<p>If so, how are you guys preparing?
I work as a cashier at a grocery store and one of my Customers was from Ecuador and I told her that this coming year was gonna be my 5th year taking spanish and that I had spent 3 weeks in Spain and she tried having a convo with me in Spanish and the whole time i was sitting there like "lol wut...?"
But yea I've forgotten soooooo much spanish this summer...</p>
<p>No, but I’m taking AP Spanish 
Just had to say that lol. But I’ve been forgetting too, I mostly just try to watch the news in Spanish when I can and thinking in Spanish when I’m bored lol</p>
<p>People from different countries speak differently. It could just be that she had a thick Ecuadorean accent and used her native slang, assuming you would be fluent enough to understand her. My advice is to listen to people from different countries and get used to hearing different accents, instead of just the standard. On last year’s exam, one of the speakers for the audio resources had a thick Castillian accent (I believe it was a BBC Mundo report, but I’m not sure), and the other one had a thick Puerto Rican accent. Familiarize yourself with these, so you’re not too lost.</p>
<p>To demonstrate a bit of Boricuan (Puerto Rican) talk, words get slurred alot. For example: pasado becomes pasao, sentado becomes sentao, para becomes pa, etc. S sounds at the ends of syllables become aspirated, so esta sounds like eh’ta and es sounds like e’. R sounds at the end, become l’s (Puelto Rico). Here’s a funny reggaeton song which aught to teach you some good 'ol PR. You probably won’t understand it without googling the lyrics. </p>
<p>[Voltio</a> - El Mellao - YouTube](<a href=“Voltio - El Mellao (Video) - YouTube”>Voltio - El Mellao (Video) - YouTube)</p>
<p>And yeah, just keep yourself in the language. It doesn’t hurt to turn on Univison and watch a novela every now and then.</p>