Job Discussion Forums

[jessicah632]

Hey guys,

I'm trying to pack as much Spanish learning in as possible before I leave for South America in a few months. Are there any good teach-yourself programs you guys can recommend, especially for learning to listen and speak it (as opposed to read and write it)?

I picked up Hugo's Latin America Spanish in 3 Months last year before I went to South America, and it was pretty decent, but helped me more with grammar than speaking/understanding. For example, I can write out conjugated verbs, but I can't follow a conversation conducted in fluent Spanish next to me. Are there any good programs out there that could help me more with just picking up the listening comprehension and speaking aspect of it? And also the vocab?

I'd be willing to spend around $100, but preferably no more, and I don't care if it's DVD/tapes/computer/whatever. I'm lucky to live in Texas so we have a lot of Spanish-speaking TV shows and I try to watch them whenever possible but until I get more of a solid foundation of the language I'm not sure it's helping much. Any suggestions you guys might have?

Also, I'm a quick learner -- took Chinese and Arabic and Latin in school and aced all three, and I hear Spanish is much easier -- so I don't mind a program that moves pretty fast, if need be.

Thanks all!

--Jessicah

[naturegirl321]

And do you speak Latin , chinese and Arabic very well?

[ls650]

I didn't know a word of Spanish before coming to Mexico; my level of speaking/listening Spanish is a low pre-intermediate; my reading and writing in Spanish are a higher intermediate level.

I've looked at many Spanish books, and the only one I consider worth paying money for is Madrigal's Magic Key: http://tinyurl.com/bypsk

[jessicah632]

[naturegirl321]

That's great. I think Chinese Mandarin) is important. I'm trying to do something similar, master one language, then move on to another, I want my kids to speak at least three languges fluently (Spanish, English and Chinese.

[matttheboy]

The way i learnt was to rote learn the basic tenses and their endings (present, past, perfect, imperfect and conditional) for regular and then the most common irregular verbs (like ser, poder, volver). When i arrived in ecuador 2 years or so ago i couldn't actually speak the language much but found that the fact that i'd already learnt the hard part made picking up the basics pretty easy.

It was then a case of learning vocab more than anything else for the next 2-3 months before i taught myself the various subjunctive tenses (which i still make loads of mistakes with).

I just used a verb table book by the "Teach Yourself" series-it explains the basic uses for all the tenses and then provides a table of the most common verbs and their various conjugations.

2 years on and i'd put myself at a crap upper-intermediate on a bad day and almost advanced on a good day but i still sound like an englishman and still can't roll my r's (much to everyone's amusement).

I was fluent in French a few years ago and having learnt the concepts of a romance language before (verbs endings, masculine-feminine etc) was a major help. Spanish is definitely easier than French (which is a bloody nightmare). Unfortunately i'm no longer able to speak French, Spanish has bascially recorded itself over it.

[jessicah632]

oh good, here I thought I was looking like a language geek

My problem is that I jump around too much. One day I study more Chinese. The next I do Arabic. From now on it'll only be Spanish though (I hope). It's far better to do it your way, I'm way too unfocused.

Chinese is a surprisingly nice language to learn -- the rules are pretty simple, the sounds the same once you master them (although that r sound halfway between an r and a j still kills me.) And you can bet in upcoming years demand for fluent Chinese speakers will go up drastically. Are you of Chinese ethnicity or just wanting to learn?

The tricky part in any language is the idiomatic stuff. I hate it. I can never learn it. For example, on a job description in Japan listed by this site it reads:

[denise]

[matttheboy]

[naturegirl321]

[MELEE]

I can't roll my Rs either. I've been trying since long before I started learning Spanish. I tried to learn to play the trumpet as a child. To be a really good trumpet player you have to move your tongue in the same way as you do to roll your Rs, in music they call it trilling and it allows you to repeat the notes in rapid sucession. Turns out my tongue isn't attached in the right way, a ressessive trait, both my Dad and my brother are talented trumpet players, so I just have bad genetic luck. When I was in Chile, I lived with a women who was a special education teacher. She taught me some exercises to help me with my Rs, but it didn't work. I learned to systematically avoid words with double r. (I don't have a carro, I have a coche.) Unfortunately my last name has a double r! And I own two dogs! My brothers-in-law have taken to calling them pears along with me.

But I still maintain that Chile is a GREAT place to learn Spanish. On my last day there as a student I watched the evening news, like I did everyday. I understood about 75% of what the anchorwomen said. The next evening, back in the US, I tuned into Univision and watched the news in Spanish. I was like, "Why are they speaking so slow?" "Come on, get on with it." I understood 100% of what they said, I even felt like they were modifiy their speach so the silly gringa could follow. If you are going to spend a year learning Spanish, better go to Chile, then you'll be able to understand most other speakers. If you spend a year learning in Mexico, at the end of the year you won't be able to understand the Chileans.

[denise]

[Guy Courchesne]

If you were to try to mimic the sound of a cat's purr, how would it sound? This is close to rolling a Spanish r.

[matttheboy]

wuuuuuuuuuwwwwwwwww

[hlamb]

I'm also glad I'm not the only one! The double r is something I just can't see to master. I can't make the purring sound, either! I'm also finding it difficult to progress beyond the lower intermediate level of Spanish. Since I arrived in Mexico with no Spanish at all, I guess that's decent for eight months, but I really want to get better. I find I spend too much of my day thinking in English, while doing prep or actually teaching my classes.