Learn Spanish with these 17 Set-it-and-Forget-it Digital Immersion Tactics
Set all your device settings to Spanish and watch what happens.
Let me introduce you to my wife, aka my Latin passport.
She hails from the great island of Puerto Rico and speaks fluent Spanish. This comes in handy during our travels. Together we’ve ventured through Puerto Rico, Italy, Spain, Mexico, Cuba, Costa Rica and Miami. These are all places where Spanish can be helpful, useful or necessary. The problem for me is I let her do all the talking.
This arrangement has been fine — great even! — until earlier this month when my two sisters and I decided to take my dad to Cuba. That’s right, I’m going back to Cuba! And I’m going without my Latin passport.
In high school, Spanish was a strength of mine. I was even in Honors with Señora Dunnick. But I’ve had more than a decade to let my Spanish rust. Nevertheless it’s my responsibility to communicate with the locals when we arrive in Havana in six short months.
It’s different knowing I’ll return to Cuba without my wife. The first time around, we were so jam packed with activities, food and photo ops that I didn’t give the language much thought.
But now it’s on me and I have to come up with a strategy to become a competent Spanish speaker by summer time. Unfortunately I’m less focused than a squirrel.
An Unfocused Squirrel’s Plan to Learn Spanish
It’s not my fault I can’t concentrate on things. I run a startup full-time, dance salsa, read books, watch YouTube, travel, workout, sauna, listen to podcasts, check Facebook, go to dinners of varying fanciness levels and so much more.
These are all bad excuses. If I really wanted to learn Spanish, I would find the time. Summon my willpower and muster up the courage to speak Spanish every day. Alas, I know myself all too well. Things will slip. I’ll forget. I’ll get busy. Work will explode. Grandpa will text me.
This situation requires more than willpower. I need forcing functions to ensure I learn Spanish — or at least to ensure I don’t forget that learning Spanish is a high priority of mine.
One option is for my wife and me to have a kid and I can eavesdrop on the Latin baby talk. My wife is committed to making our future child bilingual just like her. But I’ve been told a baby takes at least 9 months to make so my window of opportunity already passed months ago.
And then I read Coach Tony’s excellent post last week — How to Configure Your iPhone to Work for You, Not Against You. Of course! I need to digitally immerse myself in Spanish…
What is Digital Immersion?
While the most effective way to learn a foreign language is through physical immersion in a foreign land, what about digital immersion? What if we could learn a language by immersing ourselves in a foreign language through our devices? Heck, we already spend most our days on them anyway.
Physical immersion is a great way to learn a language. Think about it. You’re sitting in a cafe in Buenos Aires and the waitress asks you a question but you have zero clue what she said. Do you figure responding to her is too much effort and instead you book the next flight back home? No! You stumble, struggle, ask for help and solve the problem in the context of the culture you find yourself.
With physical immersion, the environment gives clues as to what words mean. That waitress had a credit card machine in her hand — she must have wanted you to pay the check!
With digital immersion, we already have a high level of comfort with our devices. We know how to navigate apps to do what we need. Plus the location of foreign words on screen gives us major clues. Open a new tab on Chrome and it says ‘nueva pestaña’. Hmm….
Why Digital Immersion Works
Digital immersion works to teach us new languages or at the very least support us in the learning of new languages for several reasons.
Environmental Cues — According to the book Atomic Habits, by making a new habit obvious and visible I will do it more often (environmental cue).
There is a great clip from the Simpsons where Apu moves in. He helps the family with household chores and at one point stacks cans of corn in the kitchen. Marge explains that they keep their corn in the cupboard but Apu assures her the corn will never ‘move’ that way. Enter Bart and Lisa who grab cans of delicious corn. This is an environmental cue to eat more corn.
Changing my device settings won’t make me fluent in Spanish. But I will have constant environmental cues about my desire to learn Spanish. The next time I watch Netflix, I may decide to throw on Spanish subtitles.
Set It and Forget It — I’m lazy by nature. But I’m also smart. If I have to work hard for a short period of time to yield results for the rest of my life, I’m ok with that trade. I prefer strategies that follow this line of thinking. Compound interest is an example. I make money once, invest it, and it works for me and grows the rest of my life. The tactics I share below are all set it and forget it. They are done one time and consistently support my goal of becoming fluent in Spanish.
Getting Leverage on Myself — In the The Odyssey, Odysseus returns home after victory in the Trojan War. On his way he passes the island of the lovely Sirens. No man has ever heard the Siren song and lived to tell the tale. But clever Odysseus is determined to be the first.
Odysseus orders his men to bind him to the mast of the ship. Everyone else puts beeswax in their ears. As they pass the island, Odysseus is driven mad by the Siren song but the binding holds. After passing the island, Odysseus is untied and lives to tell the tale.
This is an example of a premeditated thought pattern that gets leverage on your future self. I have the desire to learn Spanish now, but will that desire persist a month from now?
I can get leverage on my future self by setting up my devices in Spanish. Even though my future self may not want to learn Spanish, he’ll be too lazy or distracted to change back all his settings to English.
Constructive Friction — What fun is a video game that’s too easy? None. The right amount of difficulty aka friction in a game makes it enjoyable. We think of friction as a bad thing. But when used properly, it can be a tool that enhances enjoyment and learning.
Physical immersion has the right amount of friction because most people speak some level of English and there are many environmental cues to help out. For digital immersion, many of the words I will see are in Spanish which causes friction. However there are still words in English, contextual clues as to the meaning of Spanish words and tools that allow me to quickly translate words if necessary. This gives me the right level of constructive friction to learn Spanish.
Consistency breeds success — Look at what a man does regularly to determine his ultimate success. His habits. His routines. Not the one time he climbed Mt. Everest but the 10,000 times he went for a hike.
Physical immersion is consistent. Every day starts immersed in the culture of that location. There is no escaping it. Digital immersion can be as consistent. I can’t remember the last time I went a day without checking my phone or laptop.
So that’s the plan. I’m going to digitally immerse myself in Spanish. My two main devices are a Macbook and an iPhone and I’ll switch over all settings to default Spanish. In addition, I’ll install tools to make translation of unknown words quick and easy. And for those instances where I really need English, I’ll install tools to switch back with a single click. Below is a list of all the tactics I’ve implemented on my devices — enjoy!
MacBook
- Install TransOver Chrome Extension to hover translate words
Instead of having to open Google Translate to copy/paste an unknown word, just hover over the word(s) and the translation will display.
- Install TransOver
- Right click the TransOver icon on your toolbar and open ‘Options’
- Select the language you want to translate to and select ‘point at word’ then click ‘More Options’
- Select the translate from language that you are learning
- Check “Do not show ‘Oops… No translation found’” and Save
2. Install Google Translate Chrome Extension to translate entire webpage
If a page loads in Spanish that needs to be seen in English, click the Google Translate icon and the page will be translated.
- Install Google Translate
- Right click the extension icon on your toolbar and open ‘Options’
- Set your primary language to English
- Select don’t show icon for highlighted words
3. Set websites with language settings to Spanish
If a commonly visited site offers a Spanish setting, update it. Facebook, YouTube, Google, Slack and Evernote are just some that have this setting.
4. Visit website versions of common Mac applications and set to Spanish
If using Evernote, Slack or other common Mac applications, begin accessing them on Chrome instead. Translations tools are better on Chrome than for Mac apps.
5. Set website redirects to Spanish sites using Redirector Chrome extension.
If a commonly visited site doesn’t have language settings, check if they have a Spanish version site at .mx or .com.mx. Download the Redirector app so that when www.airbnb.com is entered the autoforwarded goes to www.airbnb.com.mx.
- Install Redirector
- Click on the icon and click ‘edit redirects’
- Click ‘Create new redirect’
- Enter any Description, the full .com url for Example URL and Include pattern. Redirect to the spanish site version. wildcard select and any pattern description.
6. Update Chrome language settings
- Visit chrome://settings/ and click the advanced tab
- Under ‘Languages’ select Spanish and drag to the top
7. Set Gmail to autotranslate English to Spanish
With this setup, every email received will be auto-translated from English to Spanish. Don’t worry, with one click the message can be reverted back to original.
- Visit Gmail and open any message
- On the far right click the icon of 3 vertical dots
- Select translate message
- Choose English > Spanish and translate
- Select ‘Always translate English to Spanish’
8. Set Google News to Spanish
I read Google News and here is another opportunity to see a lot of Spanish.
- Visit Google News
- On the left column select ‘Language and Region’
- Select Spanish and save
- Bookmark the resulting link and visit this version of Google News
9. Change Mac operating system to Spanish
- Visit System Preferences and select ‘Language and Region’
- Click + to add Spanish and choose to have Spanish populate the screen
- Restart computer for changes to take effect
10. Update Mac dictionary to Spanish lookup
Changing this setting will let you look up words on your Mac in Spanish on right click with the ‘look up’ selection.
- Search for the Dictionary app in spotlight search
- Visit the Preferences page
- In the top of the preferences, unselect all selected options and select ‘Gran Diccionario Oxford’ Spanish to English dictionary
- Select Spanish and English in the lower part of the preferences
11. Set computer background to a Spanish image or phrase
Instead of looking at a sand dune or a hubble telescope photo of the horsehead nebula, set a desktop image that will inspire the goal of Spanish fluency. Maybe a phrase like ‘Yo hablo espanol’ or an image of the Cuban flag.
- Visit System Preferences
- Select Desktop & Screensaver
- Follow the rest of the prompts to upload a new photo
12. Set an affirmational password
Passwords are a part of daily life anyway. Why not take this opportunity to reinforce the inevitable fluency in Spanish? Set one or more of the most frequently entered passwords to something affirmational like ‘yohabloespanol’ or ‘iambilingual’.
iPhone
13. Change your iOS language
- Open Settings
- Tap General
- Tap Language & Region
- Tap device language and select Spanish
- Save and exit
14. Add Google Translate and DuoLingo apps to home dock
The most important apps go on bottom dock. I want easy access to translate words on the fly and learn Spanish. So I’m putting the Google Translate app and DuoLingo app on my dock making them always visible and telling my subconscious that learning Spanish is important.
15. Use Google Chrome
Use Google Chrome as main mobile browser. Login with same credentials as on Macbook so that all Spanish settings are transferred over.
16. Setup Spanish keyboard
Typing in Spanish will be needed on occassion and a keyboard is needed for this.
- Open iMessages
- Tap and hold the globe icon in bottom left of keyboard
- Tap ‘Keyboard Configuration’
- Tap ‘Keyboards’
- Tap ‘Add a new keyboard’ and add preferred Spanish keyboard
17. Set background to Spanish image or phrase
Again take advantage of screen real estate to reinforce the desire to learn Spanish. In fact, put an image on phone lock screen, home screen and as a watch face on Apple Watch.
¿Qué más?
Ultimately, digital immersion will not make me fluent in Spanish. My hope with this strategy is I’ll be constantly reminded to learn Spanish. My identity will gradually morph into a bilingual person. I’ll make small decisions throughout the day to do a Duolingo session, or throw on Spanish subtitles or go to that Spanish language meetup. Fluency by a thousand cuts.
What else haven’t I thought of to emmerse myself in Spanish? If you have ideas for tactics to add, please let me know and I will include them in the post.
Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed it, leave a comment, give me a clap, or share with a friend!
