Four Ways You Can Learn the Spanish Language
Spanish is a language that is widely spoken around the world. And in today’s global marketplace, many people are realizing why it is imperative they learn the Spanish language. It would help them greatly in their personal and business dealings. If you want to learn the Spanish language, you need to be aware that along with the advantages come a few challenges.
Learning the Spanish language does not have to be difficult, however. Below are four ways you can learn the Spanish language that is more fun, exciting and less stressful. Just apply these four ways as you are learning the Spanish language and you’ll be speaking and understanding the language in no time.
Learn the Spanish Language by Conversing
You may know all the Spanish words and phrases, but if you do not put into practice what you learn, you are not going to become proficient in the language. Take every opportunity to apply what you have learned. For instance, practice your Spanish at Mexican or Spanish-speaking restaurants. Try ordering your meals in Spanish and even greeting the servers in Spanish.
You can also practice your Spanish by reading Spanish novels and other printed materials. See how much you understand. You can even try translating what you read. You can also try translating simple English sentences in Spanish. If you have friends or family members who speak Spanish, you can practice conversing with them in the language.
Learn the Spanish Language with the Help of a Spanish-English Dictionary
You can learn the Spanish language quickly and easily with the help of a Spanish-English Dictionary. You can increase your vocabulary of Spanish words. You will be able to know when and where to use the Spanish words. When you are reading printed materials in Spanish, make sure you have your Spanish-English dictionary close by. You can flip through it if you come across Spanish words you do not recognize or many have forgotten.
Learn the Spanish Language by Signing Up for an Advanced Spanish Class
Once you know the basics of learning Spanish, consider signing up for an advanced Spanish class so you can continue to progress with your learning. You can either take the advanced Spanish class at your local college or you can sign up for a class online. If you truly want to become proficient, the key is to not stop learning the Spanish language, which means you will have to find ways to continue learning the language.
Learn the Spanish Language by Travelling to Spanish-Speaking Countries
One of the best ways to learn the Spanish language is to travel to Spanish-speaking countries so you can interact with the locals, as well as experience the culture. So when you’re planning your next vacation, why not travel to Mexico, Spain or any country where Spanish is widely spoken?
Now you know the four ways to learn the Spanish language, there would be no more reason for you to not to learn to speak Spanish fluently.
John Platiko
http://www.articlesbase.com/education-articles/four-ways-you-can-learn-the-spanish-language-715357.html
10 Responses to “Four Ways You Can Learn the Spanish Language”
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Do people seriously think high school language learning is "learning" the language?
I find it kind of strange when after four years of learning language in high school, people can break down a verb 100 different ways but can’t function at all in a nation that speaks that language. They can’t understand hardly anything anyone is saying to them and their sentences make almost no sense. I know this because in my French class in high school most students were still literal babies in French even after four years. Fortunately I had French background due to a half-French mother speaking to me in French as a kid so I could understand but not speak the language very well. I just don’t understand a system where after four years you can barely do anything at all in the language. In contrast, I applied a much better method to learning Spanish on my own and now speak and UNDERSTAND the language much better than any school could have ever taught me. People, to learn languages effectively, you have to use the Antimoon method. Go to http://www.antimoon.com
Before anyone says it, this is not a commercial advertisement; Antimoon makes no money at all, they are a site written by two Polish guys who for free tell their method of learning English, and it definitely works. Also, none of this "we have to start learning as babies or we can’t learn" garbage. I started learning Spanish at the age of 20 and speak the language so well that the Mexican customs agents think I must have Mexican parents (which I don’t).
wife2denizmoi, it should not take 4 years to become fluent in a language. The method used in high school is seriously flawed. Studying grammar is not necessary; I never studied grammar in Spanish but speak the language well because I received lots of input! Go read the antimoon site to see what I mean. I must complain because the quality of language learning in the nation is horrible, so stop telling me not to complain when we have a legitimate problem we must fix!
I don’t think so…
maybe they just need to read more French newspapers and they will get to better it
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I haven’t checked out that site yet, but I do have to agree with the premise. I took 3 years of Spanish and I only rarely understand what anyone is saying on the Spanish TV stations.
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I dont think that people believe that they will leave a public high school with three or four years of a language and be able to speak fluently. Its an introduction to the language and the culture of the native speakers, ‘learning’ a language is part of a well rounded liberal studies education which is what most high schools strive to provide.
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After all that, what is the question? Should people be fluent in a language after 4 years of highschool study? No. It takes much longer if you have to learn all the grammar and you don’t use it outside of school. Quit complaining!
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ok seriously i think it’s because in a lot of high schools in the states the standard of education in foreign languages is really low, especially in spanish. correct me if i’m wrong but i have heard that sometimes the teachers themselves are not very fluent in the languages they teach which could explain why the students don’t learn much.
to answer your question, yes and no. they do learn SOME of the language, but really, not well enough. learning a language is not merely coming to class and learning how to conjugate verbs. if one was really serious about learning a foreign language he or she would have exposed him or herself to people who speak the language fluently and learn from them, or tried to read stuff that are in the language they are trying to learn, or listen to music in that language, blah blah blah. there are other ways of learning a language other than attending a class.
it’s also the student’s attitude towards learning and speaking this language that influences his or her fluency. one can be educated by the best foreign language teachers around for n number of years and speak the language like a native, yet will not use it in real life and then forget how to speak it after a certain period of time.
so all in all it’s really up to the students themselves if they want to make the most out of learning a language or not.
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high schools unfortunately produce poor speaking results after a number of years of foreign language "learning", generally speaking.
however, it’s not the fact of language learning in high school itself, but the kind of school it is and how it teaches the subject.
in retrospect i was fortunate enough to have a great german language program in my high school. i didn’t know a lick of german, but after 4 years in high school and an exchange program in germany, by the time i was a freshman in college, i *started* at senior year german, and could understand and speak it reasonably well.
our high school had only foreign language teachers who were native and near native speakers and who were frequently multilingual. my freshman year german teacher was a native german; sophomore year was american, but he spoke german and russian good enough to move on to work at the United Nations; junior and senior years a native croatian who spoke and also taught german, italian and russian.
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Yes! You are so, so correct…and it is true globally.
Afrikaans is my first language, and most school children in my community learned English from TV and occasional use.
Both the foreign languages I learned at school, Pedi and German, zoomed in on grammar, requiring students to cram in long word lists and endings..for nothing. Even if you remember them all, there is no time to conciously think while you are forming sentences. I did not do particularly well..but I liked to mock people by mimicking them. This included my German teacher (behind her back). Because I thought I was funny, I substituted words to mince the meaning. One day I was talking to an old German lady in the neigbourhood (this time I was a nice boy) I discovered that these sentences and words equipped me to say a few things in German well. That was the day that I started to want to learn German. I just wanted to hear myself say everything. Soon I realised that some words just sounded right in some places, and others did not. When I looked up grammar, it was like .."ah that makes sense". I never bothered to learn grammar rules if I was not ready to apply it. It really worked. Okay, I should have pointed out that my native Afrikaans is related to German (by a long shot not mutually understandable), but still..the Afrikaans school text books never exploited that fact. It made German look as foreign as Japanese.
Eventually I went on to learn Spanish and French. I did not do too bad a job, but learning on your own is never as effective. School could be such an excellent opportunity. You can’t quit as easily as people quit evening classes (or a book/tape). You’ve got groups. You’ve got grades. If a school could only aim at teaching the bottom half of the class to each use a 100 sentences with confidence, in 5 years, with some extra words to substitute, then they would accomplish far more than they do at the moment. The top half could achieve a lot more, and all students would have a foundation to continue to learn the language after they leave school.
I’m not saying leave grammar. But you get them speaking first…in whatever language. Present tense. Make sure they can say everything in present tense..until they are hungry to proceed to express themselves better. And instead of covering ground, spend time on the correct accent and intonation. If on school holidays they can conduct short conversations with native speakers they bump into…their motivation will increase 10 fold.
Currently, students leave school and cannot order a milkshake in the foreign language they learned for 5 years. Even the grammar lists the needed to pass, they will soon forget. That is really sad. Of course, schools will need motivated teachers…but the material will help!
anyway..thanks, I will check out antimoon. howtolearnanylanguage.com is also a good site.
And for the doubters..Yes, you can learn to conduct conversation with a native on most subjects, in a chosen language, after four years at school. You really should aim for that. It is a rather sad waste of time of you can’t.
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Have read the link you provided, it only confirms my firm believes that grammar use is terrible for those who are recently learning a language, and it is a gag that will never allow them to speak correctly. As you state, they learn all the grammar but can not say a single correct phrase.
I teach English to immigrants in my country, I have found it best to have them learn with audio visual means, to write down what ever they need in phonetics and only when they can speak the language correctly, they will learn writing it with the use of practical grammar. I have been preparing my own teaching material and it has been quite time consuming, but now and thanks to your link I will get in touch with antimoon.com to see where I can buy or obtain their material. It will most certainly help.
Thank you for the information.
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Some parents truly think so… "Do you think my kid will be able to translate for us when we go on a cruise to Mexico?", "I want my son to study Spanish so that he can take our business on llamas"…..
(1) Most of the times, students take a modern language just to get the credits so that they can go to a pretigious college. Period. I am not saying that this was your case, but this is what happens in every day life. I am from Spain, I teach PAP Spanish in Texas and many of my students take my class to get those extra points. Now, do they speak in Spanish with their other school mates (either Hispanic or non-Hispanic ones) after class? No. Do they watch Spanish TV programs? No. Do they read in Spanish regularly? No. Do they NEED Spanish for life (asking for directions, going shopping, buying medicines)? Of course not. If we watch a movie, I know they will ask me, "Do we have to watch it in Spanish?". If I explain something in Spanish, I will get to hear , "IN ENGLISH!!!!!!!!!!!!"
(2) A very low percentage will be truly interested in learning the language. I keep on running into my students in different places around town and they are unable to follow a basic, simple conversation. Awesome kids, great grades, but poor oral skills. Which leads me to the fact that as they are not immersed in the language all day long, being in class for 50-55 minutes is not going to make them bilingual. When I was at university, we had to communicate in English all the time (no excuse), so much so that even professors expected that after school hours, on the train back home……
(3) Take the example of Hispanic kids in the US, for example. They are surrounded by the language all the time, except maybe at home: school, friends, stores, doctor; they even translate for parents at an early age…they really need to learn the language for life; thence, there is a real purpose. And very often, they have to learn it quick too if they want to pass their exams and get promoted for the next year.
So yes, I agree with you. The first time I traveled abroad I stayed with an English family for a year. Did I choose a big city? Not really! I wanted to be isolated and far away from any possible Spanish speaking person in order to LIVE in English and to really know how much English I knew…. and let me tell you I’d rather prefer being abroad for just a month rather than practicing verb conjugations at school for a whole year.
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