Hehe for me it were daily memories, computers always been my favorite hobby i even played before going to school if i wasn't watching cartoons <8:30 instead of eating breakfast, etc.
Eventually that also made me drop in classes though not doing homework and such, and then i think that was also the cause i had to drop out when i was 15 (i did home schooling later on with perfection though).

My uncle was a black market software dealer so we got BBS stuff (that was like the internet back then) from him (we still had to pay him, didn't get it for free) on that BBS were games, programs (and sometimes a virus which back then was way more problematic with no proper antivirus and all DOS) and sometimes came a walkthrough which was in english offcourse (i am dutch) so you printed that out and had it next to you, but even with a walkthrough it was still puzzling sometimes.

But sometimes we bought special books in dutch that had pictures or even hints instead of just straightout walkthroughs for the sierra/lucasarts games, maybe they exist in spanish too and you can still find them on ebay?.
And offcourse game magazines, i raced to the store each month just hoping to find that tip on that game i was stuck on, i mean the articles on new games were nice, but i bought them for the tips and walkthroughs.
Oh and playing with friends offcourse to share ideas, i even skipped school once with a friend (both with our mothers agreements) to play little big adventure. Were fun times, even when there was no internet i usually managed to find a way to solve them.

If you know english then spanish shouldn't be too difficult i think, as they got the same origin i believe? Why some english words are close to spanish ones, and you are lucky a bunch of games are in spanish.
Japanese is a whole different ballgame, i know a dutch game magazine writer got to learn just the basics of japanese games by plaing them alot, so it's possible, but i think just the basics, the whole language might proof to be very difficult.
You are better off just waiting on translations, perhaps they exist and you don't know yet? I got a retro private tracker but for obvious reasons can't post here, but can send invites.