Question:
have taken a great appreciation in learning, and understanding other
languages and cultures. I've been studying Spanish for the last 3-4
months now and I am about 35-40% fluent. I have always been a person to
appreciate ppl for who they are and not what they are, and I feel I can
hammer my message home by learning about other foreign cultures, and
languages. My plan is to take 1 whole year to learn, and speak spanish.
And on the way learn about the culture also. Next I would like to study
French, and Japanese. I will give some of the approaches I am taken
with spanish and hopefully if anyone wants to learn they can practice
some of the things I have:
1- Watch and Listen to as much spanish as possible. In my car on my way
to work I
listen to nothing but spanish language radio, when Im at work i
listen to it.
The reasoning is to get your brain accustomed to hearing the
language.
2- I turn spanish subtitles on when im watching movies to help w/ the
vocabulary.
Also vice versa. I watch spanish movies w/ english subtitles.
3- I had a study book called "Spanish the Easy Way" which i had when i
was in H.S
and I study from that. you can also find the book at most
bookstores.
4- Make yourself flash cards of the type of things you see everyday.
write down the things you see in spanish.
5- I subscribed to spanish language forum boards. It is hard to find a
penpal, so spanish language forums are the next best thing. Really try
to write stuff, not just yo hablo espanol y tu. try to really write
some adult topics to broaden your vocabulary.
Answer:
You have listed some good ideas, many of which I practice. I have a few
more ideas.
I watch Spanish and French language TV, especially the news. (Actually,
you can watch whatever you want on TV, I just prefer news to telenovelas
or depressing French movies).
Every morning I look at one Spanish and one French language newspaper on
the web. If I am planning a trip, the newspaper will be one from the
country I plan to visit. I read the headlines and one or two articles.
I have a CD changer in my car, and I always have 2 english, 2 spanish,
and 2 french CDs in it.
The best way to learn a language, in my opinion, is to get a tutor. I
usually get native speaker college students who are teaching US students
there language. In my experience, it is the most effective and most
expensive way to learn a language.
My Spanish is pretty good, I can carry on phone conversations without
difficulty, argue politics, etc. It took me maybe 5 years to get
conversational, I started studying it as an adult, 20 years ago. My
French is more limited, but it is functional and useful. You just need
to work at it, put in the hours.
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