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13 year old learning Spanish by himself?

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22 messages over 3 pages: 1 2
James29
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5176 days ago

1265 posts - 2113 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: French

 
 Message 17 of 22
18 October 2014 at 7:35pm | IP Logged 
The Prisma publisher has a ton of books directed at your child's age. Their products for adults are great and I'd imagine these are too.
Also, there is a new English based Assimil course.


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Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
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4 sounds
Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish

 
 Message 18 of 22
18 October 2014 at 9:58pm | IP Logged 
AlexTG wrote:
By "things which don't work" I was referring to the unbalanced nature of the suggestions, focusing on things which were deemed to be "fun" like duolingo and native resources when we know you can't learn a language with these alone.

It's thought that children can learn better from native materials though (and especially from immersion). For example, you don't need to pass the Finnish exam if you move to Finland before the age of 15.
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BOLIO
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4459 days ago

253 posts - 366 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 19 of 22
31 October 2014 at 4:56pm | IP Logged 
Language Transfer - Spanish 50 Lessons (FREE)
FSI - Basic Spanish (FREE)

Multiple free audio sites on the web concerning whatever the child's interests are.


IF, and I know it is a big IF, a person completed those two free courses, they would be on their way for all the free native materials they could handle.

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Jeffers
Senior Member
United Kingdom
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Speaks: English*
Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German

 
 Message 20 of 22
12 November 2014 at 8:20am | IP Logged 
I'd love to know how your brother's study is going, EnglishEagle. The fact that he expressed the interest himself means he is more likely to succeed, in my opinion.

Or have we scared you off with aggressive advice giving?
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Cavesa
Triglot
Senior Member
Czech Republic
Joined 4810 days ago

3277 posts - 6779 votes 
Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1
Studies: Spanish, German, Italian

 
 Message 21 of 22
12 November 2014 at 4:11pm | IP Logged 
I must admit I am slightly sceptical of the Prisma series. I don't lik the adult
version for some reasons (I think it might be ok with tons of supplements and perhaps
for a class but I trully wasn't impressed when I considered it for my self learning).

The trouble with courses aimed at children or teenagers is that they are actually
suitable for younger children than advertised due to underestimating the children
endlessly. I've seen a lot of children aimed courses and their authors appear to
believe the children are dumb. Basically, my 10 years old sister (and me years and
years before her) has always been bored by her English course aimed at ther age
because the content was usually stupid and uninteresting. At the age children devour
info about animals, other countries, the universe and whatever, the course was
strictly following the "these are my toys" pattern.

At the age of 13 or 14, I was totally fine with courses aimed at adults and so was
everone else around. I am not saying all thematerial aimed at younger teenagers is
bad, not at all. I am just saying that choosing a course just because it has a "12-15
years" tag, that is a huge mistake. Sure, you want a course that might have a more
interesting content that looking for a job abroad but all the other usual criteria for
a good quality course still apply.

Another thing: Well, any topic can lead to some comprehensive input. A fan of a
football team or a tv series is likely find the video too demanding in the beginnings
but can still find a Spanish fan site on the internet. And the passion can almost
always break the difficulty, large part of my generation dived into new Harry Potter
book before it was translated and before we were ready by the standards of most
htlalers. It helped our English and made us totally excited no matter we had gaps in
our understanding.
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Cavesa
Triglot
Senior Member
Czech Republic
Joined 4810 days ago

3277 posts - 6779 votes 
Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1
Studies: Spanish, German, Italian

 
 Message 22 of 22
12 November 2014 at 4:12pm | IP Logged 
And there was a great point. Spanish is an awesome language for a native of English or a
romance language. The intelligibility is quite high so you can start with native input
quite early. Comic books may be a good complement quite early. Not only many get
translated in Spanish, there are nice original Spanish ones too.


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