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Spanish in Spain and Latin America | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Immersion, Schools & Certificates |  | |
| LiquidTester Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5798 days ago 28 posts - 32 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Czech | Message 2 of 35 17 January 2009 at 5:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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Unless you're loaded, I think you should study at home and take a ten-day vacation. I traveled for almost a year and found several schools in Buenos Aires that were pretty cheap. I would suggest a hostel where you interact with locals and South American immigrants who won't speak that much English ( as opposed to a touristy party hostel ). That is the only way I know to meet some native-speakers within just a couple days unless you are a really good extrovert. But, if you are rich enough to take more than one ten-day study adventures you don't want to stay in a hostel.
If you can clarify what you're going, how much you know etc for I'll be more helpful. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mark-english Newbie Spain learnspanishspain.wo Joined 5789 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes | Message 4 of 35 26 January 2009 at 11:55am | IP Logged | ||
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I think 10 days will definitely give your Spanish a good boost if you are at a level where you can have basic conversations (even if people have to be nice to you for you to understand). If you won't even be able to have very basic conversations then you are better to wait until you are at this level. You will also need to be brave enough to "go for it". However don't expect miracles - learning languages does take time.
In any case, the experience will give you a major motivation boost which is hard to get any other way! I study at Abla Lenguas in Valencia (they also have a school in Barcelona) - I'm not supposed to drop URLs in this forum but if you, err, combine those two words and put ".com" at the end then you might get there. They have private classes which is exactly what I would recommend for you because group classes tend to be for a fixed time, e.g. May - July whereas you need a very short, intensive course at hours you choose. So either a language school like Abla Lenguas with flexible private classes, or perhaps you could organise a private tutor. Good luck. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6447 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes  Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 6 of 35 27 January 2009 at 1:37am | IP Logged | ||
You get to meet others during small group classes, but they're fellow students of your target language; they're unlikely to speak it much better than you do. Given that you're in the USA, they're also likely to be fellow English speakers, so make many of the same mistakes and have similar accent problems; you'll reinforce each other. Group lessons are nowhere near as effective as a one-on-one lesson; you're guided by the other student's interests, the teacher isn't as flexible, you can't ask as many questions... Also, this talk of having your accent altered by your fellow students isn't theoretical, by the way. I spoke Italian with a Swiss-German accent for years due to an intensive group class, and I don't speak Swiss-German! I'd recommend socializing elsewhere; join a small group devoted to something else you care about (in English or Spanish, as you prefer; either way, most of your peers will probably speak the language in question well). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6447 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 8 of 35 27 January 2009 at 11:36am | IP Logged | ||
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Meet bilingual people who speak Spanish natively and English fluently/natively; they're likely to have Spanish-speaking friends who also speak Spanish natively (or are perhaps even monolingual - though probably there aren't many in your area, they'll probably know some online - perhaps on forums or online multiplayer computer games).
Hanging out with English speakers is fine - just don't expect it to improve your Spanish. Prioritize accordingly. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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