Best way to approach learning Spanish?

A2Z

A2Z

Soldato
Joined
9 May 2005
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Earth
When I had a Brazilian girlfriend I learnt basic Portuguese. I did spend 3 months over there so got immersed in it. And did my own studying in books too.

After that had a Paraguayan girlfriend so learnt basic Spanish from talking to her and when I went to Paraguay a couple of times.

I did try Duolingo to get better at the grammar but found it wasnt as good as actually listening and talking it non stop in real life.

Yes I have a thing for Latinas mmm but now I switched my attention and have a Vietnamese girlfriend... don't think I will be learning her language as fast :p
 
Associate
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1 Aug 2018
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Vienna
I think the most effective way is to move to that country for a few months!
I'm also learning German at the moment (it's really hard!) and I moved to Vienna for a semester abroad :)
I really hope my German ist getting better but I think I've already made some progress!
 
Caporegime
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28 Oct 2003
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Spanish is a good language to choose as there are so many options out there -

1) Michel Thomas is a fantastic way. He's less about set phrases and vocab and more about teaching you the backbone of any language - verbs and some grammar.
2) Linguaphone allTalk. No books required, it's a 16-hour audio course with a soap-opera-like story to keep you interested.
3) Duolingo - Free on the web.
4) Rosetta Stone - pricey but quite indepth but has no real explanations of what's going on.
5) Instagram - I follow a load of native Spaniards so I get to learn all the slang stuff which I can't repeat here. :D
 
Associate
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Vienna
Oh that's so true, I've also heard that a few times!
Sometimes the people think that I moved from England to Germany to Vienna and not directly to Vienna because of the way I speak.
But I think if you use 'oida' or 'heast' often enough, everyone will think that you never lived somewhere else! haha
 
Soldato
Joined
23 Mar 2004
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Yorkshire
I've started learning Spanish on Duolingo which I'm enjoying, the gamification is quite addictive. Going to try Babbel too as I heard this might be better for "proper" Spanish, more detail on grammar etc.

I'm looking to find a local teacher but are there any other courses or resources people would recommend?
 
Caporegime
Joined
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Chestershire
Funny, I nearly resurrected this thread the other day in order to ask if anyone had used the Lingopie website? It hosts TV shows from other countries with full subtitles and vocabulary overlaid.
 
Commissario
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23 Nov 2004
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41,851
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Herts
I've started learning Spanish on Duolingo which I'm enjoying, the gamification is quite addictive. Going to try Babbel too as I heard this might be better for "proper" Spanish, more detail on grammar etc.

I'm looking to find a local teacher but are there any other courses or resources people would recommend?
I've been using Duolingo to learn Spanish since the start of the year, doing a bit each day and it's def helping - but a local teacher and someone to practice with would help more I suspect. Thankfully I have a friend who is fluent but she's too busy with Spanish law to help lowlifes :/
 
Soldato
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17 Jun 2007
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I'm learning Italian with the same company. Free on spotify or you can pay to delve deeper
 
Soldato
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Monterrey, Mexico
I used to speak fluent French (forgotten a lot of it as it's been several years since I lived there) and now speak decent, but not perfect Spanish. Unless you have a natural talent for languages, which I definitely don't, then you can't beat immersion. Having a Spanish gf probably won't help at all, it'll actually be a hinderance. When I arrived in the country, I never put any effort into any situation that required much more than "buenos dias" as I'd just call my Spanish-speaking wife and get her to sort it out for me, so I didn't really learn anything. She also had no patience in terms of teaching me as she speaks four languages, loves learning in general and couldn't understand that what was easy for her wasn't so easy for me.

What did help me was when we sold our house and moved in with her parents for a few months as they didn't speak a word of English, so I had to try to communicate with them when she wasn't there. I've never taken a proper Spanish class, but I used to look at stuff for sale on Facebook marketplace etc and car videos on Instagram etc so I picked up a few words from that. There's also loads of free resources on youtube I've never personally used but look really useful.
 
Soldato
Joined
20 Feb 2004
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21,202
Location
Hondon de las Nieves, Spain
I've been using Duolingo to learn Spanish since the start of the year, doing a bit each day and it's def helping - but a local teacher and someone to practice with would help more I suspect. Thankfully I have a friend who is fluent but she's too busy with Spanish law to help lowlifes :/

Similar here. With wanting to move there, it makes sense to try and get a basic understanding in before hand.

My wife spends much longer on Duolingo than i do and is better at the technical elements (how to end words etc), however i would say my memory is better so i can remember more verbs etc. Hopefully between us we can get by!

We did go to a 12 week course with a small group. It was a good intro, but i already knew most of it from school and we found the teacher didn't always correct us and also often used more of a south american Spanish, which makes wanting to learn Spanish tricky.

I've since found a few online 1-1 options over teams which i might look into.
 
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