Experiences learning Spanish?

[Member8675309]

Non-instructive immersion is fine if you’re just hoping to learn how to get by as a tourist. It won’t teach you really how to speak the language without any real help or a really long time immersed. Even then, you’re unlikely to truly learn how to speak the language as your are super limited by the contexts in which you can make meaning (likely restaurants, directions to places, etc.).

If you want to enjoy your immersive experience, then you probably want to at least be able to find your way and hold basic conversations with people. It’s much more rewarding to go to a new place and learn about them in their language than it is to figure out how to order food and find the bathroom before you head home.

It depends on what your goals are and how much you want to learn and experience.

Incentive as the driving force. Part of my job is to work with the ESL teacher. I’ve had students that speak no English whatsoever. At least a hundred, of varying ability of course, by this point in my career.
Teaching to groups of students that speak no English is a challenge. I’m coming from the position of the first step being immersion, incentive is the mother of invention after all.
But, like you said, instruction puts a turbo charge on the immersion experience, and is crucial to helping these young people learn our language, not just order food. But, imagine trying to learn a language without a legitimate reason to do so. Your failure rate would sky rocket. Immersion, incentive is the most crucial element. Most ESL teachers, if not all, agree.
So, I suppose I should have made myself more clear in my original post.

 

[Bob_Ross]

One thing about Spanish is that it opens up Portuguese and Italian, too.

+1 My Spanish sucks, but my Italian is non-existent. To this day I am incredibly proud of being able to request fresh towels from the maid in our hotel when I was on tour in Italy...30 years ago. Butchered Spanish FTW!

 

[Eric ER]

Incentive as the driving force. Part of my job is to work with the ESL teacher. I’ve had students that speak no English whatsoever. At least a hundred, of varying ability of course, by this point in my career.
Teaching to groups of students that speak no English is a challenge. I’m coming from the position of the first step being immersion, incentive is the mother of invention after all.
But, like you said, instruction puts a turbo charge on the immersion experience, and is crucial to helping these young people learn our language, not just order food. But, imagine trying to learn a language without a legitimate reason to do so. Your failure rate would sky rocket. Immersion, incentive is the most crucial element. Most ESL teachers, if not all, agree.
So, I suppose I should have made myself more clear in my original post.

I agree completely. Immersion with instruction is better than anything. I’m just also thinking practically about someone visiting for a limited amount of time. The experience will be much more rewarding if they were starting with something when they arrived since they could begin to converse. Also, it provides the incentive and a due date for reaching a level since they would want to reach a certain ability before arrival.

A benefit of ESL instruction in an English speaking country is time since they likely are here for at least an extended period of time versus 1-4 weeks.

 

[the harp unstrung]

In some cultures "Perro" is the almost the worst thing you can be called.

...you don’t know who your father is...you are a literal son of a bitch...

I didn’t know that until later in the day when I brought that story to my Latina friend in the front office.
She was FURIOUS, with Five exclamation points! Ready to rip Jesus a new one!

I talked her down off that ledge by explaining what a wonderful thing he’d done by using the word ‘context’ correctly...in context!

 

[BboogieXVII]

Some sage advice, don't use the word for "monkey" or "dog" at least for a long long time until one knows what they are doing.

I signed up for Yabla at $10 a month online. I will say that they have tons of videos but the beginner material is difficult for a real beginner like me. I can make it work I suppose but to learn from that website might not be the best thing. I will keep looking for more appropriate material.

I am going to El Super now (a grocery store) to get some vegetables and do some vicarious listening.

 

[dwm74]

Late to the thread but I'll share my experiences...

I took Spanish all four years of high school, I figured it was the one subject I would actually use after graduating. (I've still yet to ever need to do a geometric proof in the 40 yrs since! )

Anyway, after moving to Arizona thinking that I had a leg up with the language, the first thing I had to do was to un-learn a fair amount of things. Book Spanish and spoken Spanish are two different things. If I wanted to compose official communiques in Spanish I had that ability, but to actually speak with the locals it was a whole 'nother thing. Granted, most of the speakers I was in contact with were not the most educated individuals, so maybe that was a factor, but nonetheless I had to learn a lot of slang phrases in order to communicate efficiently.

I was always told that soap operas (telenovelas) were a good learning source, since it involved a lot of conversational Spanish, but I ended up being distracted by the short skirts, and didn't learn much that way. YMMV. Buenas suerte!

 

[buldog5151bass]

Another issue is Castilian (European) Spanish, which many schools teach (particularly in college) versus South American Spanish. They read the same, but the pronunciation is very different.

 

[Drgonzonm]

Another issue is Castilian (European) Spanish, which many schools teach (particularly in college) versus South American Spanish. They read the same, but the pronunciation is very different.

It is to be expected. There are several dialects in Spain alone, and growing up in NM, there were three, now there are more. Florida has several dialects.
Consider the King's Spanish, the dialect of the gabracho. Play on chico

 

[Perrygoround]

Also bear in mind that is not only Spanish-Spanish different from American-Spanich, but also in different countries of America (being it north-, centro- or south- America) they use different words and even gramatical constructions for many things.
Spanish from Spain is as different to Spanish from Mexico than Spanish from Mexico is from Spanish from Cuba, or Argentina or Venezuela.

And yes, many people learn Spanish by Latin Soup Operas. I have met many Eastern-Europe Women that spoke Spanish (some of them quite well) after years of watching that kind of shows on the TV. So I it is likely a good option to try if you are keen on spending time watching that (I wouldn't be, TBH).

 

[Perrygoround]

It is to be expected. There are several dialects in Spain alone, and growing up in NM, there were three, now there are more. Florida has several dialects.
Consider the King's Spanish, the dialect of the gabracho. Play on chico

anyway, it is the same with every language in the world that is spoken by a large number of people.
For example, I lived in east Londond for a while, and believe me, that cockney thing was impossible to understand for me. I had a flatmate from Yorkshire, and it was difficult to understand him as well. Then, I went to Liverpool for a holyday, and what a nightmare!! I couldn't catch even a single word. Later, I had some friends from New Zeland, and they were difficult to follow as well. When I finally moved to Belfast, Irish accent and words were easy compared to all that previous experiences.

 

[BboogieXVII]

Late to the thread but I'll share my experiences...

I took Spanish all four years of high school, I figured it was the one subject I would actually use after graduating. (I've still yet to ever need to do a geometric proof in the 40 yrs since! )

Anyway, after moving to Arizona thinking that I had a leg up with the language, the first thing I had to do was to un-learn a fair amount of things. Book Spanish and spoken Spanish are two different things. If I wanted to compose official communiques in Spanish I had that ability, but to actually speak with the locals it was a whole 'nother thing. Granted, most of the speakers I was in contact with were not the most educated individuals, so maybe that was a factor, but nonetheless I had to learn a lot of slang phrases in order to communicate efficiently.

I was always told that soap operas (telenovelas) were a good learning source, since it involved a lot of conversational Spanish, but I ended up being distracted by the short skirts, and didn't learn much that way. YMMV. Buenas suerte!

Gracias, compa! (buddy) , Signed onto Yabla for month to month. They have a fair amount of soap operas on there but to make the learning easier there are subtitles in Spanish and English plus a few other things like being able to slow it down or loop it click on a word and the dictionary translations pop up as well. I hated it at first but now starting to roll with it.

I seem to like listening to Colombian Spanish the best so far, it's pretty easy to comprehend.

 

[Stempelloos]

The best way is to go to Spain (or Mexico in your case) and take a course there.

I learned some Spanish from Spanish colleagues, while working at a steel factory.
And staying in and around Granada for a month.

That thought me that's it's better to have a course.
So I bought a book with a Spanish-English-Spanish course when I went to South America for 4 months.
The friend that I visited in Granada, thought me pronunciation and practiced the book exercises with me.
He is a fluent Spanish speaker.

His relation with a Spanish woman combined with staying in Spain for a long time helped him a lot to become fluent speaking.

 

[whatizitman]

Total extended immersion is necessary to become fluent, IME.

Even in areas within the US with high populations of native Spanish speakers, the US is still considered the "host" country from a Spanish-speaking perspective. It's not like they will feel comfortable saying to your face that your Spanish sucks, and that you just need to turn your Harley around and go back to America. Native speakers will definitely be polite, of course. Just keep in mind it's asking a lot of a native speaker to put forth the extra effort to help you communicate. Most "conversations" will be short and superficial, at best.

So even if you are able to strike up conversations, watch novellas, and occasionally order in Spanish at the corner tacqueria, until you're in an extended situation where you have to speak Spanish because you don't really have the choice otherwise, the constant switching will make attaining fluency far more difficult.

 

[whatizitman]

I seem to like listening to Colombian Spanish the best so far, it's pretty easy to comprehend.

I think Central American and South American Spanish is much clearer for US English speakers to follow. At least that's my experience. Dialects and accents for people from rural regions in Mexico is actually harder, OTOH, despite making up probably the largest portion of Spanish speaking populations in the US.

But nobody got nuthin' on Cubans. They are even hard for other native Spanish speakers to to understand!

Hopefully not offending anyone here.

 

[Killed_by_Death]

I was considerably better at Spanish than I am now in the early 90s & was completely lost watching the Cuban weather gal on TV.

 

[Perrygoround]

I think Central American and South American Spanish is much clearer for US English speakers to follow. At least that's my experience. Dialects and accents for people from rural regions in Mexico is actually harder, OTOH, despite making up probably the largest portion of Spanish speaking populations in the US.

But nobody got nuthin' on Cubans. They are even hard for other native Spanish speakers to to understand!

Hopefully not offending anyone here.

I am from Spain and I agree that some Mexican seem to be the hardest to understand. I think they use the more unique words not employed by any other Spanish speakers anywhere else. Of course, every country/region has unique words, but I find Mexicans being the more different from the rest. Probably the Spanish spoken there has a stronger influence from native languages than in other places.
South American Spanish, in general, from a Spanish (European) perspective, sound a bit old-fashioned and more polite than how we Speak at this side of the Ocean.
Probably the opposite happens with English, I find British English more polite and old-fashioned than American. But being non-native speaker I could be wrong.
One advantage learning English over other languages is that English is a «common» language worldwide and is easier finding yourself in situations were only English can be used as a mean of communication. Emglish speakers can find people able to communicate in English to some extent almost anywhere in the world. That excludes the need of learning any other language, difficulting the process. If you want to learn Spanish, put yourselves in situations were speaking Spanish is the only way of communicating. That should boost the learning process.

 

[BboogieXVII]

Yeah, the problem with being a native English speaker is that everyone thinks they speak English better than you speak their language. (even when it's totally the other way around). That's why my best option might be to find some people with similar hobbies that are native Spanish speakers and will just let us speak Spanish only, for at least a good part of the time.

Generally I've found that Mexicans in the U.S. that don't know much English will let us speak in Spanish; that's if I know how to proceed! The conversation that happens depends on my level of speaking. I'm ok with that.

On a somewhat related note, I was somewhat crushed when I found out several years ago that in Brazil the language is Portuguese. Oh the horror. If life was simpler would it be as fun?

 

[Groove Doctor]

Learn the Top 100 Spanish Words You Need To Know

Top 100 Spanish Words - Most common words in Spanish

 

[BboogieXVII]

Learn the Top 100 Spanish Words You Need To Know

Top 100 Spanish Words - Most common words in Spanish

I taught English as a second language in China for two years. The college students probably knew on average about 5,000 English words but struggled to put simple sentences together. Chinese language is hard to learn for English speakers and vice versa. It is much easier for a Chinese speaker to learn say Japanese or Korean than it is for them to learn English. My Chinese is horrible BTW.

I had to grade those students on the Bell curve but If I were honestly grading them about 75% would have failed. On the bell curve that wanted 10% to fail, so they did.

Practical phrases and politeness go a long way for newbies I think. Maybe keeping in mind that while learning to speak complete thoughts, ask questions and sound coherent, that the most popular words are out there, but maybe are not the most useful in every situation. Listening and comprehending are almost always more difficult I think.

I guess what I'm saying is that a list of words is an almost useless thing to learn unless learned in context with other words to form meaning. Those words used with other less popular to form meaning and communication would probably go a long way.

I think I remember reading that if you know how to use around 3,000 words correctly and in context; in most languages you are about as good as 98% of the population. 1,000 words and you are good to get by. A list of words however, is nothing if you are talking to someone on the street.

You don't need to know that many words, but you need to know how to use what you know!

 

[FatFunk]

If you find any particular issue, ask here or via PM.
I'm a native spanish speaker that somewhat understands the spanish / english interaction.
Whatever I can't answer, I'll ask my wife she is an english teacher (meaning she teaches english as a second language to spanish speakers) and she is a language geek.
I'm sure I can assist.