How to learn Spanish?

[SpanishGuy]

This may be the hardest thing to do, but try to make friends with Argentines, be patient, and try to avoid using English. Even though my level of Spanish was good when I arrived I would sit at a table full Argentines and have a hard time keeping up. It took about 3 years to really be able to have a conversation in a group of people, in loud bar, etc. and 5+ to understand all of the conversations happening simultaneously.

Podcasts are a good alternative to the (VERY bad) television shows. Listening to Argentine music also helps with the accent. Try to learn to use "che" and "vos" as soon as possible. Search for La Llama que Llama on YouTube. That's how I really learned to speak Argentino.

Making friends with Argentines was the least difficult thing I did when coming here!

 

[SecretShopper]

While I do agree with this I feel that all major types/variations of English are closer together than different types/variations of Spanish. I feel that this has a lot more to do with colonialisation and closeness of the colony to the colonising country. You must remember that Portugal and Spain were colonising long before the UK. There has been a lot more time for Spanish to diverge than English has.

People don't understand how true this really is. All dialects of English are pretty close. There is no one who natively speaks English who can't understand English in any of country. Compare that to Spanish, German, Arabic, or French where even natives can struggle heavily with other dialects.

 

[SecretShopper]

I consider myself a master at learning languages. Although the first couple weeks are full of shock and complaints lol. As I see it there are 4 main factors to learning a language and they all make up 25 percent of the battle. I'll also admit that I've never formally studied a language in a school since I consider it to be a giant waste of time. I'm a biased American because our schools are terrible at teaching languages.

1. Technique: This is what most people get wrong. I'll only mention a couple things. First, do not waste your time asking people questions if you do not know the basics of the language. Take a couple months and go through whichever app you find in order to get the basics. When finished, you can begin asking questions because you'll have a base and things will make more sense. The other big mistake I hear a lot is people say to watch a show and use subtitles in your native language. I could not disagree more. Do not do this. You are not learning your native language. And worse, translations are horrible. Audio might say "go to the store and buy groceries".. but the translated subs may say "find the supermarket and bring back food". That is not the same thing and you're not learning correct. You have to learn to form your own sentences. Both audio and subtitles should be in your target language. And they should perfectly match. Also, when you are not actively studying, turn off the subtitles, even if you don't understand much.

2. Similarity: How close is your target language to your native language? Someone who speaks Spanish will struggle a lot more learning English than Italian.

3. Language intelligence: This is the ability to understand new words based on understanding a base word and deciphering it in real time based on the context. For example, I was watching a show in French earlier today and someone said "fait attention, il se déchaînera contre toi".... the new word was déchaîne. But I know the word chaîne, which means chains, and with de in front, it easy in real time to understand him saying to be careful, he will unleash against you. This ability will keep a conversation going without pauses.

4. Effort: this is obviously. I'm not in the business of spending years of my life to learn a language. Therefore, I brute force languages and spend hours a day actively studying and the rest passively studying with texts to friends or watching series.

I speak 4 languages fluently. And right now I'm 7 months into French and absolutely no one I speak with can believe that I started such a short time ago. I'll be fluent guaranteed in 6 more months if I went to an all French country.

 

[Redpossum]

There is no one who natively speaks English who can't understand English in any of country.

Oh yeah, right. Have you talked to someone from Glasgow? Edinburgh?
Or how about Zimbabwe?

 

[BeraRane]

"Would you like to go large with you brag sir?"

 

[wineguy999]

1. Technique: This is what most people get wrong...people say to watch a show and use subtitles in your native language. I could not disagree more. Do not do this. You are not learning your native language. And worse, translations are horrible. Audio might say "go to the store and buy groceries".. but the translated subs may say "find the supermarket and bring back food". That is not the same thing and you're not learning correct. You have to learn to form your own sentences. Both audio and subtitles should be in your target language. And they should perfectly match. Also, when you are not actively studying, turn off the subtitles, even if you don't understand much.

This.

 

[steveinbsas]

I have prviously posted in this thread that (now almost) twelve years ago I moved to an area where no one speaks English.

That facilitated learning Spanish by osmosis, but my progress was slow.

Two months ago I started "teaching English" (every day throughout the day) using WhatsApp to a woman who lives in Colombia.

My ability to speak Spanish may have improved more in the last two months than in the past twelve years.

 

[Kula]

If you cant speak -just listen to the natives. If you can speak -speak with natives.
PS I speak 8 languages (today).

 

[steveinbsas]

...All dialects of English are pretty close. There is no one who natively speaks English who can't understand English in any of country. Compare that to Spanish, German, Arabic, or French where even natives can struggle heavily with other dialects.

Redpossum: Have you talked to someone from Glasgow? Edinburgh?

Jimmy Carr:

 

[dilmah]

Both audio and subtitles should be in your target language. And they should perfectly match.

right. And this makes learning Spanish hard as opposed to learning English.
Almost all movies with English speech have matching English subtitles.
Not so for Spanish. Spanish subtitles are oftentimes independent translations of English subtitles. Do not match Spanish speech.