Self-Teaching Spanish

[shantster]

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I am interested in self-teaching myself Spanish since I don't have any time to ever fit it into my college schedule. Has anyone else done this and what book/program did you use?

 

[Biscuit799]

The "living language complete course" is a really good system to use. I used the spanish cassette set before i began spanish in school, and i was way ahead of the class when it started. it comes with a workbook and you must use that in conjuction with the tapes, but it does an awesome job of teaching the language.

 

[Haybrant]

The "living language complete course" is a really good system to use. I used the spanish cassette set before i began spanish in school, and i was way ahead of the class when it started. it comes with a workbook and you must use that in conjuction with the tapes, but it does an awesome job of teaching the language.

where did you get this from? standard item at a bookstore?

 

[cromagnon]

I've always felt that the two top competitors were Rosetta Stone and Pimsleur. I personally like Pimsleur best. They are both pretty expensive but you can check them out cheaply by getting the 10-day Pimsleur course here . It's only an intro course but for $20 it will give you a good idea of whether it works for you or not.

Rosetta Stone has a free online demo at their website here .

Be sure to check out the reviews of both products on Amazon.com as well. Good Luck!

 

[Biscuit799]

where did you get this from? standard item at a bookstore?

yeah, it costs about 40 bucks or so

 

[PineappleGirl]

On a more random yet free note, just watching Spanish TV is often helpful, especially if you are already familiar with the langauge. I took Spanish in high school and watch Spanish TV in an effort to keep my language skills recent.
For a beginner though, this may not be as helpful, however, as some of the other suggestions.

 

[Biscuit799]

On a more random yet free note, just watching Spanish TV is often helpful, especially if you are already familiar with the langauge. I took Spanish in high school and watch Spanish TV in an effort to keep my language skills recent.
For a beginner though, this may not be as helpful, however, as some of the other suggestions.

This does help me. Another thing I like to do is watch a movie that I'm fairly familiar with and turn on the spanish subtitles. That way I can read the word in spanish and hear it in english. This helps reinforce my vocab alot and also teaches me new things.

 

[sama094]

Assimil Language Courses are very popular in Europe. They begin with phrases and you slowly pick up word meanings and verbs by hearing them spoken to you in context. It tries to recreate how you first learned the English Language. Once you pick up the sounds and word meanings you use this to create sentances of your own. I just got their step two spanish Cd but haven't used them much yet. They've gotten great reviews though as a novel way of approaching second language acquisition.

 

[gomizzou]

If possible I would suggest using a summer to do an immersion program since you can't fit the classes into your normal schedule. I think being entirely surrounded by the culture and language would help the language acquisition to occur at a much higher pace than self-teaching.
It is nice to have someone around correcting any errors while you are speaking, whether they are grammatical or phonetic in nature. If you live somewhere and do a homestay, you can force yourself to communicate in the language 24 hours/day. You pick up a lot of vocab if you have to ask where everything is or what something is called etc. I think this makes it much easier to make it to the 'thinking and dreaming in another language' level.
Good luck!

 

[hopeful32]

I think Pimsleur is fantastic. It's what the CIA uses to teach language and I'd heard great things from a number of people that used it. I'm doing that now for Spanish. It's great because there is a lot more interactive question/answer learning scenarios with very little mindless repetition of words or phrases. I was able to buy burned MP3 CDs for cheap, so that's certainly a way to do it. Otherwise it's a $985 or so on Amazon for Spanish I, II, and III.

 

[shantster]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I had looked into Rosetta Stone for a bit but the price is just a little steep with my current lack of money. Same with Pimsleur. I'm thinking that I might see what the library system at home has and try something out for a little bit just to get the feel of it and maybe buy it. Thanks for all your suggestions!

 

[adoggie]

man, this thread is tight! i've always wanted to learn new languages, so i just picked up pimsleur cd's on spanish, german, italian, and french today. boy am i excited to get started.

 

[stoleyerscrubz]

pimsleur. rosetta stone is supposed to be good as well.

spanish textbook

I prefer watching/listening material I already know in english:
-Watching spanish TV especially spanish cartoon network since I watch cartoon network in english
-listening to spanish music especially popular translated music
-reading spanish newpapers/magazines or read something like Harry Potter in spanish
-I prefer watching well dubbed movies in spanish and put on english subtitles or I rent a spanish language movie that received good reviews and read english subtitles (i.e."Like Water for Chocolate")
-audio books
-spanish dual language books(search this on amazon)

Some of the above may be in some dialect so be aware of that. Imangine talking to someone who spoke like they learned english from the King James version of the bible. I think that is what happened to the kids in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn or some book I read in high school.



-most important is to have access to people that are native spanish speakers be it friends, work, social club, volunteer work, etc.


I've dated a girl from russia and a girl from mexico. Neither of them came to the USA with any training in english. Watching lots of USA TV and listening to USA music got them started and then speaking in english with native english speakers was the next step. Both started full-time jobs when they got here so they had to learn fast. You can learn a lot this way. So be sure you are talking to someone in spanish who is patient and will correct your most common errors. As was said above an immersion program or being in an environment where you need to speak spanish will boost your langugage skills quicky.

For those that want to get to the finer points in spanish or beyond begginer
reference:501 Spanish Verbs
text:Breaking out of Begginer's Spanish - Keenan
workbook:Spanish verb tenses workbook - Devney & Richmond
workbook:Spanish pronouns and prepositions - Richmond

Be consistent.