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I've put this into work/employment because the primary reason I'm learning another language is to advance myself professionally. If the mods feel like it should be put elsewhere, feel free to move it.
I'm a monolingual native English speaker that is trying to seriously learn the Spanish language for professional and personal advancement. My question is, have any of you here successfully became fluent in a second language as a post-collegiate adult? What methods did you use?
At the moment I'm using a combination of books, Rosetta Stone, and livemocha.com for my studying. I'm trying to devote 1-2 hours per day on my studying. At the moment a classroom setting would be a little tough for me to do with my schedule and that I have been traveling fairly frequently as of late. I feel as if I'm doing pretty well so far.
Anyone have tips or success stories? I'm looking to be able to speak, read and write Spanish with conversational ease.
See if you can work a weekly conversation group into your schedule. A friend has become pretty fluent that way. It wouldn't require the same level of commitment as a class.
I took a Basic Conversational Spanish class one summer when I worked for the school district. It was through Continuing Education, and it was a new clas. They had to have a minimum of 25 people in each class, and they were way over. I didn't feel that I learned anything from it, I think I actually learned more listening to my co-workers, and from using my dictionary. Total immersion is the way to go.
Hrrm... I am pretty good in French and Spanish and didn't do them in school. I also have lived in France and lived in Florida/California/Chicago(all easy access to Spanish)... so I am exposed to it. I currently live with somebody from France, our guest for 3 months.., so I speak french everyday.
I used my girlfriends text books and audio tapes which were for university classes to supplement.
Main thing is exposure, and practice.
Another good thing is when you watch dvds would be to turn on the foreign audio/subtitles.
You being in San Diego, the first thing I would do is to turn the the spanish radio stations, I am sure you get them. That way you can have it in the background all day.
Spanish radio and TV are great ideas. We have Spanish lessons on the radio in Vegas and I bet you do too. Start shopping at the Hispanic grocery stores and interacting with as many people who speak Spanish as possible. Every day.
Either find someone who is fluent in Spanish, but has poor English
skills who is willing to trade one-on-one teaching or just go
to where the day laborers hang out and hire someone to tutor
you for a couple of hours.
Listening to the TV/radio is fine and so are groups, but you get
10x the bang for the time doing one-on-one training.
Isn't that what it's all about? Your time, that is?
If you are going to spend one hour studying, there is nothing like a
native speaker trying to communicate with you in that language.
The topic is absolutely, completely unimportant. It also doesn't
matter how bad you suck. They can put five different colored
pens on a table and give you great practice:
(1) pick up the green pen
(2) give me the red pen
(3) put the blue pen in your pocket
(4) write your name with the orange pen
.... you get the idea ...
I've traveled a lot to Taiwan and Japan and was fortunate to find
many many people who wanted to do Language Exchange. They
pretty much won't let you sit anywhere alone without wanting to
practice their English with you --- so I made a deal ...
I spent the summer of 2003 in Taiwan learning Mandarin taking a
course in a Taipei college. I attended five days a week for three
hours a day, but the two or three hours I spent doing Language
Exchange daily was 10x better "schooling." -- NO COMPARISON.
In a couple of months, I was talking to cab drivers
( in my crappy, but understandable Chinese )
about living in Phoenix and Taipei.
Thank you guys SO much for the input. I think the main thing I need to do is try to find a group to actually talk to in Spanish. I really like the idea of finding someone that needs help in English and teaching each other. Thanks again!!!
I've put this into work/employment because the primary reason I'm learning another language is to advance myself professionally. If the mods feel like it should be put elsewhere, feel free to move it.
I'm a monolingual native English speaker that is trying to seriously learn the Spanish language for professional and personal advancement. My question is, have any of you here successfully became fluent in a second language as a post-collegiate adult? What methods did you use?
At the moment I'm using a combination of books, Rosetta Stone, and livemocha.com for my studying. I'm trying to devote 1-2 hours per day on my studying. At the moment a classroom setting would be a little tough for me to do with my schedule and that I have been traveling fairly frequently as of late. I feel as if I'm doing pretty well so far.
Anyone have tips or success stories? I'm looking to be able to speak, read and write Spanish with conversational ease.
I suppose if your line of work will necessitate that you are speaking with people who speak the language, it would be highly beneficial to learn it. Personally, I would not be too interested in working with people who cannot speak English, but that's me. I would like to learn Spanish so that I know what people are saying about me when they think I don't understand. LOL
Rosettastone is good. I am learning Thai with it and I really like it. Depending on where you live, you can get a native speaking tutor which will help immensly with pronounciation issues.
The best way to learn another language is through immersion. So...do your coursework, but like the other posters said...use it everyday. When I was learning Spanish in college (it was my minor) we were encouraged to do this:
Study vocabulary only in small bits of time. Don't try to spend 1-2 straight hours a day memorizing your Spanish (you won't retain as much, it's a waste). Try to spend 20 minutes a day working on memorizing vocabulary, then put it down for the day.
Watch tv everyday, for 20-30 minutes. I find that watching the news is the best thing, because they speak proper Spanish. Regular TV shows can have a lot of slang and they don't speak as clearly, which can be difficult.
Listen to Spanish music. As you memorize lyrics, you learn words.
Good luck!
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