How did you learn your Spanish?

[Gringoboy]

A bit like this too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2UomEMZ2a8&feature=related

 

[Napoleon]

I have to say that after being here well over 4 1/2 years, I still wouldn't say that I've "immersed" myself yet. I did have an Argentine girlfriend, but we always spoke English. Then my last girlfriend was American, so that didn't help.

I work in English, my roommate is literally English, and many of my friends are English speakers as well.

Last week a group of us went to Uruguay for 4 days. 2 Argentines & 6 English speakers. Only the French guy wasn't a native speaker, but he lived in the States a lot growing up and other than saying "shadow" for "shade" and a couple of other things, his English is perfect. But then again so is his Spanish... bastard! But I would say the weekend was about 75% English : 25% Spanish. Not horrible.

Depending on the person and the use of slang, I can understand 40% to 80% of what's being said. I can also tune out at the drop of a hat if I'm not really involved in the conversation.

I don't know how long it will take for me to be totally comfortable in castellano. I still prepare what I'm going to ask in my head when I want something specific in a store. If they just casually start talking to me, then I don't. But if I'm going to ask a specific question and no one is talking to me, I prepare it in my head first.

:-S

 

[KatharineAnn]

Listening to lots and lots of flamenco music....juuuust kidding.

Mine is a combination of studied in college, went to a language school abroad, and in-country immersion, though I would say somewhere like 60-70% of what I know was from immersion living here for 4.5 years rather than the other two things. Also as many have mentioned, having an Argentine husband certainly helps, but I feel it's been years since I haven't learned anything new from him, because speaking to the same person over and over doesn't help after a certain point.

So when speaking with new people I still get tripped up all the time, because new people constantly use new expressions I didn't know and it requires more effort to understand them...the other day I heard a colorful new one "dar masa" for to f***. These kinds of things always trip me up the first time I hear them. Which is why, although I consider myself fluent, I don't think I will EVER stop learning...Maybe I should spend more time with Argentines instead of watching too many Spanish sitcoms and learning phrases that will only get me ridiculed here like "venga, vale, te veo luego!", "qué tío más cansino, joder" or "me está comiendo el coco".

EDIT: another funny one that just comes out sometimes that always gets a good risita: "me tienes en ascuas!" jajaja