If you’re an intermediate or advanced student of Spanish, you will surely have plenty of opportunities to practice your language skills in Buenos Aires. However, ordering your food at a restaurant or buying your groceries in Spanish is not challenging at this stage. You’ll have to make some effort to take real advantage of your stay in the city! To help you do that, here we list our 5 activities to practice Spanish in Buenos Aires. A guide for intermediate & advanced students.
1. Make some Spanish-speaking friends and join them for dinner
This is definitely our favorite among these 5 activities to practice Spanish in Buenos Aires. Sharing informal chats with native speakers might feel overwhelming and frustrating for beginners. But if you’re an intermediate or advanced student of Spanish, this is the best practice you can get. Because sharing relaxed, informal conversations with pairs is very effective for many reasons. First, if you’re genuinely interested, you’re emotionally engaged. And that means your memory will be more active here than in a class where you kind of pretend to chat about life. Secondly, in this type of contexts you’ll learn real everyday Spanish. It doesn’t mean the Spanish you learn in the class is fake. It means that, in this case, you’re using it for real. And it will probably imply learning the most updated slang and colloquial expressions.
An extra tip to enjoy this activity as frequently as possible is to actually live with locals. And in order to do that, we suggest you stay at a family house or student residence.
2. Go to the movies. Argentinean film industry has a lot to offer.
You can kill two birds with one stone. Because watching Argentinean movies will also mean learning about its culture. And probably enjoying a nice work of art, too. An ideal place to do this is Cine Gaumont. It’s a very old (but restored) cinema that only projects Argentinean movies. And it’s super cheap, too!
3. Go to the theatre. Buenos Aires is probably the best city to check out independent plays.
Certain sources state that Buenos Aires is the city with the largest amount of theatres per inhabitant. And with a population of around 4 million, that means tons of small, independent theatres. You can check Buenos Aires offer for theater plays here. We specially recommend Timbre 4 (they have a great offer of contemporary plays) and Complejo Teatral Buenos Aires for more classical, mainstream, high-quality productions.
4. Do some research on social media
Local YouTube channels, FanPages and Instagram accounts can be a great source to deepen your knowledge on Argentinean slang and sense of humour. Ask your local friends to help you connect with characters and subjects you’re interested in. You’ll surely enjoy it!
5. Focus on your interests: go to talks, seminars and University classes.
The more you progress in Spanish, the more sense it’ll make to focus on your interests. This way, you’ll be able to learn new vocabulary related to the areas that are really meaningful to you. Besides, doing so is a great strategy to keep you interested and motivated to learn more! In this sense, Buenos Aires is a great city. You’ll find tons of interesting talks and seminars. For instance, you can enjoy free or paid talks about philosophy, cinema, literature, politics and other subjects in places such as Malba, CC de la Cooperación, Biblioteca Nacional, CC Matienzo and CC Recoleta, among others.
On the other hand, you might already know we have a public and free University in Buenos Aires. That is why you can also check the programs of the careers you’re interested in, and enjoy free master classes in Spanish. Believe us. Some of the professors teaching at public University (UBA) are first-level intellectual you’ll definitely enjoy listening to.
