German begins.

That's the distance. It is longer than you expect beforehand, and shorter than it feels in month four.

Common questions

Should we speak Spanish at home to help?

We'd advise against it. The children get plenty of Spanish outside. Home is your only chance to hold on to the mother tongue — and it goes faster than you think.

Does my child need tutoring?

For an older child, yes, if they're falling behind in class. For young children, rarely. More important than tutoring is contact with Spanish-speaking children outside school.

What if the child refuses to speak at all?

That's the silent period and it's normal. It ends. What matters is not applying pressure during it, and leaving your child one place — home — where everything is easy.

Everything here is our own experience, not legal advice. Authorities change rules, prices and forms constantly — always check the official site of the relevant office before an appointment.