What's wrong with the English we (Spanish people) speak?

I’ve always considered myself slightly above the average regarding my English, and when I arrived in the UK I realised my English level was not that good compared with other Europeans (I’m looking at the big picture, of course there are Spaniards who speak English so well that you can’t even tell the difference with natives).

Does it mean we are worse at languages than other Europeans? Not at all (I hope), we just mislearn it.

The English we learn

Most of the teachers we have at school (and at other institutions like the official language school) are not natives, and, even though some speak very good English (not all of them, believe me) yet they make some mistakes. We all make mistakes, even natives do. The problem comes when we take these mistakes after our teachers, but we think we are doing well. Very often, these mistakes are mispronunciations (I realised English had more than 5 vowel sounds 14 years after my first English lesson). For many Spaniards the vowels in “work” and “walk” are exactly the same, or in “but” and “bat”, or in many other words (I’d better not talk about the mispronunciation of “can’t”, some could get very upset with this).

Besides, we don’t get to practice English too much. Lessons are (or were when I was a child) focused on grammar rather than on speaking, so we tend to develop our writing skills, but we are real dummies when it comes to speaking (I’m not going to talk about accents since the Spanish accent is said to be very sexy).

English is boring

Nevertheless, we could correct these mistakes by making a little effort on our own and try to listen to the radio or TV in English, or make friends with some Brits (we’ve got hundreds here, especially in the coast). But we don’t, why?

We lack motivation.

From the first year of primary school to the Spanish equivalent of the “A-levels” I had several boring English teachers (not all of them were) who did not encourage their students (or at least me) to take their English further, becoming one of the most tedious subjects (yes, even more than history!).

It was when I was about to graduate (I had to certify a B2 level to get my degree) when I enrolled in an academy and met the first teacher who awakened my wish to learn this language (I was paying him though...).

Not up to date

Later, as part of my studies, I decided to go abroad to take my English to the next level, and it was then when I noticed the difference between the English we learn at school, and the English which is actually spoken.

“It’s raining cats and dogs” as far as I am concerned, an idiom quite old-fashioned nowadays in the UK. Still, we learn this rather than other expressions such as “it’s pouring down with water” or “it’s bucketing down”.

On the top of that, I was told some C1 teachers don't know words as “blooming” or “muggy”, which I think are used quite a lot (the guy from pointlessblog is always saying “blooming”). It wouldn’t be a problem if we were talking about a low English level, but C1 is supposed to be advanced.

However, I want to believe this trend is changing now. Teachers are using a more practical approach and people is getting into learning languages, but in order to see a noticeable change, I'm afraid we still have to wait some years.

I hope you liked it! If you did, let me know and don’t miss the opportunity to give your opinion in the comments. Thank you for reading!