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.
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.
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!
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.
The learning I did outside the classroom was done with my flatmates mostly. Also with coworkers. I used to talk spanish until my throat hurt (it does hurt at first because of the new sounds and actions your vocal chords make..etc..). Then I would speak some more. I just kept going and going. It came. I used to actually stick a pencil between my teeth when I spoke to my flatmates at times as it excercises your vocal chords with the new languages (try it, you’ll see what I mean). I found many english speakers I met who wanted to learn spanish were just plain lazy about it. They figured it would just come by taking a course and they wouldnt have to work. This is not the case at all. You have to work very hard if you want to obtain fluency. Just know that it can be done.
Watching TV was also very helpful. Another great way is to watch DVDs in spanish with the subtitles on in spanish as well. This works incredibly well. It expands vocabularly and verb usage immensly.
The course I did was an elementary level course because I had never studied spanish in my life. I was a bit annoyed they put me in this course as I wanted to do an intermediate course with the hopes of reaching an advanced level faster. But in the end, the elementary course was fine.
Oh yeah, that was another good point. The teacher spoke basically zero english. Pretty much nothing. This was tough at first but later it was realized how much of an advantage it was.
Like most courses for any language, there will be lessons on grammar, comprehension, and writing..etc. At typical course will involve everything. Ive never heard of a language course that didnt.
For a course, the minimum number of weekly hours should be about 3. However, if you want to learn quickly, you need to be speaking and practising on your own 24/7 outside of the course.
Didn’t want to create a new thread and this is basically on topic anyway.
It’s been suggested to me that a three-week intensive course would be helpful, but that it could be quite expensive. I’m not naive enough to believe there is a set-price as to what it may cost, but is there a rough, ballpark type figure it could potentially cost? The nearest city to me is Valencia, so if anyone has a specific place they’d recommend it would be even more helpful.
