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Learning techniques for Spanish | ||
Tags: Learning Technique/Method | Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Faust Newbie Canada Joined 4801 days ago 13 posts - 15 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 6 07 October 2011 at 12:24am | IP Logged | ||
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Hello!
I'm new here, lurked around a bit. I'm in a bit of a rut with Spanish. I only know very little Spanish because I'm a beginner. I was wondering if anyone has suggestions on where to start? I know grammer and vocabulary are important (I have a couple books), I do listen to some Disney movies in Spanish and some music as well to get familiar with the language pronunciation. I also have a friend who speaks Spanish as his native language but I am just afraid of asking too many questions... As for actually starting a foundation, where should I begin my studies? Any tips would be appriciated, gracias! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fiziwig Senior Member United States Joined 4866 days ago 297 posts - 618 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 2 of 6 07 October 2011 at 1:28am | IP Logged | ||
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I too, am a beginner in Spanish after about 8 months of self-study, although I score mid-intermediate on a few tests I've taken.
The two books I found most helpful at the early stages were "Easy Spanish Reader" by Tardy, and "Spanish for Reading" by Franco and Sandberg. Both let formal grammar take a back seat to comprehension, only going into as much grammar as necessary at each stage of reading. After that I dived into more serious reading with Harry Potter translations and a translation of Alice in Wonderland. The only drawback was that my comprehension got to be very high, but my ability to produce sentences on the fly stayed virtually non-existent. That's when I enrolled in a conversational Spanish course at the local community college. That and a lot of repetitious drill on creating sentences on the fly eventually began to grease my creaky mental gears and my production came up to speed with my reading level. I'm still only intermediate after 8 months, but I'm considering going to Mexico for a few months for a total immersion course some time next year. --gary 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Faust Newbie Canada Joined 4801 days ago 13 posts - 15 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 3 of 6 07 October 2011 at 3:56am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't really have the opportunity to travel, I only have a part time job or else I'd definitely go to Mexico, Spain or any other Spanish speaking country! My friend is online and he does help me when I can but with my lack of confidence I hardly speak at all. I will have to change that soon!
I was browsing around and came across a blog, that pretty summed it up as "You can study as much as you want, you can build your grammer and vocabulary to your hearts content but if you don't go out and SPEAK the language, you aren't going to learn much." I am sure a lot of people will say so otherwise, but there is truth in his words. But not a lot of people are fortunate to have access to these people and will have to resort to downloading audio clips for pronunciation, Spanish films with English dubs, talking to themselves in the mirror and even labeling their own house hold products...so on and so forth. I think that's a good start too! I believe anything is possible with effort and motivation! Perhaps that is what I need to get my own feet going (and mind!) and start doing something. I think balancing a good knowledge of some basic grammer and vocabulary is a good start to branch from there... Edited by Faust on 07 October 2011 at 3:58am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 4 of 6 07 October 2011 at 12:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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My advice to anyone wanting to learn Spanish is to get the Michel Thomas Foundation/For Beginner's and Advanced courses.
These cover a phenomenal amount of the grammar of the language in a very straightforward and efficient way. Its biggest strength is that it focussed on building sentences "on the fly". 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5263 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 5 of 6 07 October 2011 at 1:24pm | IP Logged | ||
Now you're on the right track. The "multi-track" approach is the way to go. You are so lucky to live in this era. When I was learning Spanish, I didn't have anywhere near the resources available to me that are out there today. I had a shortwave radio, "Spanish Step By Step" by Charles Berlitz (no audio), the University of Chicago pocket Spanish-English bilingual dictionary and a bilingual book of Spanish short stories. I grew up in a very small town in the upper south of the US before the internet in the 80's. I acquired as much knowledge as I could but it didn't do me much good until I started speaking and using Spanish. Whenever I got the chance, whenever I would happen upon someone who was a Spanish speaker, I would take the opportunity to practice the language. Each time I would learn a bit more and the next time I spoke it would be a bit easier. Later, I would travel on my own to Spanish speaking countries. Not only did I get to see some amazing places but I met some wonderful people and learned a lot of Spanish in a short amount of time, building upon the basics that I knew beforehand by speaking Spanish. I did it on the cheap. You can travel overland on the bus from Canada to Panama for about a dollar an hour. Remember that when you have more money. Today, it would be so much easier. Today there is the internet. There are many opportunities for skype language exchanges (lenguajero.com where you can write and speak to natives). There is couchsurfing.org where you can host Spanish speakers or stay with them for free. There are free FSI Spanish and DLI Spanish courses with tons of audio. Destinos, the telenovela for Spanish learners is free on-line. You have non-staticky, non fading, Spanish radio on the web. There's a free listening and reading magazine called Veinte Mundos specially designed for Spanish learners, free dictionaries, free verb conjugators. The list of free resources available for language learners today is enormous. Radio FLE Practica Español Hola que tal curso has a free level and the videos are all available on youtube for free. Much of the "Holaquetal" course is taken from the Centro Virtual Cervantes Aveteca. The Aveteca has multimedia resources for Levels A1 through B2. Further searching on the site will take you to Lecturas paso a paso which has graded readings from beginner to advanced with exercises and explanations to help you. I could go on and on. Get familiar with the "g-search function" here on the forum. Speaking of Guatemala, the country has always been known for having cheap language schools. Now, they've gone on-line. I recommended one to my girlfriend which she has used, along with other resources and she says it's very helpful. It is a school that helps out the local people as well. It costs $10US an hour via paypal. Proyecto Linguistica Quetzalteco de Español. She does two classes a week and loves it. Her Spanish has improved dramatically- not bad for $20 a week. If you can find $10 a week, I think it would help you a lot with just one weekly class. If not, wait until you can afford it. Save the link for later. In short, there are simply no excuses today for not being able to practice with natives, whether you're in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan or on a small Caribbean island like me. Having little money is not an excuse. As long as you have an internet connection you can speak to a native on-line. The public library has courses and if they don't have them at your location ask for an inter-library loan. You can probably get that Michael Thomas course @Cainntear recommended through an inter-library loan. At the same time, speak. You just have to lose your fear of mangling the language with your first attempts at speaking. Everyone does it. Everyone makes mistakes, especially when you're first starting out. It's normal. You will get better as you go along using and speaking the language. So, learn the basics of Spanish via some method or other and then plunge right into speaking as often as you can. How are you going to learn to speak if you don't speak? If you wait til you're "ready", you'll never be "ready". Stop talking about it and start studying and talking! No excuses. Edited by iguanamon on 07 October 2011 at 5:03pm 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Faust Newbie Canada Joined 4801 days ago 13 posts - 15 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 6 of 6 07 October 2011 at 5:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you for the replies! They have been certainally helpful to me (and possibly anyone else who needs that extra bump to do something as well!) I will try different methods to get me going in my fun, yet challenging (of course!) study to learn Spanish.
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