Sandra Balado Arias is a civil litigation lawyer in Barcelona. Second-in-command at her firm. She prepares lawsuits, defends shareholders in court, delivers closing arguments to judges.
In Spanish, she's commanding. In English, she rated herself 1 out of 5 for speaking confidence.
"When I have to speak, to start a conversation quickly, I usually block."
She could write emails. She could read contracts. But conversation? She froze. She told me she did everything by writing because speaking was "another thing."
This is the pattern I see every week with professional Spanish speakers. You know the language. The problem is the performance.
What Sandra Actually Needed
Sandra didn't need more grammar. She needed fluency under pressure. She needed to stop translating from Spanish and start thinking in phrases. She needed to sound like the lawyer she already is — just in English.
So we didn't open a textbook. We opened her actual job.
Every class ran through the same three-part structure:
- Present — new phrasal verbs, collocations, and diplomatic language in her legal context
- Practice — timed speaking drills: one minute, two minutes, eventually twenty seconds. No time to translate. No time to perfect. Just speak.
- Perform — role plays: negotiate a settlement, disagree with opposing counsel, explain a complex shareholder dispute to a client.
What Changed
At the start, Sandra didn't use phrasal verbs. She said "tolerate" instead of "put up with." She said "become" instead of "get." She said "investigate" instead of "look into." Her English was formal, translated, slow.
By the end, she was saying:
"The deal fell through because someone leaked confidential merger documents. We need to run through the contract again before we face trial."
She was using cleft sentences in spontaneous speech. She was disagreeing politely:
"With all due respect, I don't agree with you. I understand your perspective, but in my opinion, this sounds better."
She was handling British understatement in her homework:
"When a Brit says 'that's an interesting idea,' it can mean it's terrible."
And she wasn't memorising scripts. She was responding in real time.
The last thing I said to her: "You definitely speak better. Less doubt. Less stop-start. You come across more confident."
Sandra didn't become a different person in English. She became the same person — just without the filter of linguistic hesitation.
That's what we do at Adapta Languages. Not perfect English. Natural, authentic English.
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