[2009] Whats the fastest way to learn spanish ?

[easyrider]

So what do you think ? Can a person learn spanish fast ? About how long to be fairly good at it ?

 

[falmouth3]

I guess it depends on how adept the individual is at learning languages. There was just an article in our paper about self-teach methods. They liked the Berlitz method, followed by Rosetta Stone.

Sue

 

[Passepartout]

What Sue said... Some people seem to be able to learn languages more easily than others. It's easier for the young than some of us, ahem, seasoned folk.

We went on a week Elderhostel 'Learn Spanish' trip a few years ago. The drills helped. I listen to some taped lessons before we go to a Spanish speaking country. This helps get the ears tuned to hear it. My problem is lack of practice. When we're at home I don't turn on Spanish TV. My work brings me in contact with some Spanish people, but they all want to practice English with me. I think I have enough Spanish to keep out of jail, but to sit and have a comfortable conversation about wide ranging subjects with a native Spanish speaker? Nope.

I think I'd like to take an immersion program for 2-3 weeks, living with a family in either Mexico/S.or Central America where no English is spoken. "Course, there's nothing wrong with a couple of weeks there anyway whether one learns anything or not.

Jim Ricks

 

[lizhecht]

Work in a store for a week

When I was in high school, I did an exchange program. They put me in a store for a week. I mostly stocked the shelves and swept the floor, but one day the manager left me alone for the afternoon, so he could run an errand.

Reading all the cans and boxes, listening to people come and go, and having to answer questions myself was an amazing lesson in language.

I recommend, studying it in a class for a year or so, then go on vacation for a month. Not to a timeshare in little Miami (Cancun), but somewhere like Honduras or Costa Rica and stay in a small town where you are forced to speak to people. That or go on one of those volunteer projects helping some community in Guatemala. You will move from repeating words to speaking in more than present tense by the time you go home.

 

[EAM]

Immersion plus standard grammar and vocab lessons and a dictionary. If you have to learn a language you will.

 

[geekette]

Well, this might be too obvious, but Use It. The best way to really learn is by doing. Find some folks that are fluent (or close enuf!) and practice with them on occasion.

GOOD LUCK!

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

I just started participating in an informal group that meets weekly near my house to speak Spanish. I connected with them through www.meetup.com.

******

I've been taking night school classes for one year, and have done a fair amount of additional study. Right now I can pick up a Spanish language newspaper and understand about half of what is written without a dictionary. If it's a story about something where I have a lot of context available (such as a report on an sporting event) my reading comprehension is 90% or more.

My writing is still very fractured for anything that isn't elementary Spanish. My speaking abilities are awful. And my oral comprehension totally blows. I I turn on Univision I'm lucky if I can understand one word in ten, and then what I do pick up aren't the significant words. If I turn on Sabado Gigante I do a bit better. If I watch a Spanish-language newscast I can pick up more, because there is more context available. Also because news is mostly reporting facts, news language is generally simpler than the high drama of a telenovela.

But those issues are mostly related to lack of practice with the oral language. That's why I decided to get involved in the meetup group.

*****

I've communicated a bit by e-mail with a high school foreign languages instructor in Canada who speaks several languages. FWIW, from his experience teaching Spanish he feels that for most students learning Spanish is easy in the beginning stages. But after grasping some of the basic elements, students reach a plateau where it starts to feel as if they are marking no progress and the language seems overwhelming. But if they soldier on across that plateau, it opens up for them again.

I'm certainly on that plateau.

*******

One of the fascinating issues is learning a different perspective on the world. Language is intricately tied to culture, and how things are expressed in language is an expression of that culture.

Contrasting the two languages, English is all about me; that is English puts a lot of attention on the person who is speaking. Spanish is much more about you; the focuse is much more on the listener and the audience.

 

[easyrider]

Has anyone used Rosseta Stone ? Holy Moly the lessons are spendy. I tried to recapture some of the spanish I learned 30 + years ago with a $30.00 CD from Office Depot but it was so boring.

 

[bogey21]

If you live in Texas as I do, go to work at MacDonald's. Except for the people at the register who are bi-lingual, Spanish is all that is spoken.

George

 

[falmouth3]

Has anyone used Rosseta Stone ? Holy Moly the lessons are spendy. I tried to recapture some of the spanish I learned 30 + years ago with a $30.00 CD from Office Depot but it was so boring.

I have a friend who is a consultant who had a longish assignment in the French-speaking region of Switzerland. She bought Rosetta and at first she thought it was pretty good, but then abandoned it and continued limping along with what she knew.

 

[falmouth3]

I've been taking night school classes for one year, and have done a fair amount of additional study. Right now I can pick up a Spanish language newspaper and understand about half of what is written without a dictionary. If it's a story about something where I have a lot of context available (such as a report on an sporting event) my reading comprehension is 90% or more.

My grandmother learned to speak English using night school to start and then she continued with the newspaper and a dictionary.

Sue

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

I've also been thinking about connecting with someone from Mexico or Central America who wants to learn English and swapping my English assistance for their Spanish assistance.

Maybe something such as we converse; they try to speak in English and I try to speak in Spanish, and we both help each other through the rough patches.

 

[easyrider]

I found the Rosseta Stone Spanish cd's at www.cheapestsoftwareanywhere.com

It seems like its just the software without the box or manual. The price is right. WSU has a spanish class through out the summer, seems spendy. No groups for my area.

 

[Conan]

I think what works best depends on your learning profile.

Rosetta Stone has you look at a picture

while they say the word. That doesn't work for me.


I learn best with my ears alone. I've had good success with Pimsleur CDs which are purely aural.

 

[geoffb]

Rassias method is the fastest.

 

[buceo]

In a word, no. If you grew up learning 4 other languages; then as an adult adding one more may be "fast", but for the rest of us it is brutal. There's learning phrases, very simple verb conjugation and then there is social conversation. Two different worlds.

Take a series of classes, two nights a week, study at least 30mn per night otherwise. Additionally order all the added study aids you can, then do immersion.

Good luck. I've given myself 10 years to learn Spanish and I'm on year 3 and I'm not sure I will make it ( I don't work as hard as the above prescription) . I'm probably as bad as any body except for the countless numbers that give up.

 

[missmarie]

more ideas

I have been learning from a conversational spanish college text, along with free itunes podcasts, and "People" magazine in espanol. I also download spanish music. May I recommend Julietta Venegas, Reik, Shakira, Alejandro Sanz, Lola Lolita Lola , and Los Lobos. (Linda Ronstadt Mariachi if you are hard core). Combine all that with taking every opportunity to speak with spanish speakers on the street ( luckily I live in Southern California,
and frequent Arizona). Never under estimate the value of old school flash cards and the pocket dictionary! With deligence, it can be done. I was tempted to purchase Rosetta Stone, but it is so expensive and you hit a wall when you need help with Ser vs. Estar, Cual, como and cuanto.

 

[x3 skier]

The Beeb

The BBC has a series of Spanish Lessons that I found helpful as a starter. You can download them and study as you want.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/spanish/lj/

But nothing beats having to speak a language to communicate.

They have several other languages as well.

Cheers

 

[tonyg]

Just press 2.

 

[easyrider]

Just press 2.

very very FUNNY !! :rofl:

I broke down and bought the watered down verion of 1 2 3 Rosetta Stone latin america. I find it amusing that there is a spanish for Spain and a spanish for Mexico. English in America is the same as the UK and Austraila, isn't it ?

 

[DeniseM]

I find it amusing that there is a spanish for Spain and a spanish for Mexico. English in America is the same as the UK and Austraila, isn't it ?

Nope...maybe not as different and between Spain and Mexco, but lots of differences - especially slang.

 

[falmouth3]

A couple of words immediately come to mind in US English and British English. Here a jumper is kind of a dress worn over a blouse. There it is a cardigan sweater. A fag is a cigarette in England.

Also, they don't have cookies, they have biscuits. A jacket potato is a baked potato. Potato chips are crisps and on and on. But you can certainly understand people from England and they can understand you. It's just every once in a while there is a disconnect over words or phrases.

And they often use S's where we use Z's. BTW, A Z in England is a Zed and and H is pronounced Haych.

Sue

 

[jschmidt]

From what I have observed, Spanish cannot be that hard to learn. When I was in Mexico last year even the very little children were speaking Spanish.

Buena Suerte!

 

[Ellis2ca]

How long does it take to be fairly good at SPANISH?

So what do you think ? Can a person learn spanish fast ? About how long to be fairly good at it ?

Believe it or not... *** I *** have a way for you to learn about
4000 cognate words in Spanish in about one hour... (a "cognate"
word is a word that has the same ROOT in two or more languages...
in this case, Spanish, English, French, Italian, Portuguese, Rumanian,
Catalan, and maybe a few other languages...)

It is not A LIST of words. It is a way to learn hundreds of words with A RULE that shows you how to recognize or guess the meaning of hundreds of words in Spanish...

And it is really very simple, but not obvious... You will learn it eventually,
but you can learn it much faster if you study my rules.. it works with almost all words that have the same SUFFIX ("ending") in English... so they RHYME...

In fact, they rhyme so much that I WROTE some AMAZING COGNATE
POEMS... here is a sample of one:

I'm not good as PROFETA
So I'll try it as POETA
Shout about it in GACETA
I announce it with TROMPETA
Toussier's Cognate Words is here...

Now you start on new PROYECTO
Get a dose of INTELLECTO
You'll speak Spanish soon CORRECTO
Or some other DIALECTO

For this method NECESARIO
Study short VOCABLULARIO
It might help increase SALARIO
You'll be linguist HONORARIO...

etc... This poem has about 10 stanzas

And here is another:

To speak Spanish and English is of great IMPORTANCIA
It is something you need in many CIRCUNSTANCIA
I've a method that shows there's a great ABUNDANCIA
Spanish words which you know each and every INSTANCIA

It also has about 10 stanzas...

But my best and longest poem (about 80 stanzas) is UNBELIEVABLE... it is
A JOKE, or a LONG STORY, which I wrote in poetry and it is AMAZING.

Excuse me for blowing my own trumpet, but that is the only way to describe this poem. I will tell you what a famous Russian linguist wrote to me about my third and greatest amazing cognate poem so you will believe me that it is amazing:
===========================
Hi Ellis,

How marvelous are your poems! You have discovered a new and efficient way to teach languages. It is an interesting experiment in teaching languages. As a linguist, I am interested in it very much.

With admiration, Best regards,

Sebastian Shaumyan
Professor Emeritus of Linguistics, Yale University
============================

Anyways... I wrote all this to tell you: Spanish is very easy for you to
learn... a lot easier than Russian or Chinese, because you already will
recognize THE ALPHABET, and you will already recognize about 7000
words in Spanish... That HELPS A LOT!!!

So... GO AND READ MY FIRST TWO POEMS Here:

http://www.amazingcognatepoems.com

And if you like these first two, write to me and I will give you a special deal on my entire system. (if they don't erase this post because it is "advertising...") - Ellis

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

So what do you think ? Can a person learn spanish fast ? About how long to be fairly good at it ?

What do you mean by "fairly good at it"? Enough to get by as a tourist? Enough to read a Spanish language with 75% comprehension? Enough to exchange pleasantries and make simple requests? Enough to carry on a conversation about the day's events with a native Spanish speaker? Enough to carry on a torrid affair and express your love, passion and excitement and share your inmost thoughts? Enough to be able to pick up and relocation to village in Peru where no one speaks English? Enough to defend yourself with the policia in case you are in an accident?