Beginner's Spanish - EspaÃ±ol para principiantes

Re: Best Way to Start?

Pucca — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 11:55:44 GMT

Did that really work? I mean, did you only use that program to learn Spanish? Amazing!

Re: Best Way to Start?

saint71 — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 08:15:17 GMT

I used a spanish program and learned spanish in about 2 days. I can now speak it fluently.

You can get the program from here learn spanish in 2 days

Re: Best Way to Start?

Anonymous — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 06:28:15 GMT

Hi Alex,
Here's an interesting resource to help you learn. It's a website called YAKiToMe! (http://www.yakitome.com) that turns any electronic text into an audio book podcast. It works in Spanish, English, French, ... the list keeps growing. It has both male and female readers and you can control their reading speed. (Great for language comprehension for beginners). Also, you can read the text along with listening to the spoken words. This is great for learning because you get input from two senses at the same time, which reinforces the lesson. So you can turn any Spanish website, or document, or whatever into a spoken audio book podcast that you can listen to on your computer, download to your iPod, and share with other language learners. Check it out!

Re: Best Way to Start?

james_kern3 — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 00:31:45 GMT

I think the best way to learn Spanish is to go ahead and purchase a Spanish course such as Rocket Spanish.

I say this because although you might pick up phrases and words from reading Spanish literature or speaking with Spanish speakers, the fact is that you won't build a natural foundation of the Spanish language by learning this way. By learning in an almost haphazard and un-structured fashion, you are only asking for a lengthened learning period and problems later in your learning.

By starting with a tried and tested Spanish course, you'll be instantly put onto the right track by a proven step-by-step guide. This will give you a strong basis to then build your Spanish up from naturally and cleanly.

Think of it this way - at school, you don't learn really hard words when you're only small. You need to get to grips with the basic stuff that makes up the language first in order to grow your knowledge later on. Sure, you'll pay some money up front for the Spanish course, but if you use it right - you will learn Spanish a lot quicker and a lot easier than without a course.

I hope this helps you?

Re: Best Way to Start?

Pucca — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 00:20:47 GMT

infected_ostrich
Pucca .I am, fascinated of your interest to share you knowledge and helping others this way=)

Welcome to the forum, Infected_ostrich! :) (VERY original nickname, by the way, it made me smile!)

Share my knowledge? I am not sharing my knowledge because basically you all know more than I do. I am just trying to give a hand, yes, trying, I don't even know if I am helping much. But it was great to read it, thank you very much!

Re: Best Way to Start?

infected_ostrich — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 21:20:52 GMT

Hola)

ohh I agree with you, verbs a really difficult especially for subjunctive mode or past..

Iâve been in Spain for already 1 month, and step by step i am trying to understand and to learn , but to communication with the people seams to be like speaking Chinese

Actually I m from Moldova.. and here living in Badajoz,so ..studying in an institute the 1 bach. And its really hard to right all this tests at castellano or economics Anyway, I m writing not for telling the way how difficult it is.

it will be on off topic, but Pucca .I am, fascinated of your interest to share you knowledge and helping others this way=)

Re: Best Way to Start?

Anonymous — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 20:04:38 GMT

A great way to start is to look at some beginner videos. You'll be surprised how fast you'll pick up vocabulary this way.
Go to www.languagebyvideo.com
It's much more fun than opening a huge text book at page 1!

Re: Best Way to Start?

Kristi — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 13:29:47 GMT

Hi all!
I'm new here. I'm from Lithuania. I started to learn Spanish language from the first steps. I'm studying this in Spanish class.
My dream is to know spanish language and to live in Spain.
I joined this site to meet people an to socialize with them in spanish language.
Now I know just a few words, but I'm learning them with big passion.

Nice to meet you all

Re: Best Way to Start?

McGreg — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 15:11:47 GMT

I understand your point. I can see that where you are while learning has much to do with which way of learning works best. If I were where Spanish is the primary language, learning it by imitation would be easier.

Re: Best Way to Start?

Pucca — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 13:27:25 GMT

I think Grammar and Vocabulary should come first. I don't know, I say it because you need to have a certain basic to learn how to speak, don't you?

If I am not mistaken, I started learning vocabulary in English. :) (I would leave verbs for another time, in a future, they are a bit difficult. ;) )

Re: Best Way to Start?

McGreg — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 03:45:00 GMT

Which should come first, learning some vocabulary and how to speak some phrases, or learning grammar? I am new to learning Spanish and I suspect this is an old debate. English is my native language. I could speak it before I could read or write it, or conjugate a verb, or even know what the words "verb" and "conjugate" mean. So far, I tend to believe speaking should come first. What do you think?

Re: Best Way to Start?

alel3001 — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 16:40:43 GMT

this is a great place because it has both english and spanish stories http://www.storyplace.org/ it certainly helps me

Re: Best Way to Start?

juan2007 — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 22:26:00 GMT

I can contribute with http://www.spanishwritingtips.com

Re: Best Way to Start?

Anonymous — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 15:21:05 GMT

hi (hola) Max:)

Well, usually I write down the words I want to learn on separated *** of papers, on the one side I write the word in spanish, and on the other it's meaning. Then, I take them all and start saying aloud every word untill I do it all correct:)
You should try this:) wish You luck:)
Karolina

Re: Best Way to Start?

Anonymous — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 20:37:40 GMT

Right said Romana! I would also recommend you to this cool site I recently discovered on this subject. It's a very unconventional resource if you are keen on learning it faster. It's called Easiest Spanish and for the right reasons. I have greatly improved my vocabulary using their unique free tips and tricks on learning new words through visualization!

However, I would also advise you not to give up on talking with natives and just focus on vocabulary tips. That won't serve you any good. No tricks or techniques can help you much unless you get to use those newly learnt words in your conversation and writings! Try writing stuff using Spanish words you learned through the site mentioned above and you'll see a drastic improvement in your Spanish steadily!