For my own part, I worked with locals very early on. They were very helpful and helped me improve very quickly. Purely through interaction I find works best for me. My grammar is´nt very good and I usually say most things in the present tense, but people I work with and neighbours usually correct me and help me along. hey appreciate the fact that I make the effort and want to learn more.
My parents and my wife have lessons with a Spanish teacher in a nearby town. They´re learning proper Castellano from scratch, whereas what I´ve learned is the local Andaluz dialect, where words are shortened and they don´t pronounce “s” much. For example, Adios is normally pronounced Adio.
My wife can understand most of what the locals are saying to her, but lacks the confidence to speak back out of the fear of making a mistake. Her confidence is growing more since she started having lessons though. It might seem daft but I don´t care if I make mistakes as I learn from them, especially when I have a laugh with the locals having mis-pronounced a word and saying something that has a completely different meaning!
I think the best way is to see how you get on when you´re here. See which way suits you best. Learning from interaction with the locals or by having lessons with a good Spanish teacher.
There’s no easy way, you just have to put the time in. Attending classes, learning on-line and working from self-teaching material all have advantages and disadvantages - it’s probably best to try a few different things. Personally I learned most of the grammar and a lot of vocabulary on my own, but when I finally joined a class - a weekly two hour evening class at my local university - it all came together much better in my head and I was able to start using the language properly. In Spain I picked up lots of stuff about things that concern me in Spain - namely building, banking, law, driving, food, animals etc - because in the Alpujarra nobody knows English (except the ex-pats). It’s true that you will learn quicker when you’re emersed in the country and culture, but you have to sit down and learn verb endings and stuff at some point anyway, so the sooner you start, the better. Try http://www.studyspanish.com for free tutorials and the excellent http://www.notesfromspain.com/ for podcasts and other stuff. I think that like anything else that requires practice, you should do a little often. Ten minutes of grammar three times a day won’t kill you. Read lots (on-line if you don’t have access to Spanish publications) and write down new words and learn them. Also rent Spanish language movies on DVD - sofacinema and amazon are good - and listen to radio from the Spanish-speaking world on-line (the BBC have a podcast called Mundo Hoy - google for that).
Get a rooftop analogue arial (If you don’t already have one) and tune into Spanish TV - Watching when you know the context ie Game shows/Quiz shows, children’s programmes, sports commentary and news reports are all (I find) very useful when learning.
That is assuming that you are already living in Spain of course. If not, watching films with Spanish subtitles is great for improving reading and comprehension.
Get a rooftop analogue arial (If you don’t already have one) and tune into Spanish TV - Watching when you know the context ie Game shows/Quiz shows, children’s programmes, sports commentary and news reports are all (I find) very useful when learning.
A very good suggestion. I think the more you listen to the language, the more sinks in. It’s certainly far easier “watching” a person speak. Hardest thing I found was telephone conversations. I find Spaniards to be very “visual” in facial and body movements, which also helped me to understand a little more easily.
Also, you can buy free-to-view digi-boxes for about €30 in most supermarkets and electrical shops. The additional benefit of digital Spanish tv is you can change the broadcast language from Spanish to English on some chanels, along with subtitle settings. I also found buying a DVD film here, and selecting English audio with Spanish subtitles, then Spanish audio with English subtitles helped a little too.
As for interaction with locals… jump streight in if possible. Build up your confidence, don’t be afraid of mistakes. The locals where I live have helped me no end. They laugh with me, not at me when I make mistakes, help correct me and teach me new words and phrases. Above all, I think that the locals appreciate my willingness to learn.
I often find there’s more and more Spaniards who are learning and speak a decent level of English, even inland where I am, but I prefer to have conversations totally in Spanish if I can. Funny part of that is, when I visit the vet, he speaks English to me and I reply in Spanish, as he wants to learn from me and vice-versa.
Everyone is different as to their language capabilities. I had been here 3 years in 1983 and met a dutch man called Odd ‘!’, he toured round europe learning languages! anyway, he had been in Spain 3 weeks and had an amazing grasp on the language, much more than I had after my 3 years, some people are gifted I guess.
Anyway.... the best way is to get out and mix with the Spanish, not English and Spanish… the Spanish. The problem if you are with English and Spanish is that there tends to be more English spoken than Spanish.
Intercambio works - there are always Spanish people that need/want to learn English and have no opportunity to speak it at all, in exchange they will speak spanish with you. Speaking really is the hardest part and this type of swap puts you all in the same boat…
I found people through a free add in a free newspaper…
In which city are you going to learn? We´ll see if there is a good school there. As RG said, intercambio may work. I learned a lot like that and it is not boring.
Immersing yourself in Spanish-speaking culture, such as television is ok, but not the best way to learn a language. It’s slow because you tend to fall back on certain stock words and phrases the whole time. Over the years I’ve also tried books and CDs, but they don’t give you the confidence or skills to interact with real Spanish people. In my experience, both as a language teacher and as a language learner, I’d say that finding a good Spanish teacher is the best bet. One-to-one teaching is ideal, but can be expensive, so small classes are also ok too.
What is good teaching I hear you say. Well, all of us who were at school more than 10 or 15 years ago probably have unpleasant memories of tedious grammar-based learning. So try to find someone who will teach a bit of useful language in each lesson, like ‘how to ask for things’ or ‘how to say please, thank you and sorry’. But a good lesson should also try to give you a bit of grammar, so that you can create your own phrases, not just repeat phrases that you learned by heart, and so that you stand a better chance of understanding the general meaning of things people say to you in Spanish even if you’re not familiar with every word and phrase they use. But above all, find someone who will inject a bit of fun into the lessons. Language learning is difficult enough without having a few laughs along the way. I once had a language teacher who got me to remember words and phrases simply by saying them in a hilariously funny voice. Genius!
A lot of companies do language teaching via the Internet these days. So you can learn from the comfort of home. Live Language Classroom (http://www.livelanguageclassroom.com) uses teachers who are native speakers, and we have a great ‘Internet Classroom’ that makes learning easier because it’s fun. If you miss a lesson it’s recorded for you and you can view it again any time. Plus, you can get a 33% discount if you register with the promotional code SPX964062.
when I lived in brasil and argentina the best way to learn is just go out there and talk to the people imo
you learn the slang and how people talk, unlike america where people insult u for trying to learn english, most countries that I have found love it when you speak to them!
I agree. English people are terrified of making fools of themselves, but they needn’t be. It’s great to see the relief of new learners when they realise that noone’s going to laugh at them, and they will be understood. Listening to a recording of yourself speaking Spanish words with the best accent you can manage helps some people.
on another note rosetta stone online is pretty good its cheaper then the software version, if you are REALLY dedicated you can get the online version around 100$ for 3 months it helped me learn japanese.. and it even has voice activated system where you speak and it tells you if your pronuciation is wrong its awsome
Take a course. And at the same time live with people who dont speak any english. This is how I learned and went from basically zero to near fluency in about 8 months or so. It was difficult but I slogged through it.
If you want it fast, it will be painful too. There is no way around this. Its well worth it in the end though.
