It is strange how Spanish can feel like a dead language even while you are practicing. Even though you have been doing it, reading it, and reciting it, you do not seem to be moving forward with it. Vocabulary and sentence patterns that you seemed to know suddenly elude you during conversation. Your Spanish comes out slowly and you feel as though you are just reading through practice material that you have seen before again and again. The feeling of being stuck can occur even after some good early progress. It may not be because you have not been practicing hard enough. You may be practicing it correctly but in too predictable a way. Spanish advances best as the brain is challenged to remember it, change it, and use it. If practice involves simply going over flash cards or listening without any effort to respond, the language may remain familiar, but not very active.
One way to break out of a plateau of stagnation is to change what you are doing in your Spanish practice without doing more of it. Instead of asking yourself, “What more Spanish can I learn this week?” you may want to ask, “What more can I do with what Spanish I already know?” This is an important distinction. For example, if you know one sentence structure like “quiero,” “tengo que,” “voy a,” “me gusta,” and you take it one step farther, such as using it in the present as well as with different time words, places, or reasons. So “voy al mercado” becomes “hoy voy al mercado, mañana no voy al mercado” or “voy al mercado porque necesito fruta.” You do not have to be perfect, but the point is to no longer use the phrase as something you recognize but as something you can manipulate. It is that added demand that allows for the Spanish to grow again.
Another mistake you may be making while stuck is moving too far into new content. Your reaction to frustration may be to study even more vocabulary and grammar and complete even more exercises. This usually only makes things feel even less manageable. If you lack a strong enough base, building more on top will not help. Instead you want to cut the content in half but add to your ability to work with what you have. So for example, spend a couple of days on just three sentence patterns. Try them in different ways. Practice them aloud, recite them, and try using them in some real life situations. If you are unable to get comfortable with one of them, slow it down and look more carefully at it. Maybe the problem is not the structure of the sentence, but the form of one of the verbs, the article, or the order. A quick adjustment can sometimes allow you to move past that obstacle.
A good 15 minute practice that can help you get through a plateau like this is as follows. First, recite five of the sentence structures aloud until they sound steady. Next, put down the book and repeat those structures from memory. Then modify them slightly. For example, instead of simply repeating “me gusta el café,” you might practice no me gusta el café and me gusta el té and me gusta el café por la mañana. Spend the last two minutes or so combining one of the structures with another. It is common for students to get stuck when their Spanish practice is too short and too simple. It may be necessary to work at the level of the sentence in order to move into simple flow.
Another way to break out of a plateau is to identify what is actually giving you trouble. Maybe the problem is pronunciation but you are blaming your grammar. Maybe your difficulty listening is that you have not used enough very slow or short audio. Maybe your problem with speaking is that you have been reading too much. Be honest with yourself about the actual problem and then work on that. This will make your Spanish move again as your Spanish becomes a bit narrower, a bit harder, and a bit more honest about its weak areas. Plateaus are not necessarily a bad thing. They tell you where you need to focus in order to grow, and they allow you to change vague frustration into specific practice.