Best way to approach learning Spanish?

Martynt74 said:
I'm not paying an extra €20 just so you guys get free Spanish :p
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Come on, where's your community spirit?! :cry:

No, that's fair enough.

Tbh, it was one thing that put me off when I had a quick look over their site, I don't think I could find any pricing? Doing a search I can find a review from 2021 saying it's £4.99 a month, £39.99 a year, but you get offered £19.99 for a year if you insta sign up, which tbf is rather cheap.
 
AndyCr15 said:
Come on, where's your community spirit?! :cry:

No, that's fair enough.

Tbh, it was one thing that put me off when I had a quick look over their site, I don't think I could find any pricing? Doing a search I can find a review from 2021 saying it's £4.99 a month, £39.99 a year, but you get offered £19.99 for a year if you insta sign up, which tbf is rather cheap.
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Yeah the pricing generally seems all over the place which is a bit bizarre.
 
@AndyCr15 After your recent Girona trip, hows your Spanish getting on?

Mine is still so poor. We have a private lesson a week and do a "conversational" class at a local pub which is organised by the same person and generally involves them steering conversations but trying to not be a "teacher" and just pushing the flow along, and it is improving a little but i've been so lazy at putting in hours outside of that. Part of the issue is still that a lot around here use Valenciano which is close enough to normal Spanish that fluent speakers generally understand it, but different enough that i just think i know nothing!

The Alicante region has a course for residents which i tried to sign up to last year but wasn't accepted but this year i got in on the day of applications and just had confirmation. They measure participation and kick you off the course if you're not putting the work in and i'm hoping that moves me along.
 
Martynt74 said:
@AndyCr15 After your recent Girona trip, hows your Spanish getting on?

Mine is still so poor. We have a private lesson a week and do a "conversational" class at a local pub which is organised by the same person and generally involves them steering conversations but trying to not be a "teacher" and just pushing the flow along, and it is improving a little but i've been so lazy at putting in hours outside of that. Part of the issue is still that a lot around here use Valenciano which is close enough to normal Spanish that fluent speakers generally understand it, but different enough that i just think i know nothing!

The Alicante region has a course for residents which i tried to sign up to last year but wasn't accepted but this year i got in on the day of applications and just had confirmation. They measure participation and kick you off the course if you're not putting the work in and i'm hoping that moves me along.
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Do yourself a favour and force yourself to watch something either in Spanish, or with Spanish subtitles. Make it something good so you're actually invested in it, and you'll pick it up a lot quicker than you think. I learned Dutch by just forcing it down my throat until it stuck. I now also speak Spanish with some of the cleaners at work who are helping me pick up little bits here and there.

The trick is to just sledgehammer it. Don't think of it as learning another language, think of it as learning how to speak. Force yourself enough and it'll soon stick.
 
Well, Girona was a while back now. I've been to the Costa Blanca and twice to Mallorca since then. I think my Spanish has rather stalled a little. I do still try and get bits done (I'm on a 165 day streak with Babbel and still do an hour each week with my brother's gf) but I think it's a little like cycling. In cycling they say it never gets easier, you just get faster. With Spanish, I feel like it's always hard, but you are getting better... but each time you get better, the lessons get harder, so it feels a bit like you're not progressing.

The hardest bit is understanding when they talk to you. I wish they would just speak slower to me... I can ask for most things I need, eg in a bar/restaurant we wanted some tap water for the table. A pretty simple request, but the guys response seemed to be machine gunned at me and I just stood looking blank, feeling like I knew nothing! Other times, I can pick out enough words to understand what they've told me, but tbh I was doing that 18 months back, so it does feel like I've plateaued and would need to spend more time in Spain to improve my listening.

My bro's gf hooked me up with Dreaming Spanish YouTube videos.


I've only watched a couple so far (they have different levels, starting at Super Beginner) and can understand Beginner well enough. Mind you, they have so many visual prompts, it's almost hard not to follow, but I guess it's different if you actually understand the words being said as opposed to just what was meant by a sentence due to the images shown.
 
AndyCr15 said:
The hardest bit is understanding when they talk to you. I wish they would just speak slower to me... I can ask for most things I need, eg in a bar/restaurant we wanted some tap water for the table. A pretty simple request, but the guys response seemed to be machine gunned at me and I just stood looking blank, feeling like I knew nothing! Other times, I can pick out enough words to understand what they've told me, but tbh I was doing that 18 months back, so it does feel like I've plateaued and would need to spend more time in Spain to improve my listening.
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I'd say that's similar for me. Reading/Writing/Expressing what i want i'm pretty decent at, but my head just melts when i hear something. Even more so if i'm not expecting it.

In my private lesson we've started listening to a conversation on multiple topics. Only quick 60 second recordings, but you find the first listen you pick a bit, but it takes a minimum of 3 attempts to really get all of it, and it's a lot easier doing that than in a conversation

@Diddums x I have tried that, there's a couple of sit coms, and one of them is designed for spanish students (forget the name), but they speak purposefully slow which is quite useful but just never feels like cracking the code. A lot is pure laziness on my part and i'm open to admit that. Whatsapp/google translate has made it quite easy to get by perfectly well without being fluent and it's made me slightly lazy.

I hoped some podcasts like Coffee Break Spanish on the bike would be good, but it never quite clicked.
 
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AndyCr15 said:
Yeah, I keep meaning to watch 'La Casa de Pappel' again, as that was very good or maybe something new that has been rated quite well, El Eternauta.
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I found "Elite" relatively easy to understand with the safety net of subtitles, off course.

I watched the 1st 2 seasons. My Spanish is still not great though :cry:. Plus 3 of the younger actors from La Casa de Papel are in it, with more prominent roles.


rp2000
 
rp2000 said:
I found "Elite" relatively easy to understand with the safety net of subtitles, off course.
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I had that on my list, but then read how it progressively gets worse. Looking on IMDb, the first three seasons are rated up around 8, then a couple of seasons around 7, then the last three around 6 and below :( I think that put me off.
 
AndyCr15 said:
I had that on my list, but then read how it progressively gets worse. Looking on IMDb, the first three seasons are rated up around 8, then a couple of seasons around 7, then the last three around 6 and below :( I think that put me off.
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The actors/actresses are easy enough on the eye that you don't pay too much attention to the story :p It's hard to describe, but just like La Casa De Papel, it covers a lot of social issues that are/were relevant in Spain when these shows aired, so that is why they were HUUUGE in Spain but not so well reviewed/liked overseas.


rp2000
 
AndyCr15 said:
The hardest bit is understanding when they talk to you.
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Ask them to slow down. You'll be surprised how accommodating people can be when you tell them you're trying to learn their language.


Except Germans, **** those guys.
 
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Oh, of course. The Spanish are always very happy that you try and often, when I apologise that mine isn't good, they try and tell me it is... which is nice of them (to lie like that :cry: ).
 
AndyCr15 said:
Oh, of course. The Spanish are always very happy that you try and often, when I apologise that mine isn't good, they try and tell me it is... which is nice of them (to lie like that :cry: ).
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I usually repay the favour and tell them their limited English is very good. One lie deserves another!


rp2000
 
Dont learn Catalan like i did , i can understand someone speaking Spanish but they cant understand me. (although that could be the guttural scouse accent).
 
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leemk said:
Dont learn Catalan like i did , i can understand someone speaking Spanish but they cant understand me. (although that could be the guttural scouse accent).
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I believe Catalan is very similar to Valenciano and also Murcia with it coming down that East coast.

There’s certainly moves to bring the localised languages back. I could actually get a tax deduction on any expenses incurred to promote the Valencia’s language.
 
So, the local community offer a free course through. I applied months ago and it started on the 17th. It's all online and you work at your own pace, but i believe they record your hours and remove you if you don't do enough which should keep me motivated.

I did a "find your level" assessment and got A1- (yep, A1 minus!) Didn't even know it existed to be that low! Some of the questions were very tough and not what i'd have expected, although i suppose it has to range to test all levels. Some questions were also a bit weird in that it had me fill in the blanks for a sentence, but 3 options were suitable (The phrase was effectively "Pass me the XXX, please" and then i had the option or bread, salt, menu, and another which didn't work)

It seems a decent platform so hopefully it motivates me to stick with it. The main annoyance so far is it's not always clear what the question wants you to do and is then very rigid in the answer.
 
Good luck.

I'm currently on day 105 of my streak on Lingq(I think around 80 hours total). A combination of following the guided courses and importing videos from Youtube. Things are sinking in but man, it's slow.

Overall, I've been dabbing on and off for around 4+ years, combination of Pimsleur, Coffee Break Italian, Language Transfer. I'd say the last 100 days have been the best progress so far and it all comes down to finding content you actually enjoy watching rather than doing things that feel like a chore.

I try to find at least 40 minutes out of the day to do something with the language in Lingq, the fact that it tracks your time and streaks is worth the subscription cost IMO.
 
Yeah, that definitely helps. Beelinguapp was good for me as it had articles based on my hobbies so gave relevant questions.

I think this course will annoy me as it's so fixed in it's answer requirements. I've just done a section on numbers (first, second, third etc) as they go on forever in Spanish. It asks for the answer for 12th but then doesn't accept either Decimosegunda or Decimosegundo. It gives an error if you use the wrong one, but there's no clue as to which gender it wants. Then it asks for 13th and flips it to be the opposite, and i don't see anything to suggest numbers alone have genders so i had to go through making notes of the answers on the second attempt and then get 100% on the 3rd attempt!

It'd be easy if it gave you a noun to base the answer on but it doesn't, and this is only the first day. I think this rigidity won't work for me.
 
That's the worry with courses, too much emphasis on non-colloquial stuff that you'll never need to know. Did you end up trying a tutor?
 
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