FluentPath Week one coaching plan Travel Language Coach · USD 14 per month
Eleven situations, not the whole language
Your first week, built around the six days in Valencia and the two conversations you are dreading.
You have five months and about fifteen minutes a day. That is not enough to learn Spanish and it is comfortably enough for the eleven situations you will actually be in, which is what you asked for. This is week one, and every phrase in it is one you will use in the first two hours after you land.
Fifteen minutes a day gets you through arrival, ordering, shopping, asking directions and the pharmacy comfortably. It will not get you through a conversation with your host's family, which you named as the thing you most want, so that one is built toward from week six rather than promised now.
Scope
What five months of fifteen minutes actually buys
| Covered by | Difficulty | Why this order | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Greetings and courtesy | Week 1 | Easy | Used constantly, builds confidence |
| Ordering food and drink | Week 2 | Easy | You will do this 20 times |
| Paying and prices | Week 3 | Medium | Numbers are harder than people expect |
| Asking directions | Week 4 | Medium | Asking is easy, understanding the answer is not |
| Shops and markets | Week 6 | Medium | |
| Transport and tickets | Week 8 | Medium | |
| Pharmacy and feeling unwell | Week 10 | Medium | Low frequency, high stakes |
| Small talk with your host | Weeks 12 to 18 | Hard | The one you want most. Needs the rest first |
| Understanding fast replies | Throughout | Hardest | Never fully solved in five months |
| Phone calls | Not covered | Hardest | Out of scope. Honest about it |
| Reading menus and signs | Weeks 2 and 6 | Easy | Comes free with the speaking work |
Two rows say not covered or never fully solved. Understanding a fast reply from a native speaker is the hardest part of any language and five months of fifteen minutes will not get you there. Knowing that in advance is more useful than discovering it in a market in March.
Week one
Seven days, fifteen minutes each
- Monday
Eight greetings, out loud
Hello, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, please, thank you, excuse me, sorry. Say each one ten times. Out loud, not read. This is the whole session.
- Tuesday
The same eight, plus your own introduction
My name is Ruth, I am English, I do not speak much Spanish. That last sentence is the most useful one you will learn all year.
- Wednesday
Yes, no, I do not understand, more slowly please
Four phrases. The last two are what turn a failed exchange into a slower successful one.
- Thursday
Review Monday to Wednesday, no new material
Recall without looking first, then check. This feels unproductive and it is where the learning actually happens.
- Friday
Numbers one to ten
Just ten. You will want to do a hundred. Ten, properly, beats a hundred half known.
- Saturday
Put it together: arrive, greet, introduce, ask for slower
One imagined conversation, start to finish, out loud. Two minutes, repeated.
- Sunday
Record yourself saying the eight greetings
Send it. This is the only homework that comes back to me and it is how your corrections get personal from week two.
Expectations
What week one will feel like
| Day | How it usually feels | What is happening |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | Fine. Easy. Encouraging | New material always feels easy |
| Tuesday | Still fine | |
| Wednesday | Harder than Monday | You are now holding twelve things instead of eight |
| Thursday | Discouraging. You will forget things | This is recall, and forgetting is the mechanism working |
| Friday | Better | Numbers are concrete and feel like progress |
| Saturday | Surprisingly good | First time it is a conversation rather than a list |
| Sunday | Self conscious | Everyone hates hearing their own accent. Send it anyway |
Thursday is the day people quit. Putting it in the plan as an expected low point rather than a personal failing is the single most effective thing this page does.
Over to you
Two questions with the recording
- Which of the eleven situations are you most nervous about? You named the host family conversation, but is that nerves about Spanish or about the family?
- Fifteen minutes a day: when, specifically? Not roughly in the evening. A time and a place, because week three is when it stops being interesting and the habit has to carry it.
You are not learning Spanish. You are learning eleven situations in Spanish, and that is a completely achievable thing to do in five months at fifteen minutes a day. The people who fail at this are the ones who tried to learn the language.
Coach note, week one