How Selena Quintanilla Learned Spanish As An Adult

In this post: Inspired by Selena Quintanilla's story, this post explores the power of reconnecting with your heritage through learning Spanish as an adult.

For many of us with Latino roots, learning Spanish as an adult is more than just fine-tuning accents or getting verb tenses right. It's about starting down a dusty road of self-discovery that reshapes your identity, reinvents your connection to your past, and opens new paths to your future.

It’s a deeply personal process that can bring up all kinds of questions. That’s why knowing the story of others who have walked this path and transformed themselves in the process can be incredibly inspiring. And that’s why I want to share Selena Quintanilla’s Spanish-learning story with you today.

You may have already heard of Selena Quintanilla - a famous Tejano singer who rose to fame in the 90s before she was tragically killed.

In her short and inspirational career, Selena became a trailblazer as a young woman breaking into a largely male-dominated music scene. And she did so without shying away from crossing music genres or embracing her biculturalism.

Although many of her songs were in Spanish, Selena grew up as a 3rd Generation Mexican-American and learned to speak Spanish as a young adult.

As a 3rd generation Puerto Rican, Selena’s story is one that has inspired me. A story that reminded me that I could learn Spanish as an adult, embrace my cultural heritage on my own terms, and define who I want to be as a Spanish-speaking adult.

I hope you’ll find inspiration in today’s post as an adult learning Spanish, as someone connecting with a culture in your own way — and as you reinvent yourself a little in that process.

Embrace Your Biculturalism: Selena Quintanilla's Inspiring Approach to Learning Spanish

“I feel very proud to be Mexican. I didn't have the opportunity to learn Spanish when I was a girl, but ... it's never too late to get in touch with your roots.” - Selena Quintanilla

Selena’s personal reflection about what it was like to learn Spanish has always resonated with me.

Learning Spanish as an adult can bring up complex emotions — especially for those of us who are bi-cultural or learning Spanish as a heritage language (a language spoken by our families). It’s so easy to feel pushed and pulled in different directions.

You can feel a sense of warmth and belonging around Spanish, a language you may have grown up hearing. And, at the same time, you can harbor a quiet sense of guilt at not having really learned to speak Spanish the way you might have liked. A feeling that something is missing.

Depending on your own complex and unique experience, Selena’s example might be just the inspiration you need to get started.

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When You Truly Commit to Learning Spanish, Incredible Things Happen.

Learning a second language as an adult can lead to frustration and even embarrassment.

Many of us have our own embarrassing Spanish stories to tell. You can probably appreciate how it must have been when Selina and her husband (and guitarist) Chris Perez decided to go on tour in Mexico and mix language learning with being in the spotlight.

In fact, in this excerpt from the book Selena with Love, Perez details his embarrassing first attempt at interviewing in Spanish in Monterrey:

“Despite my good intentions and all of that practicing, I still managed to humiliate myself. During our first interview with the radio DJs in Monterrey, we all had to go down the line and intro­duce ourselves, just as we’d practiced. I froze up completely. When it was my turn, I said ‘toca’ instead of ‘toco,’ essentially saying, ‘My name is Chris Perez, and he plays the guitar.’ Naturally, everyone laughed at my expense.”

- Chris Perez

In Mexico, Selena mangled her conversations in Spanish like the rest of us, but not for long. She said, “It’ll be cool. You watch. I’m going to learn Spanish and surprise everybody.”

Despite the struggles and pressures inherent in touring, performing, and interviewing in Spanish, Selena eventually managed to sound like a natural — you can see what I mean in this inspiring interview.

The spotlight on her career and achievements intensified her challenges, but Selena also had one thing that carried her through:

Her commitment to Spanish was on the same level as her commitment to her family, her career — her identity.

This commitment to Spanish, intertwined with her other life commitments, allowed her to bring her music across the border to an audience in Mexico.

One of the most powerful things you can do for your Spanish learning is simply to take stock of your most profound reasons for wanting to learn the language. Is it a connection with family, patients, clients, or a local community? Is learning Spanish ‘just’ a life-long dream?

Those reasons will help you find your own commitment to Spanish.

Take it From Selena: 3 Spanish Learning Strategies You Can Use Too.

As someone who learned Spanish as an adult and has worked with many adult language learners, I have a few favorite strategies inspired by Selena Quintanilla’s language journey.

Learn to Balance Language Learning with Everyday Life.

Any of us can relate to feeling too busy to learn Spanish. But we can take inspiration in the fact that Selena had a lot going on with her music, touring, performing — and still managed to learn to speak Spanish as an adult.

If you’re an adult with a busy life, career, and family obligations, try a trick from Selena’s strategy and integrate Spanish into your routine and life.

Is there a habit you have that you can’t imagine letting go of? Something you do every day, like reading the paper or listening to the radio? Can you add Spanish to that moment?

In other words, you’d be using habit stacking, an incredibly powerful strategy that I swear by when I’m truly committed to an outcome — like making Spanish a part of my life.

Maybe for you, that means listening to slow news in Spanish on your drive to work or running through a few flashcard sets during those few quiet minutes as you drink your morning coffee before the kids wake up.

Find something small, something you can pick up and add to your life so you can practice Spanish consistently. Make it something you can do again and again — without losing touch with what matters to you.

Use repeated sprints and connections with the culture to supercharge your learning.

Selena made many, many trips on tour to Mexico. In a sense, these were what I call language sprints. Periods of more intense training where you return with a renewed level and can see your language “jumping up a notch,” as Chris Perez describes Selena’s progress on these trips to Mexico.

And no, you don’t have to travel to a Spanish-speaking country to see your level of Spanish improve. You could also choose to spend a few weeks or a few months pushing yourself in your Spanish. You can set up your own Spanish sprint at home — by gathering the right materials and setting up your own routine.

Authentic learning makes all the difference.

Tap into the things you love, the people around you, and whatever helps connect you with the culture.

Selena practiced her pronunciation with her father. Is there anyone in your life who inspires you to want to learn Spanish? Maybe you can try spending more time with them.

There is a scene in the Netflix series about Selena’s life where she is trying to learn Spanish from some dry, learning materials. The kind of materials that would probably make you feel truly alienated trying to learn a heritage language — or a language people speak locally and that you long to learn. Selena shuts off her Spanish recording in that same scene and switches on a telenovela instead.

Maybe that’s not exactly how it happened in real life — but there is one thing that may feel real to you:

Spanish-learning materials should help you feel a true connection to the culture. Whether Spanish is a language of your family — or simply a language you want to embrace and bring into your life, don’t settle for anything less.

Find a podcast that helps you follow real people's discussions and join the culture a little bit every day. Watch that telenovela, pick up a crossword puzzle.

There is an entire world of Spanish-speaking people, and there is something that will suit your interests out there, help you pick up the pace with your Spanish — and create a sense of connection with the cultures you’re curious about as well.

This brings me to one final lesson I hope you’ll never forget from Selena Quintanilla…

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Never Forget the Power of Music to Help You Learn Spanish.

Music is a beautiful blend of language and culture. It can connect us to our past, and to our families and helps us create shared moments across borders.

I wholeheartedly encourage you to practice your Spanish comprehension skills by listening to music you love in Spanish, and practice your speaking skills (pronunciation, fluency) by singing along with Selena — or whoever else inspires you.

You’ll connect emotionally to the culture through its rhythms, words, and intonations.

Your Takeaways from How Selena Quintanilla Learned Spanish as an Adult.

I hope you’ll take some time to explore the story of Selena Quintanilla in different ways. Enjoy some of her songs, watch some of her interviews, create a playlist of your favorite Spanish-language music, and sing along.

Or simply take inspiration from this story of a young woman who didn’t grow up speaking Spanish — but learned to be bilingual and unapologetically bi-cultural anyway.

If there’s one idea I hope you leave with today, it’s this: learning Spanish as an adult is so much more than just ‘nailing the grammar’ and speaking fluently. It’s a rhythm you set in place in your life that brings you closer to connection with the culture and toward discovering something new about yourself.

Defining your relationship to the cultures in your life is like weaving together a genre of music like Tejano. Maybe you bring in a bit of mariachi, norteño, and ranchera from Mexico, and add hints of polka, Walz, and fandango from Europe.

Maybe you toss in a few touches of rock and roll, and lyrics that cross cultures and unite generations. And, if you like, you can sing your songs in Spanish too.

I hope that whatever new conversations, relationships, and experiences you create with your unique blend of culture and languages sound just as surprising and beautiful.

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