Best way to approach learning Spanish?

Mrwong said:
Go live in the country for a year.
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My father has lived in spain for 20 years barely speaks a word. He's not exactly immersed in the local culture though. My cousin on the other hand (well technically my mother's cousin's son) his mother lived in mexico for a few years he went to school there and learnt to speak fluent (mexican? Latin american?) Spanish while attending school there he lives here now but can still speak it like a native not that he much opportunity to he lives in a council flat so hasn't exactly made the most of his abilities.
 
I found duolingo poor as it's all American Spanish rather than Castellano, so when you go to Spain you won't know what a coche is as you'll be used to carro, you won't know what a billete is as you'll be used to boleto, pajita (watch out for this one) rather than popote, torta rather than pastel (for a cake with icing on) etc.. The gramma will help, though but then you also need to bear in mind that in Spain they use vostros rather than ustedes which is something you won't hear in American Spanish.

There're quite a lot more little differences which when you get to a decent level don't matter, but as a complete beginner you'll be thrown, especially since the person on the receiving end won't immediately know what you are talking about even though they will be familiar with a lot of Latin American Spanish. they just won't be expecting it.

For me it was frustrating inputting castellano and duolingo telling me it's wrong.

Then when I was in Mexico it went the other way. They looked at me like an alien when trying to buy guisantes (peas) from the market for example, or would find it funny when I was saying 'vale' all the time, since they just use 'ok'

My favourite Spanish resource when I had zero knowledge was the La vida loca series on the BBC website. It's still there in the archive but unfortunately needs flash. There are also plenty of Youtube channels teaching, which are great for pronunciation, but many of course are Latin American Spanish, and a lot of them don't have the structure of a course i.e. they jump from one thing to another. Still they work well as supplemental support.
 
Thanks for all the feedback and resources folks.

I saw the OU offer some short starter courses, plus some which are more involved and rate on the CEFR scale, anyone tried them? Bit expensive now but I thought the structure might be good and less American Spanish focus.
 
englishpremier said:
I found duolingo poor as it's all American Spanish rather than Castellano, so when you go to Spain you won't know what a coche is as you'll be used to carro, you won't know what a billete is as you'll be used to boleto, pajita (watch out for this one) rather than popote, torta rather than pastel (for a cake with icing on) etc.. The gramma will help, though but then you also need to bear in mind that in Spain they use vostros rather than ustedes which is something you won't hear in American Spanish.

There're quite a lot more little differences which when you get to a decent level don't matter, but as a complete beginner you'll be thrown, especially since the person on the receiving end won't immediately know what you are talking about even though they will be familiar with a lot of Latin American Spanish. they just won't be expecting it.

For me it was frustrating inputting castellano and duolingo telling me it's wrong.

Then when I was in Mexico it went the other way. They looked at me like an alien when trying to buy guisantes (peas) from the market for example, or would find it funny when I was saying 'vale' all the time, since they just use 'ok'

My favourite Spanish resource when I had zero knowledge was the La vida loca series on the BBC website. It's still there in the archive but unfortunately needs flash. There are also plenty of Youtube channels teaching, which are great for pronunciation, but many of course are Latin American Spanish, and a lot of them don't have the structure of a course i.e. they jump from one thing to another. Still they work well as supplemental support.
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I tested this BBC series with Ruffle, a flash->HTML5 plugin, but the audio sadly doesn't seem to be working.
 
englishpremier said:
I found duolingo poor as it's all American Spanish rather than Castellano, so when you go to Spain you won't know what a coche is as you'll be used to carro, you won't know what a billete is as you'll be used to boleto, pajita (watch out for this one) rather than popote, torta rather than pastel (for a cake with icing on) etc.. The gramma will help, though but then you also need to bear in mind that in Spain they use vostros rather than ustedes which is something you won't hear in American Spanish.

There're quite a lot more little differences which when you get to a decent level don't matter, but as a complete beginner you'll be thrown, especially since the person on the receiving end won't immediately know what you are talking about even though they will be familiar with a lot of Latin American Spanish. they just won't be expecting it.

For me it was frustrating inputting castellano and duolingo telling me it's wrong.

Then when I was in Mexico it went the other way. They looked at me like an alien when trying to buy guisantes (peas) from the market for example, or would find it funny when I was saying 'vale' all the time, since they just use 'ok'

My favourite Spanish resource when I had zero knowledge was the La vida loca series on the BBC website. It's still there in the archive but unfortunately needs flash. There are also plenty of Youtube channels teaching, which are great for pronunciation, but many of course are Latin American Spanish, and a lot of them don't have the structure of a course i.e. they jump from one thing to another. Still they work well as supplemental support.
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Very useful. However we asked about Straw in Spain and we’re told it was Pajita.

I’m yet to find a good resource for Castellano so sticking with Duo Lingo, but as you say it’s annoying losing points when you know for a fact you’re correct!
 
watch DVD's / Blu Rays of films / series / TV shows etc that you more or less know inside out, Switch language sound track to Spanish, then set subtitles to English. It's the easiest way to massively expand your vocab and learn basic sentence construction using something that you actually know rather than the usual crap like "I am here on holiday" and "I have a white t-shrit" and "how to i get to the townhall ?". My cousins (all spanish) basically learnt how to speak fluent English by watching Ulysses 31, Mysterious Cities of Gold and other 80's classics when they were growing up in English with Spanish subtitles.
 
Maccy said:
@englishpremier just FYI, Duolingo does use pastel for cake (unless I'm misreading your post?!)
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Which is more common in Mexican or Latin American, rather than Torta. My understanding is Pastel would be a cake with come kind of icing. For example una rebanada de pastel de zanahoria, but in Spain you'd mostly just say torta regardless even though pastel could be used and 'should' be understood.

Source: I bought a lot cakes whilst living in Mexico and a lot of cakes whilst living in Spain. Where I've been caught out is France. I was invited for Gateaux. 'J'adore gâteau' I responded gleefully. Only be served what was basically some bourbon creams. Speaking to my French friends, it turns out gâteau can also mean cookies, and worse than that the American meaning of cookies i.e. biscuits to you and I.

Mahonyy said:
I've met few Romanians that learnt Spanish watching soap operas on TV, not sure how it goes, but their Spanish was pretty decent.
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Romania is a latin language, so it should be much easier for them than speakers of Germanic languages.
 
ic1male said:
Interesting post. Do you like to speak Spanish with the "Castilian lisp" or just pronounce everything with the "s"? I prefer the former and would try to do so even if I went to Mexico as it just sounds more sophisticated to my ears. :p
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I think I do a mixture, and sometimes end up half way in-between. I don't really think about it. Only certain regions in Spain have/use the lisp.
 
I just find it unusual and strange the way that some foreign language sentences are structured i.e backwards.

Example being - "un sombrero rojo" which directly translates to "a hat red" whereas we would say "a red hat" (un rojo sombrero)..

Also some, I think, like Spanish and German have different phrasing for the same meaning but depends if it's masculine or feminine where we don't e.g. "a boy" or "a girl" uses "un nino" and "una nina" - different phrasing or "a"

I don't see the need to be that complicated
 
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What makes those language "backwards" and ours "forwards"?

The sombrero red is eminently more sensible than the red sombrero - the key point being that it's a sombrero, the secondary part being the fact that it's red, which is less important than the fact that it's a sombrero.
 
Richie said:
I just find it unusual and strange the way that some foreign language sentences are structured i.e backwards.

Example being - "un sombrero rojo" which directly translates to "a hat red" whereas we would say "a red hat" (un rojo sombrero)..

Also some, I think, like Spanish and German have different phrasing for the same meaning but depends if it's masculine or feminine where we don't e.g. "a boy" or "a girl" uses "un nino" and "una nina" - different phrasing or "a"

I don't see the need to be that complicated
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Hehe, that’s nothing compared to having to know two sets of verbs depending on different circumstances. I haven’t got round to tackling the subjunctive mood yet. :p
 
Blackjack Davy said:
My father has lived in spain for 20 years barely speaks a word. He's not exactly immersed in the local culture though. My cousin on the other hand (well technically my mother's cousin's son) his mother lived in mexico for a few years he went to school there and learnt to speak fluent (mexican? Latin american?) Spanish while attending school there he lives here now but can still speak it like a native not that he much opportunity to he lives in a council flat so hasn't exactly made the most of his abilities.
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There are a limited number of doors opened by being fluent in Mexican whilst living in the UK, I would imagine, unless running some extension of a South American drugs cartel from a flat in Wembley ;)
 
Chris Wilson said:
There are a limited number of doors opened by being fluent in Mexican whilst living in the UK, I would imagine, unless running some extension of a South American drugs cartel from a flat in Wembley ;)
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Funny you mention that. Whilst in Mexico I was ripped off/duped when selling a laptop. I later started getting messages saying they are the Jalisco NG cartel and would like me to money launder for them by selling items on various sites.
 
Another thing I've noticed is just how many people - everyday people not people on the TV news, for example - drop the "s". Estamos (we are) and it's like "e'tamo'" and "me gusta" is "me gu'ta". Terrible butchery :D I suppose if you visit and pronounce everything as it should be, you'd stick out like a sore thumb.
 
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