How to start Spanish? (Advice Center) Language Learning Forum

How to start Spanish?
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Language Learning Forum : Advice Center

12 messages over 2 pages: 1 2

dbag
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4833 days ago
605 posts - 1046 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

Message 9 of 12

30 April 2013 at 9:13am | IP Logged

Serpent wrote:

I suspect your definition of fluency involves very high standards for grammar...
I've never done an FSI course in my life. as it's free, it might be worth a try, but 3h a day? really? Only if you can put in some additional 3h of native/semi-native materials.

Not really. More just the ability to actually speak. I find that native materials help my comprehension a lot, and of course eventually are the most important thing, but they don't really help me speak better, or if they do its only in massive quantities.

Those drills really help build your automaticity, as well as deeply ingraining the most important grammatical structures. If the OP wants to actually speak reasonably well within that time frame, I would say FSI is his / her best shot, although of course lots of native media etc. is also hugely important. And if your attempting to get through FSI, your going to need to pull long days at some point or you just wont get through it.
1 person has voted this message useful

LanguageWizard
Newbie
United States
Joined 4048 days ago
3 posts - 4 votes
Speaks: English*

Message 10 of 12

30 April 2013 at 6:14pm | IP Logged

Thank you for your advice! Seriously, I feel that I am not as nervous to start this
mission as I was before!

If I need more help, I'll be sure to ask!
1 person has voted this message useful

James29
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5186 days ago
1265 posts - 2113 votes

Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: French

Message 11 of 12

01 May 2013 at 3:22am | IP Logged

I don't think you have mentioned how much time you will devote to your journey. Do as much FSI as you can possibly do... and then (if you have additional time during the week) do something that will help you build vocabulary and listening comprehension. You will find that you will have a limit with FSI, but you will be able to do less rigorous things on top of the FSI time.

I think of FSI (and also MT) as the foundational bookcase that you need to build before you start putting the books in it. Once you have it built a solid bookcase everything else will nicely fall into place.

2 persons have voted this message useful

LanguageWizard
Newbie
United States
Joined 4048 days ago
3 posts - 4 votes
Speaks: English*

Message 12 of 12

01 May 2013 at 10:47pm | IP Logged

I can spend about 1-2 hours a day most of the time to studying language if it had to be
consistent. Other days, I may have more time but it really depends. Thanks for your help!

1 person has voted this message useful

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