Learning Spanish

[Tuearts right boot]

I used the Michel Thomas ones to learn French a few years back, stick at it and it really does work.

I've tried a beginners Spanish cd and it's hard to pick up unless you do it constantly. If you fancy a night class, the Cervantes Institute at the bottom of Deansgate does loads of classes.

Michel Thomas is French,teaching Spanish...we live here and if we even tried to speak like him we'd be deported.
It just doesn't work in the real world.

Google 'Spanish steps' it's a BBC learning site and it's good

 

[jay_mcfc]

Michel Thomas is French,teaching Spanish...we live here and if we even tried to speak like him we'd be deported.
It just doesn't work in the real world.

Google 'Spanish steps' it's a BBC learning site and it's good

Not strictly true. Granted his accent is ludicrously off and there is no way you could go somewhere and say 'es posiiiiiiible paaaaaarra meeee' without being laughed at.

However, like I said before, if you actually get past and ignore his accent, the way he teaches you is incredible. I would recommend Michel Thomas to anyone, especially beginners.

I also quite like this site. It's free to a point but explains a lot of the stuff in a very simple and clear way;

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.studyspanish.com/lessons/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.studyspanish.com/lessons/</a>

 

[Franny Lee's Barrel Chest]

Thanks for all your replies. I did try the Michel Thomas one last year when I borrowed the CDs and stuck them in the car on our way down from Santander to Malaga. Didn't really get on with it though.

I'm looking forward to the night classes and repetition is correct, the more you do the better you get and it sticks.

The place I'm doing it at is a school which is a specialist language college so I'm hoping it will bear some "fruta" ! (Did you see what I did there?)

 

[Ticket For Schalke]

Been listening nothing but Michel Thomas this last week, on way to city, on way to work, 30 mins a night, hammering 30 mins at least a night, is really good, you cannot just listen to the cd through and think you can learn spanish, i went over every track 3 times, upto track 5, then played it through 1-5 5 or 6 times.

really enjoying it and my spanish house mate is impressed.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Re: Re: Learning Spanish

i remember learning pigeon spanish for a holiday few years back...... in a small town in the mountains near grenada.

Why would you speak Spanish on a Caribbean island? And to the pigeons.

 

[BlueHubert]

I speak Spanish pretty well, lived there for 3 years and have girl friend of 10 years from there.

Spanish is probably the easiest foreign language to learn, it's never easy though as having to re-learn the words for everything is a bugger, as it has really strong simple grammar, in comparison with German, French etc...

When I was teaching English loads of my students would ask why they weren't improving as quickly as they wanted and I always asked them how much they studied outside of the class. They said they never had time. Hmmmmm

For every hour in class try and do at least 1 hour of revision homework outside of class, ideally 2 hours. If you just go to the class and leave it at that it could easily take you 5 years to get anywhere.

All in all it is a great language, much better to swear in that English, but learning any language is really, really hard and requires a massive amount of dedication, but is so rewarding when you get to speak it with natives. Oh and you can also travel all the way through South America, bar Brazil.

 

[Blu KB]

Bump for later.


Just returned from a holiday in Spain and the language is something i'm desperate to grasp - even just to hold a basic conversation, im tired of not knowing anthing but English.

I see people are talking about Michael Thomas, but is Rosetta Stone worth a look at?

 

[OxBlue]

I've got the Michel Thomas CD's and have tried on and off learning spanish from them (fall into the trap of not doing it often enough.) They certainly help, but beware that he's teaching south american spanish and not Castillean (?)

I tried a bit on a spanish work colleague, he looked at me with a slight puzzled look and then in his perfect English (why's it so easy for them) said "I understand what you're saying Billy, but I think you're talking mexican."

 

[r.soleofsalford]

I'm going to night classes this month to start learning Spanish. I know a little bit already and enjoy visiting Spain and don't do too badly getting understood but really I do consider myself a beginner. There's no doubt I will see it through and won't drop out.

I wondered if anyone else was doing the same and wanted to compare notes?

que ?

 

[Ronnie the Rep]

Lo siento perro yo no hablar espanol porque yo soy ingles y todo el mundo hablar ingles