4 Spanish Learning Tips From me - Write Yours Now!

[vbestic]

Tips for learning Spanish:

1) Speak; remember that there’ll always be misunderstandings when you interact with people. If you speak and the other person doesn’t understand, don’t be put off. Try and explain what you mean and if there are any mistakes, you’ll be corrected.

2) Don’t be reticent; as someone looking for an effective way to learning Spanish, being reticent will only retard any move towards success. Don’t let all that hard work go in vain.

3) Be consistent; the key to success is to be consistent. If you can’t find someone to speak to, there’s nothing wrong in speaking to yourself. As you speak out loud, you will become better.

4) Be Patient; Also, allow yourself time to get use to the new language. Don’t be disappointed when you don’t seem to learn as fast as you had anticipated. You will eventually get there.

[Aprendo]

Identify your learning style and the ways you learn better.

Some people are aural learners who can learn a lot by listening (but this is about 10% of the population iirc).

Some people are visual learners, kinesthetic, etc.

[cgage]

Here is a method I have used for both Spanish and French: (note that this is for native English speakers)
Choose several American movies that you like enough to watch many many times. They must have a Spansih language track. Watch them in English until you already know what everyone is saying. Then turn on the Spanish track and watch the movies until you could almost play a Spanish speaking part in the movie. its not as hard as it sounds if you're willing to put in the work. It exercises the listening portion of the brain, Unfortunatly it doesnt help as much for speaking. Thats almost another skill.
Its much better to use Hollywood movies that are dubbed rather than Mexican films. For some reason, the American dubbing is very clear and easy to follow.
WHen listening, try not to use the English subtitles. It will distract your focus. You will be reading and not listening if you do.
AS an alternative, listen in English with Spanish subtitles. This helps for analysis and spelling.
One of my favorite American movie learning tools is "Also Starring Pancho Villa" with Antonio Banderas.
There are countless others and with the upcoming Blueray, there will be even more available.
Many of the George Clooney movies have good dubbing ("Michael Clayton" or "Ocean's 13" for example.
I said that Mexican movies were harder to listen to, One exception is "Like Water for Chocolate". It is easy to understand.
Of course the only way to really learn a language is to live in the country.

[Villa]

Originally Posted by vbestic

Tips for learning Spanish:

1) Speak; remember that there’ll always be misunderstandings when you interact with people. If you speak and the other person doesn’t understand, don’t be put off. Try and explain what you mean and if there are any mistakes, you’ll be corrected.

2) Don’t be reticent; as someone looking for an effective way to learning Spanish, being reticent will only retard any move towards success. Don’t let all that hard work go in vain.

3) Be consistent; the key to success is to be consistent. If you can’t find someone to speak to, there’s nothing wrong in speaking to yourself. As you speak out loud, you will become better.

4) Be Patient; Also, allow yourself time to get use to the new language. Don’t be disappointed when you don’t seem to learn as fast as you had anticipated. You will eventually get there.

It's important to understand how we learn a second language or the steps we go through to learn a second language. Here are the stages we all go through to learn a second language. It's how we learned our first language.This has happened and continues to happen to me with Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and French.

• Stage 1- Silent/Receptive - (understanding the language)
• Stage 2- Early Production
• Stage 3- Speech Emergence
• Stage 4- Intermediate Fluency
• Stage 5- Continued Language Development.

It is impossible to speak any language without understanding the language first. During stage 1 it is imperative to listen to in this case Spanish mucho. Study all you want, use flash cards etc. etc. but at the same time you must be exposed to Spanish my listening and watching TV in Spanish, the radio in Spanish and audio recordings of music in Spanish, language programs and audio Spanish books. While in your car driving to and from work or where ever you go, at the gym with your listening device, in the bathroom, while waiting at the doctor or dentist office, waiting for the kids to finish soccer practice or where ever you are listen to Spanish. Listen to Spanish speakers where ever you go. In my case I married a Spanish speaker and listened to her every day all day. After awhile the Spanish words will just start coming out of your mouth like magic.

Another way to look at the stages of learning we go through is:

1. understanding
2. speaking
3. reading
4. writing

This is the order we learned English and it is the order you will learn Spanish.

[Manuel]

These are my tips:

1. Learn words & verbs in the context of a phrase. Not only will that help you remember them better, it will also greatly speed up the learning of new words, sentence constructions etc. because you are learning a new phrase for every verb/word you add to your vocabulary.

2. Learn related words & phrases. When learning the word for hand, for example, try to learn related words, such as parts of the hand; actions of the hand; other parts of the body, and things you might wear on your hands. The vocabulary by topic here in the forums is a good example of this. But you can also make up these lists for yourself, as I've done with many other topics, like "the human body", "sex", "household/home" etc. etc.

3. When you learn words that have opposites/antonyms, learn BOTH sides together. So don't just add "fast" to your vocabulary. If you learn the Spanish word for "fast", immediately add "slow" as well and remember them together.

4. Learn what you NEED and WHEN you need it. A lot of people who have reached a certain level of skill in a foreign language and who want to improve it further, do not think about how they can improve in the most efficient and fastest way. For example, they will often try to increase their vocabulary by reading and then looking up words they don't know. Of course that will help to increase your vocabulary, but what many people fail to realize is that this way they learn a lot of words that they hardly USE in their daily speech!

If you want to improve your speaking skills in a foreign language quickly, you have to figure out which words you use often in your OWN language and look THOSE words up in the dictionary. For example, words that are often used like conjunctions ("except", "unless" etc.) Or perhaps you often use a particular word a lot in your own language when you speak; for example, if you often use the word "tremendous" in your own language, look up that word in Spanish, since you know that you will feel the urge to use that word in your conversations.

This way you will learn a lot more things that YOU need, and at the moment in your development that you need them, instead of learning a whole bunch of stuff you won't use often. It's all about information-timing: learning what you need, and when you need it, not before.

This also means that you will learn a lot faster if you don't simply follow the curriculum from a book, because the contents of a course never correspond exactly to your individual needs and if you go through the course from beginning to end the timing of the information is also set as well. Now, for beginners it's a different story of course, because they don't know anything about the language yet, so then going through a course is very helpful. But if you are past the beginner's stage, then you will improve much faster if you think for yourself about what the most useful thing to learn NEXT would be.

5. THINK in Spanish. This is the most essential thing to practice if you want to learn how to SPEAK in a foreign language. I often hear people talking about how they cannot practice speaking because they don't have anyone to speak Spanish TO. I have news for you: you don't NEED anyone to speak to in order to practice speaking! How can that be, you ask?? Simple...you speak TO YOURSELF.

Have you ever asked yourself what talking really IS? It's nothing but verbally expressing what you are THINKING. But you can also talk to yourself inside your own head, silently. You don't need anyone around to respond to you, because that is not necessary to learn to talk. Having a conversation partner is only necessary to learn the art of conversation, but to verbally express one of your thoughts you don't need anyone around. For example, you might have the thought "I am tired". Instead of thinking that in English, you could also think that to yourself in Spanish. "Estoy cansado". Now, if you can think to yourself "estoy cansado", you can also SAY it! It's that simple. Whatever you can THINK you can also SAY.

Now I can already hear some of you thinking "But I have just started learning Spanish! I cannot even form a complete sentence yet, so how can I THINK in Spanish then?"

Here's how:

The basic idea you have to remember is this,

Immediately apply whatever new thing you learn.

And by "applying" I mean USE it in your daily thinking. I'll give an example. Let's say you are just starting out with Spanish and you have learned the personal pronouns but no verbs yet. You have only learned "I", "you", "he" etc. Since you don't know any verbs, you obviously can't say/think a complete sentence yet. But what you CAN do is (remember the basic rule) USE what you DO know. So after you have learned the personal pronouns, in your daily life whenever you see a man somewhere, look at him and think to yourself "el" (the Spanish pronoun for "he"). That's ALL you do at first! You don't need to create a sentence. All you're doing is immediately APPLYING (by USING the words as thoughts in your head) whatever new thing you have just learned.

As you learn more and more things, the thoughts in your head in the new language can gradually become longer and longer until pretty soon you're jabbering away like an idiot! For example, take again the same person who learned the personal pronouns and nothing else yet. Let's say this person happened to pick up the word "guapo" somewhere, he/she now knows that that word means "goodlooking" but still they haven't learned any verbs yet, so they cannot say or think something like "he/she IS goodlooking." But again, what is the basic rule? Immediately apply whatever new thing you learn.

So what do you do? When you are going about your daily business and you see a goodlooking man on the street, on TV etc. you THINK to yourself (and thus SAY it in your own mind, just silently) "el...guapo"!

If you do this regularly, by immediately and repeatedly USING everything you learn (through creating thoughts in your head that use whatever you have learned) you will progress VERY quickly. You learn to THINK in the language, and if you can THINK in a language you can also SPEAK it, period.

And again, you don't need to be able to construct complete sentences at first. Thinking just one word to yourself is ALSO a thought, the simplest one of all. So just start there, by thinking ONE word in Spanish to yourself and build from there. If you have learned the Spanish word for umbrella (paraguas), then everytime you pick up your umbrella or see an umbrella somewhere, think "paraguas" to yourself.

This brings me to my last point regarding thinking in Spanish, which is that it's a fantastic way to quickly build a vocabulary that is USEFUL (see point no.4 above.)

Remember, the words you will most often use are the words that describe things in YOUR reality. So what's in your reality?? The first, most obvious answer is everything that you can observe with your 5 senses. In other words, everything you can see, smell, hear, taste and touch around you. So one of the best ways to learn words that you will actually USE a lot in conversation is to look at everything around you and learn the words for what you see, use, hold etc. For example, let's say one day you're cleaning the house and you pick up a vacuum cleaner and you look at it and you realize you don't know what the word for vacuum cleaner is in Spanish. Now, would that be a good word to learn? Of course, because you often USE a vacuum cleaner in your own life! It's something you see often, it's something you use, it's a common item in YOUR reality, so it's a useful word to learn.

If you focus on learning words for everything you observe around you and for things you use, talk about with other people, think about etc. then you will be building your vocabulary in a very directed and efficient manner.

Phew! I think I will get off of my soapbox now.

Hope this helps some people!

[Glen]

Originally Posted by Manuel

Phew! I think I will get off of my soapbox now.

Please don't, Manuel - those are some of the most useful tips I've ever heard anywhere. They're worth reading again and again.

[Manuel]

Originally Posted by Glen

Please don't, Manuel - those are some of the most useful tips I've ever heard anywhere. They're worth reading again and again.

Thank you very much Glen. I know they have helped me a lot. Especially the last part about thinking in Spanish. In fact, I think that is the main reason why anyone can speak their native language so fluently. It's not because you HEAR your own language repeatedly and therefore it sinks in quickly (as many people suggest.) I think it's because you USE your own language all the time. But like I said, you don't NEED anyone else to use a language, you can speak to yourself all day long. I do that in my own language too, actually. If you think about it, it's a bit schizophrenic in a way , but it most definitely works!

Some additional tips then for what to practice thinking in the foreign language:

1. Describe what you can observe around you. If you're just starting out in Spanish and you know very few or no verbs at all, simply think the nouns or adjectives to yourself. (You can continue to do this for as long as you want to improve, by the way. I am increasing my vocabulary at a much faster rate this way then how I used to do it, through reading and looking up words I was unfamiliar with etc.)

Examples:

• You're walking outside and there's a strong wind blowing, you think "viento."
• You are doing the dishes and picking up a knife to clean, you think "cuchillo" or perhaps better "un/el cuchillo" (so that you remember whether the word is masculine or femenine.)
• As soon as you have learned numbers and plural forms you can think things like "tres cuchillos" etc.
• You're in a museum and looking at a beautiful painting, you think "bonito" or perhaps "¡Qué bonito!" if you've already learned that.

When you start to learn verbs you can start describing actions in your head, like things you or other people are doing.

Examples:

• Whenever you're hungry, say to yourself "Tengo hambre." If you're really hungry, say "tengo mucha hambre." (which will help you to remember that the word hambre is femenine)
• You are watching standup comedy and laughing your butt off, you think "es muy gracioso" (he's very funny) etc. etc.
• You are home, looking in your fridge and it's empty, you think to yourself "Tengo que ir a la compra" (I have to go shopping) etc.

There's an infinite number of short phrases you can think to yourself. Be creative, the possibilities are endless. And remember, immediately USE whatever new thing you learn. So if you've learned the conjunction "except", like "excepto" or "menos", try to come up with some simple thing you can think in Spanish using this new thing you've just learned. For example, if you already know things like "gustar" and "vino" you could think something like "Me gustan todos los vinos menos el Rioja." (I like all wines except Rioja).

By describing to yourself what you observe and what is happening around you, you will very quickly learn to speak a lot better about everything that is going ON around you. That much should be obvious.

2. "Freestyle" to yourself about a random topic. This is useful when you are a bit more advanced (when you can form complete and longer sentences, and have learned the different tenses etc.)

This works as follows:

Just take any random topic, doesn't matter what it is. You can take a single word (like "fish", "holidays"), an idea (like "beauty", "assertiveness", or "the economic crisis"), a phrase (like "renting cars at the airport" etc.) and then talk to yourself about it. Just "freestyle" about it, like a rapper would, only in complete and correct sentences. In a sense, you just talk about it like you would talk about it to someone else, except there's no one there to respond to what you say, but you don't need that. You just think about the topic and say to yourself whatever comes to mind. You can do this anytime, anywhere throughout the day because you don't have to say things out loud.

I use this all the time, everywhere I go. I might be walking outside to go to the supermarket and spot a bird in a tree and try to think whatever I can about that bird in Spanish (let's say it's a magpie and I don't know the name of that bird in Spanish.) It might go something like this :

"¿Hmm, cómo se llama ese pájaro en español? Es muy bonito. Los pájaros tienen una vida muy fácil. No tienen que trabajar. Pueden volar y trinar todo el santo día..." etc. (Hmmm, what do you call that bird in Spanish? It's very pretty. Birds have a very easy life. They don't have to work. They can fly and sing the whole day etc.)

Now, obviously, the more Spanish you know, the more interesting your thoughts can be about something, so you have to try to come up with whatever you CAN. Perhaps you can think nothing more than something like "Me gustan los pájaros." (I like birds) but that is just fine.

By freestyling about any and every topic you will quickly learn to think in the new language and an additional benefit is that you will also quickly find out which words and grammatical areas are LACKING in your vocabulary!

Let's say you see a certain type of dog and the thought "I used to own one of those as a pet!" comes up but you notice you don't know how to say "I used to" in Spanish. Then you have found out a certain grammatical construction that you need to know in order to think the things you want to think and express! So when this happens, you have to capture that immediately, because if you try to remember to look it up later in the day, you will often forget and then later not remember what it was you needed to learn. You can either write it down (on paper, or perhaps in your mobile phone) or record it with a voice recorder (that is definitely the easiest and quickest). Then, when you have recorded it somewhere you can forget about it and look it up later.

It's also great to freestyle about topics that are more abstract (ideas etc.) like "going through a divorce", "religion in China", "cities to visit" , "books on art" , "ways to attract people to parties", "your favorite celebrity" etc. etc.

A great way to generate ideas for topics like these is to use a random topic generator on the Internet. (All of the above topics came from one I use myself, in fact.) But you can also simply brainstorm topics yourself. Apart from using a random topic generator, I highly recommend that you freestyle to yourself about topics that you are actually interested in. What kind of things do you normally occupy yourself with? What are your hobbies? What kind of topics do you like to read about? What do you THINK about all day? Instead of doing that in your own language, start thinking about all those things in Spanish, as simple as you may have to start out with, doesn't matter.

If you're into sports, then think about those sports and talk to yourself about them in Spanish. If you like music and regularly go to see live music in a bar, for example, then the next time you are there, try to think about the band and what you think of the music in Spanish, rather than your own language.

Here's a list of random topic generators on the Internet to spark your creativity:

http://www.blogtap.net/blogtopicgenerator/
http://www.conversationstarters.com/generator.php
http://www.ratespeeches.com/t=Speech-Topics


Finally, all of these examples start out with very simple, short phrases and build on that, but to learn how to speak it's much better to practice THINKING phrases like these and constructing them yourself than to translate sentences on paper.

This is the reason why:

A word is a symbol for something. It represents an object or an idea but the word itself is just a few letters arranged on a page. That's why if you learn new words by trying to memorize their translation you are trying to remember a symbol by remembering the corresponding symbol in your OWN language! This CAN work of course, but it's not the way you learned your own language.

When you think of the word "table" in your own language, you connect those 5 letters to the image of an actual physical table itself! And not only that, but you often see and can feel tables in your daily life, so that connection between the word "table" and a real, physical table in your experience is constantly being reinforced. That's why you quickly memorize what table means and it stays in your long-term memory.

But now take a foreign language. You learn that "mesa" means "table" in Spanish. And so you have learned a new word, but NOT by associating "mesa" with an actual table, but by associating "mesa" with the WORD "table". So now imagine you've learned and memorized the word "mesa" in Spanish and you're in Spain sitting at an actual table. If you want to say something about the table you are sitting at, you would first remember your own language and how that thing you're sitting at is called a table, and then remember in your head that "table" in English is "mesa" in Spanish.

It should be obvious that you can never speak fluently if you need to translate things in your head first. But it's more problematic than that. By practicing translation of sentences you will not create this connection between words as symbols for things in the real world. It will all remain much more abstract if you try to remember what a word means by trying to remember it with ANOTHER word. But if every time you sit at a table, you look at it and think "la/una mesa" to yourself, you are reinforcing the connection between the actual OBJECT itself and the word in Spanish. This eliminates the need for translation in your head first. And consequently, it's exactly how you learned your OWN language. You don't just remember all the words in your own language because you have heard them thousands of times (although that of course does play a part) but it's also because you connect every word with your daily experience of what the word stands for.

If you do that by thinking in Spanish about everything that's in your life, not only will you improve MUCH faster, but the study of the language will also be a lot more FUN. You will start to feel like someone who can actually SPEAK Spanish, even though you are just speaking silently to yourself and there isn't a Spanish speaking person within a 1,000 miles from you. Because whatever you say to yourself silently in your head, you can also say out loud to someone else!

[tetsuo]

I am using different programs / tools (on my laptop / tablet) and also using a cardbox, different textbooks etc. One of the programs I am using is Fluenz for Spanish. It's awesome and perfect for native English speakers since all explanations are done in English.

[Liquinn3]

I'd suggest going to the country if possible. This is a great way to learn I think. Nothing quite beats being in the country in my opinion. Though being in the country isn't going to teach you the grammar.

[Villa]

Originally Posted by tetsuo

I am using different programs / tools (on my laptop / tablet) and also using a cardbox, different textbooks etc. One of the programs I am using is Fluenz for Spanish. It's awesome and perfect for native English speakers since all explanations are done in English.

Buenas sugerencias mi amigo. Te felicito. Pero nadie aprende a hablar un idioma muy bien con sólo estudiar. Todo el mundo se está engañando a sí mismos pensando que van a aprender a hablar sólo estudiando español. Tienes que salir de la casa y hablar con la gente que realmente son hispano parlante. Estudia todo lo que quieras, pero tienes que hablar con hablantes nativos de español. Hay que mirar la televisión en español. Escucha la radio en español. Tengo un amigo que ha estudiando el español desde hace años con los libros y el programa de Rosetta Stone. Este amigo estudia diario muchos horas al dia y después de todos estos años studiano como loco no puede mantener una conversacion simple en español. No puede ordenar la comida en español. Es una verdadera lástima. No se deje engañar que va a aprender a hablar español por quedarse en su casa en el armario estudiando el español. Despiertate. Ve por el mundo real y habla con los hispanohablantes. Ve a España o México a vivir con una familia de habla hispana. Adquirir el español hablando con amigos de los paices hispanos. Consíguete una novia/esposa de habla hispana. Esto es lo que he hecho yo.

[Liquinn3]

Tienes toda la razon Villa. Nadie se puede hablar bien solo estudiando. Hay que hablar con la gente hispana. Hay que tener amigos que hablan solo español o quienes solo van a hablar español contigo. Buscar lugares donde va la gente que hable el español. Escuchar el español diario. Tener conversaciones en el español con la gente. Mirar la television en español. Escuchar la radio en español.

[Villa]

Originally Posted by Liquinn3

Tienes toda la razon Villa. Nadie se puede hablar bien solo estudiando. Hay que hablar con la gente hispana. Hay que tener amigos que hablan solo español o quienes solo van a hablar español contigo. Buscar lugares donde va la gente que hable el español. Escuchar el español diario. Tener conversaciones en el español con la gente. Mirar la television en español. Escuchar la radio en español.

Me alegro de que estés de acuerdo conmigo amiquito mio. No hay nada malo en estudiar el español. De hecho, lo recomiendo mucho. Pero hay que poner el estudio a la práctica y salir al mundo real y mezclarse con los hispano parlantes. Estudia 24/7 if you must pero ve a donde los hispanohablantes están y hable con ellos en español. Yo
sé que tú vas a algún coffe shop para hablar con los hispanos o algo asi, verdad amigo Liquinn? Por eso te felicito.

[tetsuo]

Vale y tienes razon, Villa. En un momento yo no tengo la oportunidad a hablar con los españoles. En futuro hago un tandem (es un método a hablar con los estudiantes españoles y los espoñeles nativos en real). Los españoles quieren aprender alemán y otras personas aprenden español, así cambiamos el bagaje. Es una buena alternativa si no tengo la oprtunidad por el viaje a la España o un otro país español.

[Villa]

Originally Posted by tetsuo

Vale y tienes razon, Villa. En un momento yo no tengo la oportunidad a hablar con los españoles. En futuro hago un tandem (es un método a hablar con los estudiantes españoles y los espoñeles nativos en real). Los españoles quieren aprender alemán y otras personas aprenden español, así cambiamos el bagaje. Es una buena alternativa si no tengo la oprtunidad por el viaje a la España o un otro país español.

Que bien amigo mio tetsuo. Gracias por decirme que estás de acuerdo conmigo.

Esas son todas buenas ideas que tienes amigo. ¿No tienes muchos
trabajadores inmigrantes en Alemania de América Latina en especial?
He estado en Italia muchas veces y Italia está llena de trabajadores
de Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Colombia y Argentina. Siempre me siento
como en casa en Italia hablando en el español con los hispanoparlantes
allí. Cuando voy al gimnasio aquí en California por ejemplo hay trabajadores
ahí que sólo hablan español y hablo español con ellos. Esto es sólo un ejemplo.
Debe tener oportunidades similares en Alemania. ¿No es cierto? Oh, me recuerdo
hace años yo tenía una amiga de Colombia aquí en California que habia vivido en
Alemania. Ella me hablaba mucho de vivir en Alemania. Era una muchacha preparada
y tenía un buen trabajo en Alemania. Tenia su novio aleman y todo.
Personas como ella debe de estar mucho en Alemania. Hay que encontralas.

[tetsuo]

Hay unos españoles en Alemania y no tengo idea si hay muchos españoles o latinoamericanos en Alemania. Y no lo se cómo cuántos de ellos. En mi pueblo hay unos españoles y unos lusitanos pero también hay gente de otros paises.

[elektronj]

Originally Posted by Manuel

These are my tips:

1. Learn words & verbs in the context of a phrase. Not only will that help you remember them better, it will also greatly speed up the learning of new words, sentence constructions etc. because you are learning a new phrase for every verb/word you add to your vocabulary.

2. Learn related words & phrases. When learning the word for hand, for example, try to learn related words, such as parts of the hand; actions of the hand; other parts of the body, and things you might wear on your hands. The vocabulary by topic here in the forums is a good example of this. But you can also make up these lists for yourself, as I've done with many other topics, like "the human body", "sex", "household/home" etc. etc.

3. When you learn words that have opposites/antonyms, learn BOTH sides together. So don't just add "fast" to your vocabulary. If you learn the Spanish word for "fast", immediately add "slow" as well and remember them together.

4. Learn what you NEED and WHEN you need it. A lot of people who have reached a certain level of skill in a foreign language and who want to improve it further, do not think about how they can improve in the most efficient and fastest way. For example, they will often try to increase their vocabulary by reading and then looking up words they don't know. Of course that will help to increase your vocabulary, but what many people fail to realize is that this way they learn a lot of words that they hardly USE in their daily speech!

If you want to improve your speaking skills in a foreign language quickly, you have to figure out which words you use often in your OWN language and look THOSE words up in the dictionary. For example, words that are often used like conjunctions ("except", "unless" etc.) Or perhaps you often use a particular word a lot in your own language when you speak; for example, if you often use the word "tremendous" in your own language, look up that word in Spanish, since you know that you will feel the urge to use that word in your conversations.

This way you will learn a lot more things that YOU need, and at the moment in your development that you need them, instead of learning a whole bunch of stuff you won't use often. It's all about information-timing: learning what you need, and when you need it, not before.

This also means that you will learn a lot faster if you don't simply follow the curriculum from a book, because the contents of a course never correspond exactly to your individual needs and if you go through the course from beginning to end the timing of the information is also set as well. Now, for beginners it's a different story of course, because they don't know anything about the language yet, so then going through a course is very helpful. But if you are past the beginner's stage, then you will improve much faster if you think for yourself about what the most useful thing to learn NEXT would be.

5. THINK in Spanish. This is the most essential thing to practice if you want to learn how to SPEAK in a foreign language. I often hear people talking about how they cannot practice speaking because they don't have anyone to speak Spanish TO. I have news for you: you don't NEED anyone to speak to in order to practice speaking! How can that be, you ask?? Simple...you speak TO YOURSELF.

Have you ever asked yourself what talking really IS? It's nothing but verbally expressing what you are THINKING. But you can also talk to yourself inside your own head, silently. You don't need anyone around to respond to you, because that is not necessary to learn to talk. Having a conversation partner is only necessary to learn the art of conversation, but to verbally express one of your thoughts you don't need anyone around. For example, you might have the thought "I am tired". Instead of thinking that in English, you could also think that to yourself in Spanish. "Estoy cansado". Now, if you can think to yourself "estoy cansado", you can also SAY it! It's that simple. Whatever you can THINK you can also SAY.

Now I can already hear some of you thinking "But I have just started learning Spanish! I cannot even form a complete sentence yet, so how can I THINK in Spanish then?"

Here's how:

The basic idea you have to remember is this,

Immediately apply whatever new thing you learn.

And by "applying" I mean USE it in your daily thinking. I'll give an example. Let's say you are just starting out with Spanish and you have learned the personal pronouns but no verbs yet. You have only learned "I", "you", "he" etc. Since you don't know any verbs, you obviously can't say/think a complete sentence yet. But what you CAN do is (remember the basic rule) USE what you DO know. So after you have learned the personal pronouns, in your daily life whenever you see a man somewhere, look at him and think to yourself "el" (the Spanish pronoun for "he"). That's ALL you do at first! You don't need to create a sentence. All you're doing is immediately APPLYING (by USING the words as thoughts in your head) whatever new thing you have just learned.

As you learn more and more things, the thoughts in your head in the new language can gradually become longer and longer until pretty soon you're jabbering away like an idiot! For example, take again the same person who learned the personal pronouns and nothing else yet. Let's say this person happened to pick up the word "guapo" somewhere, he/she now knows that that word means "goodlooking" but still they haven't learned any verbs yet, so they cannot say or think something like "he/she IS goodlooking." But again, what is the basic rule? Immediately apply whatever new thing you learn.

So what do you do? When you are going about your daily business and you see a goodlooking man on the street, on TV etc. you THINK to yourself (and thus SAY it in your own mind, just silently) "el...guapo"!

If you do this regularly, by immediately and repeatedly USING everything you learn (through creating thoughts in your head that use whatever you have learned) you will progress VERY quickly. You learn to THINK in the language, and if you can THINK in a language you can also SPEAK it, period.

And again, you don't need to be able to construct complete sentences at first. Thinking just one word to yourself is ALSO a thought, the simplest one of all. So just start there, by thinking ONE word in Spanish to yourself and build from there. If you have learned the Spanish word for umbrella (paraguas), then everytime you pick up your umbrella or see an umbrella somewhere, think "paraguas" to yourself.

This brings me to my last point regarding thinking in Spanish, which is that it's a fantastic way to quickly build a vocabulary that is USEFUL (see point no.4 above.)

Remember, the words you will most often use are the words that describe things in YOUR reality. So what's in your reality?? The first, most obvious answer is everything that you can observe with your 5 senses. In other words, everything you can see, smell, hear, taste and touch around you. So one of the best ways to learn words that you will actually USE a lot in conversation is to look at everything around you and learn the words for what you see, use, hold etc. For example, let's say one day you're cleaning the house and you pick up a vacuum cleaner and you look at it and you realize you don't know what the word for vacuum cleaner is in Spanish. Now, would that be a good word to learn? Of course, because you often USE a vacuum cleaner in your own life! It's something you see often, it's something you use, it's a common item in YOUR reality, so it's a useful word to learn.

If you focus on learning words for everything you observe around you and for things you use, talk about with other people, think about etc. then you will be building your vocabulary in a very directed and efficient manner.

Phew! I think I will get off of my soapbox now.

Hope this helps some people!

Manuel, your ideas are some of the best I've read lately. You've inspired me to try new things.

[Villa]

Originally Posted by elektronj

Manuel, your ideas are some of the best I've read lately. You've inspired me to try new things.

Ahora mismo, mientras que hablamos / escribimos en inglés estoy escuchando a la televisión en español. Las palabras habladas son lo que es realmente importante. No se puede aprender a hablar el español o cualquier otro idioma con sólo estudiar. Hay que escuchar el español y mucho. La lengua española es 99,99% hablada. Si no estamos escuchando el español no estamos aprendiendo a hablar español.
Un muy buen ejemplo de esto es mi esposa que viene de un pais de habla hispana. Estudió el inglés por varios años en su país natal y sabía escribirlo más o meno. Luego cuando llegó a los EE.UU. no podía entender la palabra hablada nada y mucho menos hablar. Así que hay que escuchar el español para poder entenderlo y para hablarlo.

Así que si no estamos escuchando el español no estamos aprendiendo el español.

También esta idea de pensar en español es muy bueno. Sin embargo, es muy difícil si no casi imposible pensar en español si no entendemos el español. Adelante trata de pensar en ruso o español o otro secunda lengua que no habias escuchado hablar. Asi que una vez sabiendo hablar el español pensar en español va a ser una cosa automática.

Los que estudian el español y no lo usen no van a aprender a hablar. Es por esto que es mejor aprender el español en la calle que de una clase de español. Lo ideal sin embargo, es aprender español en la calle, tomar una clase y estudiar por su cuenta.

Así que empeza a escuchar el español tanto como sea posible.

[elektronj]

Originally Posted by Villa

Ahora mismo, mientras que hablamos / escribimos en inglés estoy escuchando a la televisión en español. Las palabras habladas son lo que es realmente importante. No se puede aprender a hablar el español o cualquier otro idioma con sólo estudiar. Hay que escuchar el español y mucho. La lengua española es 99,99% hablada. Si no estamos escuchando el español no estamos aprendiendo a hablar español.
Un muy buen ejemplo de esto es mi esposa que viene de un pais de habla hispana. Estudió el inglés por varios años en su país natal y sabía escribirlo más o meno. Luego cuando llegó a los EE.UU. no podía entender la palabra hablada nada y mucho menos hablar. Así que hay que escuchar el español para poder entenderlo y para hablarlo.

Así que si no estamos escuchando el español no estamos aprendiendo el español.

También esta idea de pensar en español es muy bueno. Sin embargo, es muy difícil si no casi imposible pensar en español si no entendemos el español. Adelante trata de pensar en ruso o español o otro secunda lengua que no habias escuchado hablar. Asi que una vez sabiendo hablar el español pensar en español va a ser una cosa automática.

Los que estudian el español y no lo usen no van a aprender a hablar. Es por esto que es mejor aprender el español en la calle que de una clase de español. Lo ideal sin embargo, es aprender español en la calle, tomar una clase y estudiar por su cuenta.

Así que empeza a escuchar el español tanto como sea posible.

Sí estoy de acuerdo contigo. El problema en mi estado es no hay muchas personas que hablan español. Mi estado pasó un ley que dijo los inmigrantes que no tienen los documentos no se permitan de ir a la escuela o encontrar un trabajo. Por eso no hay muchos hispanohablantes.

Pero he encontrado unos amigos que hablan español y nos hablamos los unos a los otros. Desafortunadamente puedo escribir mejor que puedo hablar.

[Villa]

Originally Posted by elektronj

Sí estoy de acuerdo contigo. El problema en mi estado es no hay muchas personas que hablan español. Mi estado pasó un ley que dijo los inmigrantes que no tienen los documentos no se permitan de ir a la escuela o encontrar un trabajo. Por eso no hay muchos hispanohablantes.

Pero he encontrado unos amigos que hablan español y nos hablamos los unos a los otros. Desafortunadamente puedo escribir mejor que puedo hablar.

elektronj,

Quiero felicitarlo con todo mi corazó por tu dedicación y voluntad de hacer todo lo posible para aprender el idioma español. Tú y yo tenemos mucho en común para querer aprender español sólo que no es tan fácil en tu situación. Lo siento mucho deveras. ¿Tienes televisión en español por lo menos? Radio en español? Skype? Quisiera ayudarte.

Lo siento realmente para ti por no tener los hispanoparlantes alrededor. Esto sería terrible para mí si mi estado hizo lo que tu estado ha hecho. Déjame adivinar cual partido político es dominante en tu estado. (Mejor no digo nada.)
¿En qué estado vives si se puede saber? El estado de la confusión? Estoy bromeando. Arizona? Mississippi? Muchos de nuestros estados en los EE.UU. son muy racistas. Seamos sinceros. Ponemos las cartas sobre la mesa. Algunas personas no se dan cuenta también de que los ilegales son los que hacen todos los trabajos más peligrosos, sucios, con bajos salarios. ¿Quien quere trabajar todo el santo dia en el sol caliente recogiendo frutas y vegetales sin un baño normal repirando insecticides? ¿Quién quiere trabajar en un matadero/slaughterhouse con cuchillos afilados por todos lados y un montón de sangre donde los pobres trabajadores se lesiona y se cortan mucho? Piensa en todos los peores trabajos más peligrosos que hay y los illegales están haciendo los. ¿Cuanto americanos harían esto? Nadie. Hay trabajos que muchos estadounidenses simplemente no harían no importa lo desesperados por el dinero que podrían ser. Los estadounidenses pobres sin hogar se piden dinero en la calle, pero no van a hacer el trabajo que los ilegales hacen. Los indocumentados pagan a la Seguridad Social por lo que es más fuerte para el resto de nosotros, porque no van a recibir los beneficios de la Seguridad Social. ¿Sabías esto? Los illegales pagan alrededor de siete millones a la Seguridad Social. ¿Realmente, que haríamos sin ellos?

[Manuel]

Originally Posted by elektronj

Manuel, your ideas are some of the best I've read lately. You've inspired me to try new things.

Thank you very much! I am happy to have inspired you.

I have some additional things that are helping me, so maybe these will inspire you some more:

1. A fun way to increase your vocabulary is to visit Spanish websites of stores, government institutions, banks, public transportation sites etc. This way you can learn a lot of practical vocabulary, but most importantly, in a much more fun and effective way. Take the website of the Spanish department store El Corte Inglés, for example, http://www.elcorteingles.es


By browsing through the site you can see pictures of all the things they sell and read the accompanying descriptions. This way you remember much easier what a word means because you are linking it to an image.

There are tons of sites to find. You'll have to do some research to find these (I can give you some tips if you like) but the possibilities are almost infinite. Do you want to know more words that relate to public transportation? Go to the website of a big city's public transportation system and knock yourself out with all the new words you can absorb! Do you want to know more words related to food and dining out? Visit restaurant websites. The possibilities are endless, and it's a lot more fun to visit Spanish websites than learning new words in a very dry, academic manner. If you visit websites in Spain you'll start to feel like a Spaniard just browsing through his country's internet! I do it all the time now. An added benefit is that you also learn things about the local culture and procedures etc.

2. Use sentence construction makers online. The great thing about these is that they give you all kinds of example phrases with a word or words you type in the search box. There are several online, but one of my favorites is this one. Type in a verb in the search box and the program gives you all kinds of short phrases that use this verb, in different tenses, different subjects etc. You can even type in a conjugated version of the verb, e.g. "abre" (from "abrir") and it will give phrases with just "abre" in the sentence. You can also type in nouns, conjunctions etc. It's a great way to find examples of how to use new words you learn in a sentence.

3. Keep your dictionary open and handy nearby. The reason I say this is that often we don't do something simply because it takes a little effort. If you stow your dictonaries away on a shelf somewhere where you have to get up and walk a few feet to get them, you will find that many times you won't bother to look up a word that you might be interested in, simply because you can't just pick up your dictionary and look inside right away. You might be surprised how much more you will use a tool if it takes less effort to use it! Regarding dictionaries, that's why my preference right now is a digital dictionary on the computer. The GREAT benefit of a digital dictionary is that you can use the search function. It is SO much easier to just type in the word and let the program flip to the page automatically then to leaf through a paper dictionary with hundreds of pages until you find the correct word. Since I switched to digital dictionaries I found I have started using them infinitely more often. And of course, they are available to me right away when I'm behind the computer, just one click of the mouse and I have it open on my screen where I can type in the word I'm looking for and instantly I'm at the correct page with the translation. I look up ten times as many words now as I ever did when I was using my paper dictionaries.