I've decided to take Spanish101 next semester. Unlike when I was taking French, I genuinely want to learn Spanish and be able to communicate in it. I'd love to hear how you went about getting somewhat fluent in a foreign language.
Having studied a number of languages, I've come to believe that being forced to speak and write at the outer limit of your ability is the most effective way to learn a foreign language (listening and reading will come effortlessly as a side effect). However this is somewhat expensive, emotionally tiring (adults aren't used to the experience of constant failure and correction), and it can be hard to find someone who will really pounce on every mistake.
I've found intensive immersion programs with small classes to be a good second-best, especially at the beginner level where progress is very rapid and you have a chance to internalize proper phonetics and grammar.
A possibly useful image: you have about ten thousand wrong sentences you have to get out of you before you are speaking the language well, so you need to find someone who will help you get them out of your system as efficiently as possible.
I've been in a few immersion programs, and they're all okay. The best I've seen was ulpan, in Israel. Recent immigrants are thrown together and taught Hebrew; since they don't necessarily have a common language, their medium of communication must be Hebrew. Since you're all learning together, mistakes are less embarrassing.
In all, nothing beats being there: you have to go somewhere the language is spoken and force yourself to be a part of it.
Textbooks and traditional classrooms are way back on the curve. They prioritize the organizational problems of schools instead of the learning needs of students.
The best way is complete immersion with real Spanish speakers. It also requires good social skills to connect with those people in a way that actually changes the way you speak and think to sound more natural in that language. People don't follow text-book rules in their own language.
I also lived in Spain, but never became fluent in the language because I spoke English to everyone. Immerse yourself in the language, speak to natives all the time and you'll be fluent in 6 months.
But as everything else in life you have to be determined if you want to succeed. Talk to the storeowner when you go shopping, find a coffee shop you like become a regular and start chatting to people and become known as that guy that's learning to speak Spanish, get a native girlfriend, get a job where you have to speak the language, etc.
The coursework system of language instruction is broken, because it measures your ability to pass a course, and this has little connection to really knowing a language.
I then forgot about French until I was in my early 20s. I met my wife. She's French. I figured I'd better make an effort to speak French.
Having someone to talk to meant I could make all sorts of errors and get corrected. But she was the wrong person to tell me about French grammar. I tried taking classes in a local college but they were awful. Eventually I paid a Swiss woman to teach me French grammar. Very quickly I realized that the rules of French drilled into me at school were lurking in my head and that all that rote learning was very, very useful. I took lessons for about 6 months for two hours once a week.
Now I speak French fluently.
http://www.amazon.com/Language-Acquisition-Made-Practical-Le...
Language Acquisition Made Practical by Brewster & Brewster
It's from the 70s and way out of print. It's written by these two Christian missionaries who went to many countries where no one could speak their language, and they developed a framework for 'barefoot language learning'. It's excellent way to design your own course. It boils down to find a language partner, and then follow the methods in this book.
I became frustrated with the way a lot of language courses are structured. They are so damn boring and suck the fun of discovery out of the language learning process. From the reading I have done on language acquisition, language classes should more closely mimic how children learn a language naturally. LAMP gets you closer to this model.
Also, this book is an excellent tool: http://www.lexicarry.com/
There's nothing but a bunch of pictures in the book, describing different nouns, verbs, and adjectives...all with NO English. You can use this with a conversation partner to learn many many useful words in a more organic way than memorizing a list of vocabulary with their english translation counterparts.
Also, basically what everyone has said thus far. You need to live in the culture, and more than anything, make friends who will speak the language with you.
http://learninfreedom.org/languagebooks.html
has some detailed suggestions. Read as much as you can in Spanish, and listen to as much Spanish as you can at every opportunity, and you will improve in Spanish.
I majored in Chinese in university, back when following my advice above was hard for that language in my town, and then lived overseas in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China. Listening to the radio helped a LOT when I first arrived in country.
I learned so much in four months at that school that I was ahead of most Junior spanish majors when I got back. (I was also highly motivated to learn the language, and lived with a Spanish family. It's definitely possible to go to any language school and not learn a lot if you don't make the effort.)
I went back there a couple years later and did another semester... but at this point I have full command of the grammar, and just need to work on vocabulary. For that, all you need is some spanish speakers to talk to.
I don't know what part of the country you're in (or even if you're in the US), but if you can find a way to start buying Spanish newspapers and watching Spanish television, you'll be in much better shape than if you just tried structured education.
Once I knew the basics, I was able to learn a bit more from friends and neighbors, especially children. Eventually I ended up dating and marrying a local. Even though she spoke fluent English, we would try to use the local language for anything not too detailed. This increased my vocabulary and comprehension.
Once I was able to use and understand words, a book that described some of the theory and formalities of the grammar really helped improve my ability to express myself. I went from "cargo cult speaking" to actually knowing why I was using the structures I used.
I still don't know as much as I'd like, and for more complicated statements, I have to use English.
For your situation, I wouldn't expect to get too much out of a "101" course, but if you really want to learn, you'll have many opportunities, especially with Spanish. Try to talk to the staff at Mexican restaurants, and write down any words or phrases you don't know, to look up later.
There is no substitute for hours speaking (and listening). That will give you plenty of opportunities to learn new words, new idioms used by different people, provide plenty of opportunities for people to politely correct you, and most importantly, improve your confidence in your abilities.
also, this might sound weird, but I sometimes forced myself to "think" in the language I was learning.. this was a good practice as it made me more articulate by mapping words to mental images
I took a genuine interest in learning the language, and I made a point of hanging out with German-speaking folks on IRC (in my case, mostly demosceners) and the like in order to get an idea of how the colloquial language works. Reading and writing formal and informal German both help tremendously as far as extracurriculars go if full immersion is unattainable, but it's best to supplement that with something like television shows (telenovelas are particularly useful here) and music.
In addition to all of this, I had the goal in the back of my mind of earning a PhD in mathematics someday. That said, at schools in the US, proficiency in one of either French or German (sometimes also Russian and Latin) is often a requirement as it is viewed as an important research skill with respect to late classical and early contemporary literature.
I go with everyone else here, though, and maintain that full immersion is the preferred way to fly.
I don't know what American schools do wrong, but Europeans have little trouble teaching kids to have a working knowledge of foreign languages in the same number of years.
The brute force approach would be to live in a place where the language you're trying to learn is native. English is my 3rd language but I didn't get really fluent in it until moving to the US.
Immersion is obviously ideal, but not always practical. Then, you're left with finding friends who speak the language, college courses, movies, etc.
Any other ideas?
Total immersion is the fastest and best way to learn a language. Arguably, it's the only way you will ever be fluent.
If you want to learn Spanish but can't move to a Spanish speaking country, see if you can find a local Spanish-speaking family to "foster" you - offer to pay them rent to live with them for awhile, on the condition that they only speak Spanish to/around you.
Get as much contents as you can and use it. Since you are studying Spanish, if you have access to a Spanish language cable network (or a broadcast TV or radio station in some cities) use that. Start with something that is fairly predictable, like the weather forecast. Get podcasts and listen to those. Rent movies in Spanish (and turn off the English subtitles).
On the other side, find people to talk to. Ideally, you want native speakers. You want to spend extended periods talking in Spanish. Force yourself to say what you have to say in your new language, even badly, ungrammatically. You will make mistakes.
Two blogs I like that emphasize exactly these two facets of language learning are:
The Linguist on Language: http://thelinguist.blogs.com/how_to_learn_english_and/
Fluent In 3 Months: http://www.fluentin3months.com/
That is hardly practical for most people though. Take the classes, but supplement that learning. Watch Spanish language films with and without subtitles. Watch movies you already know very well dubbed in Spanish (I learned lots from that).
Chat up people in Spanish speaking countries and attempt to speak Spanish as much as possible. You might even find an English language student you can assist at the same time.
If you go eat at a Mexican place, order in Spanish. Yes, you will butcher it at first, yes you will feel silly. But you improve quickly by doing this.
Learning the way I did does have its drawbacks. While I can more or less communicate effectively, I know almost know grammar rules. I can conjugate correctly, but have no idea "why" something is correct.
Destiños. A UIUC/public television teaching show with a running story.
http://www.learner.org/resources/series75.html
Find music in the language, with lyrics, that you like. When learning German and French, I listened to pop music that friends recommended. A lot of language learning is not specifically semantic; train your ears (and brain) to the sound of the language. Sung lyrics can also emphasize aspects of pronunciation and colloquial use in a way other sources may not.
Find engaging activities that use the language. Much more motivating. And allow yourself to be entertained by the process. Don't focus just on the end goal of being fluent; enjoy the learning process and each moment of use.
That said, I believe there's no better way to learn a language than to live in the country and not speak English.
I was a diplomat brat and at various points in my life I could speak Bahasa Malay, Italian, and Hokien (does anyone even know what that is). However they all fell into disuse when I moved. But the reason I became fluent was because I was immersed in the people, all the kids, TV, everything.
I know many American teachers in Thailand who live in American neighborhoods and eat where foreigners eat. As a result they never learn any Thai.
The best way to learn is to have no choice but to speak the language. Then don't be afraid to fail. I learned Indonesian by speaking to taxi drivers and any other locals I came in contact with. Same process I used with Javanese.
The trick is to start with a basic vocabulary and set of phrases. Then treat the phrases as templates and swap words in and out. You'll be wrong a lot, but the native speaker might phrase it correctly and repeat it back... just repeat what they said and smile. Repeat this process until you're fluent. :)
Curiously, once I was able to read Guitar Player in the bus without a dictionary by my side, I also became able to understand spoken English. I don't know why, really. I suppose I had gathered enough data from reading the magazine to be able to extract meaning from context not only when reading, but when listening to spoken English too.
In the meantime, read all the books you can so you don't start from zero when you get there (although it will feel like you are starting from zero the first few days).
(1) Watch Spanish TV/Movies (2) Talk in Spanish to Spanish-speaking people (use appropriately) (3) Learn the easy small words first (4) Immediately apply and integrate what you learn with what you already know.
Note: The Spanish I learned in high school was enough for me to be able to speak and understand it fluently (6 semesters). Also note that I can understand several different languages fluently. This may have helped me learn faster than most other people. I say understand because my American accent is too thick to be able to speak in all of those languages with the proper accent.
Best of Luck.
try writing songs in whatever language you are learning. This helped me a lot too.
You're already at a disadvantage since you're not seven years old (five to seven is the best age to learn a language, according to linguists), so you're gonna need to make up some ground. Aside from picking a learning program to pick up vocabulary, you need to practice, and do it in as many ways as you can.
Some suggestions I/friends have used:
Mass Media. Start buying a Spanish-language newspaper and reading articles (specifically, articles that you don't know what they're about) with a dictionary in hand. The first few you do will take an hour each for a two-line article. But as you do this for longer times, you'll start to pick up words - and (mainstream, well-regarded) newspapers are great because they've generally got very clear writing. When you get confident, start trying to read the letters or editorials. You should also dedicate an hour of the day to watching news or a soap opera on Univision (doesn't matter if you don't understand it at first - pay attention and you'll pick it up), and pick up a Spanish radio station to start listening to.
Computers. Set your OS's language to Spanish, and set Spanish as the preferred language of your browser (so it will request es pages before en ones). When you don't understand a web page, get out the dictionary and work through it. Try and limit yourself to Spanish sites as much as possible, and (most importantly) read all your online news in Spanish.
People. If you can find some people to speak to in Spanish on a daily basis, do this. To complement this, find a local cafe/restaurant that has acceptable food and Spanish-speaking staff, and become a regular there. Practice at home, and then go there an order in Spanish. Do this a lot (hence the OK food). After you're feeling OK about this, go to this place at off-hours, order something (in Spanish, of course) and try to make some small talk. These people should be familiar with you by this point, and be amenable to talking to a customer (since they don't have anything else to do). At first, they'll likely respond to your broken Spanish in English - either respond back only Spanish, or ask them to speak Spanish to you directly. They see this as being nice and helpful; they're not trying to insult your skills, and will likely accommodate you if you ask (and they recognize you).
On the other hand, I found Pimsleur and similar methods of learning languages to be semi-helpful and possibly worth spending money on. No replacement for memorizing things and total immersion via traveling/marrying someone/studying abroad, but when you're stuck in traffic in the car, listening and practicing speaking can do volumes to help.
In the end, I just got a flashcard app for my iPhone, stocked up on MP3s and videos to watch and listen to, and I think that was more helpful than Rosetta Stone ever could be. I'm not sure if there's any research or studies behind language acquisition via Rosetta Stone, but when I'm an adult, I don't see the benefit in learning a language as if I was a toddler again. I had learned French in high school and learning Spanish afterwards was ridiculously easier because I had already had "basics" like grammar down pretty well, as well as an easier time learning vocabulary as there are many cognates. Not that I remember much of either language anymore, but there are some times when taking advantage of what an adult already knows is faster and more helpful than learning like a baby.
Arg. Sorry but I have to disagree. I used Pimsleur to get up and running quickly with Dutch, and later realized that (other than for practicing basic pronunciation) it's worthless. That was two/three years ago, and now that I'm at a much higher level, I've gone back and listened to the phrases they wanted me to learn.
Junk. Some phrases were severely antiquated, words were mis-translated so you may be saying a phrase and you actually don't know what you're saying, etc. The only thing it's good for is listen/read/repeat pronunciation, and that's not so good when driving.
Rosetta Stone's a bit better since you're listening/reading/repeating, and learning some real vocabulary, but you're spot on: it feels like it's for kids. As far as language learning software goes, I only found one that was worth anything, and it came with a Dutch textbook (CODE series... Dutch only). It has movies/audio/text with quizzes afterward, vocabulary/grammar exercises, and listen/repeat/playback feature.
Pro-tip for the OP: Languages are living things, you can't learn them by yourself. Any native speaker, no matter how unprofessional or unskilled at language teaching, is much more help then some software tool. Your office cleaning lady (who's probably better at Spanish then you'll ever be) earns less than $10/hour. For the same price of Rosetta Stone Spanish 1-5 ($700) you could have 70 hours of speaking time with a really interesting person.
I found a Berkeley exchange grad student who was teaching Dutch for $15/hour on the side, learned a lot, and we ended up falling in love with each other. Not saying that will happen for you, but it reinforces my 'find a native speaker' method. :)
Not sure if the quality of these language learning tools depend on the language being taught and perhaps with individual learning preferences as well. I thought Pimsleur for Mandarin was acceptable and similar to the texts I was using, and since I had the most trouble listening and speaking Mandarin (as opposed to reading/writing), it was helpful to me. But again, disclosure: most of the language programs and resources I've tried were free through school, which was immensely helpful in deciding what I liked and didn't like. I'm not entirely sure I'd buy Pimsleur either ;)
Also, keep using it. Learned languages are like muscles, use them or they get weaker. I've lost a gripload of vocabulary because I haven't been forcing myself to use the language.
*edit - My username, 'saturdayplace' is a literal translation of a town in Hungary: Szombathely. Szombat = saturday, hely = place. I always thought that a saturdayplace would be a cool place.
It's common here for middle-class young people to take English courses for several years. I took one for six years, then one more year of a conversation course. That, along with watching movies and TV (and reading and listening to music, and...) took me far enough.
Then, a couple of years back, I went to California to live there for a whole year and I must say that made a whole lot of difference.
In summary: just taking a class won't help. You need to practice, practice and practice.
Although a grounding in the language from a course is good, until you are racking your brains for the correct word while talking to someone, you're not really training your brain usefully.
Any opportunity to be surrounded by the language, and especially when you are forced to use it, will greatly increase your fluency. Not being too concerned about making mistakes and just speaking as much as you can is also important. Immersion and free usage after a base of grammar/vocab study is what works for me.
To get fluent in a new language, I'd recommend spending time together among native speakers wherever you can meet them, ideally in the country of the language. Coursebooks I think need to be assisted with some first-hand immersion into the culture. and nothing can possibly beat having a native girl-/boyfriend alongside the coursebook in making you a fluent speaker in a way shorter time than you would imagine. that's how my German got fluent as it is now.
1. Learn basic grammar and vocabulary. 2. Read. Read a lot. 3. Listen to movies and songs and pick up pronunciation. 4. Keep on reading! 5. Now you know quite a bit!
German, French and English are taught in school here as well.
Very hard not to end up at least bi-lingual.
I have a very hard time studying languages from books but I find it incredibly easy to pick them up while listening to them and being forced to communicate with people that I do not have a shared language with.
The wierd thing is that I can remember foreign names with NO trouble. French names, Japanese (Masayoshi Son), etc.
I've now been here five years, and my Spanish isn't bad. It's important to make an effort, though. I've met people from overseas who've put in little effort—a real shame.
Moving to a different country isn't a realistic option for many people, and you didn't say where you're located, but if you're in the States, chances are there are plenty of Spanish speakers in your area. Why not talk to them?
As you meet Spanish-speakers qua Spanish-speakers, be sure to identify who'll give you "correct" advice and who won't. It's important to be able to understand and to be understood while communicating in various contexts. I've learned lots of useful things about Spanish from pedants, people who play fast and loose with the language, and everyone in between.
And there's plenty of well-edited Spanish language material freely available: es.wikipedia.org is generally decent. (By the way, wikipedia can be an excellent translation tool: when you're looking up some very specific term whose precise translation won't be found in a dictionary, try searching for it on en.wikipedia.org and see if there's a link to es.wikipedia.org) Some newspapers with online presences include http://www.eluniversal.com.mx (Mexico), http://www.elpais.com (Spain), and http://www.lanacion.com (Argentina); there are, of course, many others. Chances are decent that there are blogs that cover topics you're interested in, but be wary, as the quality of editing can and does vary considerably. Incorrect spelling abounds!
As you improve, you'll be able to read books in Spanish. My first book was a translation of one I'd read originally in English. I think this was a good idea, because I didn't have to worry about vocabulary I didn't understand. Reading Spanish-language authors in the original is even more satisfying. I'm currently working through Bolaño's oeuvre. Borges and Sepúlveda are other favorites, but I've really only just scratched the surface. (I've also read some stuff translated from third languages, such as several books by Murakami.)
As for references: The 501 Verbs series of books is useful (I have some minor quarrels with the Spanish one, but there's nothing out and out wrong, and I do recommend it). I like my Harper Collins Spanish/English dictionary; in addition to a good range of vocabulary, it has one of the best grammar references, in terms of both clarity and layout, that I've had the pleasure to see. (A minor issue for some with Harper Collins is that it has a slight focus on English as she is spoke in the UK and Spanish as it's spoken in Iberia; unlikely to be a problem, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention it.) http://www.wordreference.com is an excellent resource. I also have a 5-way pictorial dictionary which has proven handy at times.
Eventually you'll outgrow whatever Spanish/English dictionary you settle upon and you'll want a more comprehensive, Spanish-only dictionary. The RAE's (http://www.rae.es) dictionary is considered by many but not all to be the most definitive. http://www.rae2.es is a more minimal interface to the RAE's content.
So, stick with it and have fun. Learning a new language is very satisfying and obviously very useful too.
- Try to get the same sort of input infants get - interactive, highly repetitive and patterned. That's optimal for language learning.
- Repeat at spaced intervals, and organise the material. You can organise by looking for patterns in words, or by making up sentences containing a word, etc. Personalise the words and make them yours. Having an affective reaction to the word ("I like the sound of this word") can also help you remember.
- For recalcitrant words, use mnemonic techniques. The best strategy is the keyword technique, e.g. to remember the Spanish "caerse" (to fall (down)) you could say "He fell down and cursed". Try to make it something you can visualise.
- Reading books you like and choose to read on your own accord is as good as in-class vocabulary instruction (at least for L1 acquisition - there's been less research on reading in L2 acquisition). But, you need to be able to read at least 95% of the words to not get frustrated at having to look everything up in the dictionary. Of course, if you're passionate about whatever you're reading, you could know 10% and still plough through it.
- Listen to music. A tune + words is much easier to learn than words alone. From that, you can memorise and reuse sentence structures and new words. Also, popular music tends to use more colloquial expressions, which helps to learn informal language not covered by textbooks.
Personally, I've been learning Japanese recently and have learned more just from a textbook, watching anime/drama and reading manga than in the equivalent year of classroom Arabic I took - subjectively speaking. Some specific things I've been doing that seem to have helped:
- I've been using Anki for spaced repetition vocabulary practice. It's a great piece of open-source software.
- I tend to re-watch specific scenes that I enjoy after a few weeks. I've usually learned something more to better understand what's being said in the interim, which reinforces the usage of the sentence structures and vocabulary used.
- Similarly, I've been reading manga first in English and then in the original. I more or less know from my previous reading and the visual context what they said, so I can work out what each word should mean without looking them up individually.
- I've been writing diaries on lang-8.com and getting them corrected by native speakers. It's a helpful, friendly community, probably quite like LiveMocha but I've never tried the latter. It's focused on writing rather than connecting for conversations on Skype.
- I've been going for the local Japanese language meetup. It's not bad especially when you get a Japanese person who actually will let you practise your Japanese rather than always respond to you in English.
Bottom line, the fact that you're learning Spanish because you want to is your biggest asset. It'll carry you through most of the difficulties of learning a language. Try to expose yourself to material just a little bit beyond what you already know, so you're learning something and not getting frustrated. Whether you call it "flow" (Csikszentmihalyi) or "i+1" (Stephen Krashen) or just plain common sense, it works.
That said, the best (not really fastest, persay) way to learn language is between the sheets. You learn SO much better when you're intimate and motivated.
Which is how I learned French while living in Canada.