Spanish: what's the best way to learn it?

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stmclovin

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My friend who is a PA cant find a job because she does not know Spanish. She is taking some classes right now. I have 4 years of medical school and residency to learn it.

I have never taken Spanish. Should I only look at medical Spanish or start from beginning? Also do I want Spain Spanish or Latin American one?
 
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I took 2 years of Spanish along with my pre-requisites and I am thinking about this program to have some immersion. www.tlaxcalasinfronteras.com
They can do a focus on medical terminology and it is out of touristy areas. I have to decide between the early anatomy class or this spanish immersion.
 
Go to South America without a translator. You will be speaking it in no time!👍
 
Mexican prison
 
You can get by just fine without it...I find it really odd that your friend is having trouble finding a job unless she is in a very spanish speaking focused area like south florida, southern california, etc...in which case jobs are tight anyway.

Immersion programs are the best way. I personally find the classes in college kind of useless. I'm in one now for spanish and don't feel like I am learning anything I couldn't teach myself. Spanish is a pretty easy language to learn since we get exposed to it everywhere. I hate the damn language, but if you can stand it then take a class, start listening to the radio and t.v. in spanish, reading spanish newspapers. Find books with medical themes in spanish and hack your way through. It is good to learn how to read in a foreign language anyway. You can apply it later on. Reading was the single best thing I did for my german next to being there forever.
 
I took 4 years of spanish in high school and I'm now one class away from finishing a spanish minor. I feel absolutely incompetent when trying to hold a conversation with a native spanish speaker.
If you want to speak just well enough to get the point across, take classes. If you want to be fluent, immersion is really the only way to go. spend some time in an area where you'll have no choice but to speak spanish constantly.
 
Yeah I took French for 4 years. Rather than learn Spanish for its usefulness I learned French for its Romantic possibilities. 😉
 
How has that worked out for you? Do you just say stuff like "tu a sexe avec moi?"
 
Immersion is the absolute best way. I started taking Spanish classes when I was 13 but there is nothing like the experience of living in a foreign country and being forced to quickly learn and absorb all of the nuances of a foreign language that are so difficult to be taught in the classroom.

That being said, it's usually not an option for professionals who already have a full time job. So in that case I'd recommend starting at the beginning at a local college. Once you have the basics down, switching to a self-paced computer program will work as long as you continue to dedicate the necessary time to it.

Good luck!
 
I would recommend finding a volunteer program through your University or College that is able to offer immersion for an affordable price. I have done this in Mexico for two years now through the University of Utah. Your school might also offer an alternative spring break, where you can travel to Mexico and work with schools and kids in rural communities. I am finishing my last semester of Spanish Literature and have found it to be very useful. Just as others have said if you want to be fluent and very proficient in the language you need to live amongst those that speak it, otherwise, it will take you quite a while to even form a base. As far as which dialect of the language to learn, I would highly recommend anything from Central America. More than likely the majority of the time you will be confronted with those from Mexico, Puerto Rico and a few northern south Americans. I personally find it to be very useful, and I believe the Oncologists I work with find it to be very handy when I translate for them. Most of them tell me that they wished they could have learned more of the language earlier on.

Buena Suerte.
 
I would go to Puerto Rico.
 
EEL08 said:
megboo!! I'm still rooting for you to get into SIU! :luck:
Click to expand...

Me too! So you've decided to come back to forlorn pre-osteo? 😛
 
t-funk said:
Me too! So you've decided to come back to forlorn pre-osteo? 😛
Click to expand...

:laugh:

yeah, I needed a break. The cynicism of SDN as a whole was really getting to me. I was going the way of JPH and it wasn't pretty. I'm going to try to stick to the sane zones now (relatively speaking), although the Lounge has my Stupid Fun Online Game thread 😉
 
megboo said:
:laugh:

yeah, I needed a break. The cynicism of SDN as a whole was really getting to me. I was going the way of JPH and it wasn't pretty. I'm going to try to stick to the sane zones now (relatively speaking), although the Lounge has my Stupid Fun Online Game thread 😉
Click to expand...

Well, welcome back. I think the energy has gotten pretty good around here. It was getting crazy with all the DO vs MD threads and stuff here for awhile. 🙂
 
t-funk said:
Well, welcome back. I think the energy has gotten pretty good around here. It was getting crazy with all the DO vs MD threads and stuff here for awhile. 🙂
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Just wait, those threads will reappear once the new application cycle starts. Ahhh. 😱
 
Well, I understand immersion is the best. But where to start? My friend has Rosetta stone, i will check it out. Will I be able to make my own sentances after RS?
 
stmclovin said:
Well, I understand immersion is the best. But where to start? My friend has Rosetta stone, i will check it out. Will I be able to make my own sentances after RS?
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I played with rosetta stone a little before I moved to central america for 2 years.

You WILL be able to make sentences, but they will be things like "the cat is on the table"

You will probably have to take some sort of medical spanish course to learn anything relevant.

I speak a pretty mean spanish and I still plan on taking one of those courses as an elective during med school. I don't even know the word for everything in ENGLISH let alone Spanish.
 
brgotch said:
If you want to be fluent, immersion is really the only way to go. spend some time in an area where you'll have no choice but to speak spanish constantly.
Click to expand...

I know it is common to say "get fluent", but the fact is...unless you have a MINIMUM of 2 or 3 years of immersion under your belt, you probably aren't going to be truly fluent. You'll be well off and able to handle just about any conversation, but there is a lot to fluency that people don't factor in. Your goal with this stuff should never be fluency. When you meet those people that say they are "fluent" in 5 languages...much of the time they are completely full of crap. They might be proficient in 5 languages, but there is no way they could easily pick up any book and read it while understanding all the meaning in it. I doubt they could really freelance and figure out the various dialects on the fly or seamlessly transition into the language no problem. That type of person is rare to say the least. It takes me about 2 weeks of being in Germany before my German even reaches an acceptable level where I can talk politics, science, sports or whatever with people without becoming horribly mentally drained in an hour. (This is after spending more than a year over there speaking every day and reading 6 to 7 books in German along with the daily newspaper every week..along with my original classes.) I also have the stupid Goethe certification so I could enroll in class over there if I really wanted to..but I'd get my a$$ kicked. I worked so hard to get a B in a literature science course when the rest of the class were native speakers. It was an easy little class for them. It made my science classes seem like cake in comparison.
 
I was going to go to Argentina my senior year of high school. There was a guy that used to come into my restaurant when I was a junior who was from Argentina and would come up to work at Duncan aviation occasionally in my town. I would always practice my Spanish with him and he was going to let me come down as a foreign exchange student as he had daughters my age. My goal was to become fluent. I had it set up and then my mother went into the hospital and I got engaged and everything changed. One day I will go back and learn Spanish at a very proficient level. I will definitely take medicinal spanish if it is offered at medical school and hopefully get better from there.
 
I had to converse in Spanish tonight with a patient and family because they didn't understand English. I had to explain a pelvic CT.

Los doctores quieren un fotografia alli. (Points to his pelvis).
Tienes tu allergias?
Yo necesito to no mover para 5 minutos. Mas o menos.

I was so nervous and felt like an idiot. They probably were like, "Where the hell did this guy learn any Spanish from?"
 
Para aprender la lengua tiene que chupar la lengua...Join the Peace Corps. Move to Bolivia for two years and get a significant other who only speaks Spanish. It worked for me.
 
The best way to learn Spanish? Drunk.
 
justletmeinplz said:
The best way to learn Spanish? Drunk.
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That's not far from the truth. Drunkeness can remove inhibitions from having conversation and speaking which is the roadblock that impedes most people from practicing con hispanohablantes.
 
NasPas said:
That's not far from the truth. Drunkeness can remove inhibitions from having conversation and speaking which is the roadblock that impedes most people from practicing con hispanohablantes.
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Yup. I'm always surprised by how proficient I am in Spanish when I'm intoxicated.
 
Total Immersion? That's nonsense and a waste of time. To the OP...your solution is simple. Escape the Matrix and have Spanish downloaded instantly along with Kung-Fu and Drunken Boxing. Just look for the white rabbit...
 
Cancer Man said:
http://web.mac.com/docmolly/Podcasts_de_Molly/Welcome.html

Above is a link to some medical Spanish podcasts. This should get you started. Rosetta stone is also good but expensive. The voice stress analyzer is very useful. Aside from that. Practice, practice, practice.
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What a GREAT link, thanks!! I am wondering if there's anything out there for Medical French?? I know it might be a strange question to ask, but I know some French, and I'm interested in learning the medical terminology as well.

Any ideas?
 
ahaydt said:
I had to converse in Spanish tonight with a patient and family because they didn't understand English. I had to explain a pelvic CT.

Los doctores quieren un fotografia alli. (Points to his pelvis).
Tienes tu allergias?
Yo necesito to no mover para 5 minutos. Mas o menos.

I was so nervous and felt like an idiot. They probably were like, "Where the hell did this guy learn any Spanish from?"
Click to expand...

I'm super nervous to speak too, even if I know the right words.

Maybe they thought your Spanish could have been better, but don't you think you made them feel more comfortable than someone who couldn't communicate with them at all? I think the effort goes a long way, and you'll get more comfortable with conversation the more you find exuses to practice.
 
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