Why would I want to know about strategies to help me learn Spanish? What are strategies?

As a Spanish learner, your teachers probably encourage you to “use your Spanish” or “communicate.”  Since they want you to feel comfortable communicating in Spanish, they may not focus on or correct every grammar mistake you make.

That makes sense, but ultimately, if you are serious about Spanish, you’re eventually going to need to get rid of errors.  What if your grammatical errors give people a bad impression of you?

For example, you may need to make an important request that is both polite and appropriately indirect. In Spanish, that may involve the use of the conditional aspect of the verb (podría Ud. prestarme…? ‘would you be able to lend me…?’), as opposed to the present (puede Ud. prestarme…? ‘can you lend me…?’).

And this calls for grammatical control!