Learning Spanish

fiveub

fiveub

fiveub

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Has anyone got any experience? - From knowing no Spanish at all to learning it quite fluently?

I have always wanted to learn Spanish, but I am not sure which way would be the best and the most affordable?

Having private lessons? Learning online? Books? Tapes? Another method?

It is something I would like to learn in my own time, maybe once a week or something.
 
Can't go wrong with some evening classes. To be honest I think doing classes then going on holiday to Spain for a while would work well.
 
Learning Spanish is one of my aims when I finish uni this summer.

Was planning on going down the books and cd route. I've found an excellent CD that seems to take you through the basics quite well.

I also know a few Spanish people and will be using them as much as possible!
 
The way I began to learn to speak Spanish, my written Spanish is still pretty terrible, was listening to Michel Thomas and then Pimsleur. In a few weeks you can easily pick up the basics.

My advice would be to work through the Pimsleur speak and read series, it's 10 cds, then do the Michel Thomas advanced which I think was 4. Pimsleur teaches you all the essential stuff and Michel Thomas advanced teaches you how to use tenses and the subjunctive which immediately increases your understanding of native speakers. You can probably find both in your local library.

Night classes also are great for practicing with other people though you can't work at your own pace.

Oh, and don't bother with any of the gimmicky courses like Rosetta Stone, they're all a waste of time. The only way to learn is to listen and practice. Books, which I kinda overlooked, are necessary for learning written skills.
 
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Have to agree with the above, Michel Thomas is really great starting out as a beginner. Everyone says it but you will be surprised how much you can learn in just a few units and you will be stringing sentences together in no time.

Buena suerte :)
 
Would definitely recommend Michel Thomas as well, picked up a lot of French with his CDs. They usually cost about £50 but have seen 2nd hand on Amazon for about £20.
 
I'm learning at the moment. If you want to try something free, then the Coffee Break Spanish podcast on iTunes is a good start. I'm 11 lessons (approx 15 mins each) in and able to understand and say a lot more than I ever did with software packages or CDs. It's also good because the guy presenting it always notes Latin American variations of pronunciation, which is useful as that's what I'm trying to learn.

It also has premium content like vocab lists, worksheets, podcasts with extra vocab. But the basic free course seems to be doing the job for me. So far at any rate!
 
Get a basic CD set by Michel Tomas.

It is very easy to pick up as many words in Spanish and English are the same such as those ending in ent and ant such as important is English is importante / im-por-tan-tay in Spanish and to ask for things is quite easy to pick up.

Me gustarra tomar is I would like a ..........

Me puedes dar is could I have so you could ask for a beer by saying ....

Me gustarra tomar una cerveza por favor.

You could ask for the bill by asking ....

Me puedes dar la quenta por favor.

Mr Tomas' language courses are excellent and I paid £29.99 for mine.
 
Get the foundation course. Introductory course is the first couple of cd's of the foundation course.

Have a look at your local library before you buy anything.

I still recommend doing the pimsleur course first and then the Thomas advanced. The advanced course revises the foundation stuff and adds to it.

The problem with Michel Thomas foundation is it covers very little vocabulary, and you're not listening to Spanish speakers. Plus one of the students is a complete nincompoop and will drive you completely crazy. It's amazing for grammar but the advanced course covers this in more depth.
 
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I use a combo of Michel Thomas which gives you the structures and Rosetta Stone which gives you the vocab. I think it's the quickest method I've ever used. Even now watching Spanish language tracks on films, I can get the gist of what's going on.
 
I'm going to start using Pimsleur and Michel Thomas over the next few days to try and learn Spanish. :)


Will let you all know how it goes.
 
Spanish is a surprisingly easy language once you have the foundations laid. Most of the words are quite similar to English, or link the two in a logical way. A very nice language to speak as well - the only problem I have is how quickly natives speak it!!!

I have a basic grasp, but am working at the moment to expand on that. Got a few Spanish-speaking relatives on the other half's side so it'd be nice to fully understand what they're saying when they don't want us to know. ;)
 
Good luck guys.

I actually will revise my previous advice and suggest the Michel Thomas foundation course, then the advanced before moving onto more traditional courses like Pimsleur.

The great thing about the MT course is he shows you how consistent the Spanish language is - the 'rules' of structure and grammar. For example, with the exception of a few (the 'gogo club'), all verbs are modified in the same way to make past, future, present tenses, subjunctive and personal (I, you, you informal, we, they). Once you learn these, every verb you learn instantly amounts to ten words.

Traditional teaching methods teach you all the present tense, then all the past/future, but without ever pointing out consistency between them. Something like the subjunctive, which is seen as an advanced topic but used all the time in Spanish, Thomas explains in about 5 minutes in such a way that you will easily get it.

Having made sure you understand and learned the grammar you will have a great foundation to move onto other more traditional listening courses like Pimsleur. What's great about Pimsleur and most other listening courses is you're listening to native speakers and building vocabulary.
 
i never even realised these cds 'worked' for people. its good to see positive feedback in here though and i think i might try the german version as ive been wanting to learn more than the basics for a long time now!
 
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