There are 3 typical mistakes intermediate students make that make them sound much less natural.
Today in class, one of my intermediate students told me:
“Yo compré un regalo para él, y luego envié un mensaje para él… Dije a él ‘Feliz cumpleaños’.”
“I bought a gift for him, and then sent a message for him… I said to him ‘Happy birthday.’”
As I listened, his Spanish kept getting longer and longer.
It wasn’t a vocabulary or pronunciation problem — it was a structural one.
Every unnecessary “para él” and “a él” made his sentence sound awkward and unnatural.
And that made me think of the 3 most common mistakes I see over and over again in my intermediate students (the ones that stop them from sounding fluent, even if they already know a lot of grammar):
1. Using overly long sentences because they haven’t mastered pronouns.
Solution: replace “para él / para ella / a él / a ella” with le.
For example: “Le compré un regalo.” — short, natural, fluent.
2. Constantly hesitating between the imperfect and the preterite past tenses.
Solution: think of it like a movie scene:
If you’re painting the background, use the imperfect (“era, tenía, vivía”);
If you’re narrating the action that happens, use the preterite (“fue, tuvo, vivió”).
3. Avoiding the subjunctive out of fear of using it incorrectly.
Solution: start by recognizing its “triggers”: desires, doubts, emotions.
For example: “Espero que venga” (I hope he comes) or “No creo que tenga tiempo” (I don’t think he has time).
Yesterday, a student told me:
“Es mejor si vos venís mañana.”
“It’s better if you come tomorrow.”
It’s understandable, of course. But it sounds strange.
In natural Spanish, we’d say:
“Quiero que vengas mañana.”
“I want you to come tomorrow.”
For months, he had tried to avoid the subjunctive, and that made his sentences sound unnatural.
The subjunctive isn’t an “advanced” tense; it’s simply the language of what we can’t control: desires, doubts, emotions.
And there’s one foolproof rule:
if you express a wish (quiero, prefiero, deseo, me gustaría…), the next verb always goes in the subjunctive.
The truth is, moving from intermediate to advanced isn’t about studying more — it’s about understanding better what you already know.
To reach the advanced level, you need that Aha! moment — that inner click where everything finally makes sense.
That’s why I created the Aha Spanish Courses: short, focused modules that tackle the confusions that frustrate intermediate students the most — por vs. para, ser vs. estar, the subjunctive, pronouns, past tenses…
Discover the modules here: https://verbum.biz/aha-spanish-courses/
