Best Way To Learn Spanish

Spanish Language Lessons

admin — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 06:44:01 +0000

Spanish Language Lessons: Basic Spanish Vocabulary List

It takes time to get started in the process of learning the Spanish language, and to allow the language to become a part of your subconscious. However, it is easier to work up the motivation to give learning to speak any new language a try if you have already had a taste of it. Below are a few phrases that will come in handy when you are interacting with native Spanish speakers and will help to launch you on your path to success.

Greetings

Hola-Hello
Adios-Goodbye
Hasta Luego-See you later
Bienvenidos-Welcome
Buenos Diaz-Good morning/Good day
Buenos Tardes-Good Afternoon
Buenos Noches-Good night
Bueno Suerte-Good luck
Mucho Gusto-Nice to meet you
Quantos anos tiene?-How old are you/how old is he/she? (this is especially important when admiring other people’s children!)
Yo tengo…anos-I am…years old

Manners

Gracias-Thank you
De Nada-You’re welcome

At the Table

Tengo Hambre-I’m hungry
Tengo Sed-I’m thirsty

Who/What/When/Where/Why/How

Cuando-When
Cuánto-How much
Quién-Who
Qué-What
Dónde-Where
Dónde Está…-Where is…?
Porqué -Why/Because

One major difference between Spanish and English is the way that verbs are conjugated. English speakers conjugate their verbs, although they are often unaware of it at the time. For example, while we say, “I run”, English grammar would dictate that we say, “She runs” and “They run”. If you were to say that “She run” and “They runs” you would immediately find the wrath of many who choose to take exception to this butchering of the grammatical structure of their language coming down upon your head.

This same policy applies when you are talking about speaking in Spanish; however, due to the fact that the Spanish language often allows for the informality of the subject to be dropped when you are discussing a specific topic it is absolutely vital that you use the correct form of the verb. If you were to say, “We runs” in English, your listeners would be able to hear the subject we and understand that you were simply using the improper form of the verb to run. Had you simply said, “Runs” (for example, “runs in the grass”) people would have assumed that you were talking about a he, a she or an it. They would have had no idea that you were in fact referring to yourself and another party, and the entire point that your sentence was attempting to make would be lost.

So it is with Spanish. Within the Spanish language are six primary subjects which dictate the form of the verb to be used. These subjects are:

Yo-I
Tu-You (familiar, informal-for use with a friend or a child)
El/Ella/Usted-He/She/You (formal)
Nosotros-We
Vosotros-You, plural (formal, used primarily in Spain)
Ellos/Ellas/Ustedes-They. Ellos refers to a multiple number of males or a group of mixed company, Ellas to a multiple number of females. Ustedes is the plural form of You used by the people of Latin America or as an informal address when speaking in Castilian Spanish.

As you will have noticed from the subjects above not all Spanish is the same. The people of the country of Spain speak what is known as Castilian Spanish, the more formal form of the language. The people of Latin America have their own distinct language, and within this language are multiple dialects. It is important that you be aware of this because as you are learning to speak Spanish you will often find vocabulary labeled as specific to Spain, to Latin America or pertaining specifically to a country. This can become very confusing if you do not know what it is that you are looking at.

Now that you are familiar with the subjects used in the Spanish language you can begin to understand the conjugation of Spanish verbs. There are many, so for illustration’s sake we will use the most basic from the three main groups of regular verbs. Regular verbs refer to verbs which are conjugated the same way regardless of which verb they are, and they are divided into -er, -ir and –ar verbs.

Since the paragraph you just read probably made absolutely no sense to you, let use take a specific example. The verb hablar means “to speak”, and it is conjugated thusly:

Yo hablo
Tu hablas
El/Ella/Ud. habla
Nosotros hablamos
Vosotros hablais (there is an accent over the second (a) in hablais when viewed properly)
Ellos/Ellas/Uds. hablan

As you can see, the verb used changes according to the subject. Therefore, if you were trying to say “I speak Spanish” or “I can speak Spanish” (the two are said in the same fashion) you would say, “Yo hablo espanol”. However, since it is customary when speaking Spanish to drop the subject you would say, “Hablo espanol”. Your listeners will know that you are talking about yourself because you would use the verb form hablo.

If, on the other hand, you were to use the incorrect form of the verb by mistake and said, “Hablas espanol” your listener would believe that you were talking about them. You will have said “You speak Spanish” rather than “I speak Spanish”.

As you can see, using the correct form of the verb is much more important when speaking Spanish than when speaking English. Fortunately, when dealing with regular verbs all verbs of the same form will be conjugated in the same manner. Therefore, any other –ar verb will be conjugated in the same fashion as hablar. The same is true using verbs that end in –er and verbs that end in –ir. Underneath are the conjugations for the verbs comer, meaning “to eat”, and vivir, meaning “to live”. You will find yourself using these verbs often in conversation.

Comer

Yo como
Tu comes
El/Ella/Ud. come
Nosotros comemos
Vosotros comeis
Ellos/Ellas/Uds. comen
Ellos comen las bananas en la manana (they eat bananas in the morning).

Vivir

Yo vivo
Tu vives
El/Ella/Ud. vive
Nosotros vivimos
Vosotros vivis
Ellos/Ellas/Uds. viven
Yo vivo con mi hermana (I live with my sister).

As you can see, the conjugations of the –ir and –er verbs are very similar. There are a number of resources on the internet that will give you a listing of other commonly used –ar, -ir and –er verbs. Take the time to look these over and memorize them to the best of your ability, taking advantage of audio resources to help you with their pronunciation. Unfortunately, until you are using your Spanish on a daily basis in conversation these conjugations are not going to come easily for you. Practice makes perfect.

Unfortunately, not all verbs are regular. There are some that have their very own conjugation that is in no way, shape or form related to their regular counterparts, and these can be extremely confusing if you do not take the time to memorize them. There is no other way to learn these than through rote memorization, although many of these you will use so often that their conjugation will become second nature to you. Underneath are a few of the most commonly used irregular verbs and their proper conjugation.

Querer (to want)

Yo quiero
Tu quieres
El/Ella/Ud. quiere
Nosotros queremos
Vosotros queries
Ellos/Ellas/Uds. quieren

Tener (to have)

Yo tengo
Tu tienes
El/Ella/Ud. tiene
Nosotros tenemos
Vosotros teneis
Ellos/Ellas/Uds. tienen

Estar (to be, temporarily, as in to be in a place)

Yo estoy
Tu estas
El/Ella/Ud. esta
Nosotros estamos
Vosotros estais
Ellos/Ellas/Uds. estan

Ser (to be, permanently)

Yo soy
Tu eres
El/Ella/Ud. es
Nostros somos
Vosotros sois
Ellos/Ellas/Uds. son

Poder (to be able)

Yo puedo
Tu puedes
El/Ella/Ud. puede
Nostros podemos
Vosotros podeis
Ellos/Ellas/Uds. pueden

Visit www.wordreference.com for further assistance with Spanish vocabulary, verbs or irregular verbs. This reference will also help you to learn the difference between present, past and future forms of the verb, a topic that is far too difficult to go into in any great detail here!

So What Is The Best Way To Learn Spanish?

After trying to learn Spanish using numerous methods, I found the Rocket Spanish Language Course to be the easiest, fastest, and best way to learn Spanish. This course will benefit anyone at the beginner, intermediate, or advanced levels. In order to learn Spanish well, you have to listen to and speak a lot of Spanish words and phrases. This course is designed with that in mind because among the many things that are included are a 14 hour, 31 lesson Interactive Audio Course, Beginner and Advanced Grammar books and exercises, and “MegaSpanish” software games that will significantly improve your recognition and memorization of Spanish words and phrases and will greatly improve your understanding of the spoken word. If you need additional help, you can either email the creator of this course or you can ask questions and communicate with other students and the Rocket Language online instructors on the Members Only “Learn Spanish” Forum. The cost of the downloadable version of this program is $99.95 which means it is still priced lower than most of the other courses on the market. Being able to download the course will save you a lot of money and also allow you to get started right away. You will be able to listen to it on your computer, burn the material to a CD, and even load the audio on your ipod. If you want to order the Rocket Spanish course, then please click here.

Learn Spanish Audio

admin — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 02:29:15 +0000

Learn Spanish By Listening To Audio Courses

There are a number of programs that offer Spanish programs on CD for people to learn. This is a wonderful opportunity for you to learn to speak and understand Spanish as it is spoken in its natural form. You will be able to hear how each individual word is spoken, and the inflection of each phrase. As we spoke about earlier, the greatest difficulty facing individuals who are learning to speak another language is the ability to understand, and a large part of the reason for that is that you are not used to the words being spoken in such a manner.

When you are choosing an audio course to work with, be sure that you choose one that is going to teach both vocabulary and one that is going to teach you to speak in phrases. The catch with speaking any language is that there are very few moments in which a series of words can be placed together and make sense, and when you are considering the fact that you are working with another language you have to understand that the Spanish grammatical structure is very different from that which in employed in English. This means that you cannot simply learn all of the vocabulary words and place them together in a sentence as you would in English. It will make absolutely no sense to a native speaker.

To take a very common example, let us look at the manner in which a native Spanish speaker will introduce themselves. You would say, “Hello, my name is…” In Spanish, you would say “Hola, me llamo…” Quite literally, this means, “Hello, I call myself…” If someone came up to you on the street and said, “Hello, I call myself Benjamin” you would probably understand what he was trying to say, but you would more than likely look at him a little oddly. This is precisely what will happen if you fail to learn the proper phrasing in Spanish.

So, to get back to the topic at hand, when you are selecting an audio course to work with you should be sure to find one that works with you in both full sentences and phrases and individual words. You also want to find one that is going to cover a variety of situations. As we discussed earlier, while you are going to need to learn about transportation and such when you are on vacation in a latin country this knowledge is not going to do you much good when you are attempting to carry on a normal conversation while at work. You are going to need to know words to apply to any number of situations, and a program that fails to acknowledge this is not going to serve you very well.

So What Is The Best Way To Learn Spanish?

Learn Spanish Language Online

admin — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 02:25:15 +0000

Learn Spanish Language Online Resources

You can do anything with the help of the internet, and learning to speak Spanish is no exception. There are a number of programs currently in existence on the internet that are intended to assist those individuals whose lives are simply too busy to take a Spanish class in the mastery of this unique language.

These online resources can work for you as well, but there are a number of things you should look for before settling on a Spanish program. First and foremost, it must have some type of audio interface. You cannot learn to speak Spanish from a book. The accents and flow of the language are so different that even if you were to perfectly master the pronunciation of every vowel, syllable and letter combination in the Spanish language you still would not be able to speak with any type of fluency.

Take a moment to think back on the last time that you spoke with someone with a lisp or a very heavy accent. Even though they were speaking in English you probably had a very difficult time understanding them. The reason for this is that your ears are not used to relaying that type of information to the brain. Your ears are accustomed to hearing the language spoken in a particular manner with a particular accent, and in the absence of that particular way of speaking your brain cannot make any sense of what your ears are sending it.

The same can be said of learning to speak Spanish. The entire point of learning to speak a new language is to communicate with those people for whom this foreign language is a native tongue. That means that you must be able to understand them and, equally importantly, they must be able to understand you. If you do not speak with the proper accent and pronunciation you will not be understood, and therefore will have wasted the time you spent learning to speak the language.

The other item that is of particular importance when working with an online Spanish program is the quality of its visual aids. Yes, you are going to need pictures as well as words and sounds to learn. Why? Take a moment to consider how you learned English as a child. You learned the language from listening to the people around you, then applying the words to items around you. This means that you learned by a process known as “visual association”. Your mind learned to associate certain words with objects you saw around you. Without that association you are going to find yourself having to memorize countless vocabulary words without any foundation in which to base it.

If that doesn’t make sense, take a moment to think back to when you were first learning how to spell in grade school. You probably spent countless hours reviewing your word lists to learn how to spell the words the teacher required; however, you probably didn’t gain true mastery of these words until you became an adult and began seeing them in your reading material. The same is true of your vocabulary. Until you begin applying it to objects in your environment, words are just words and are not going to stick in your mind.

There are a number of programs that are available through the internet that will help you to learn to speak Spanish, and many of these are provided to you at a reasonable price.

So What Is The Best Way To Learn Spanish?

Spanish For Business

admin — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 19:37:28 +0000

Learning Spanish For Business Opportunities

People have various reasons to learn Spanish. Some just want the satisfaction of knowing another language. However, in the business world, it is becoming more and more advantageous to learn Spanish.

If your business has bilingual employees, the Spanish speaking community won’t hesitate to do business with you. You will be able to service their needs without making them feel out of place or unwanted. It will help you immensely if you have several employees who learn Spanish.

Running a grocery store or a department store is much easier if you have employees who will learn Spanish. Questions come up as to price checks or damaged merchandise, to name a couple. It helps you to make your business friendly to the Spanish speaking community if you are ready with answers.

If your business involves financial contracts, you can explain your services completely so that everyone involved understands what is being agreed to. You can help the person understand the contract and make sure it’s what they want. To do work like this, your employees will need to learn Spanish in depth.

Sales are a big area of business in any country. If you don’t speak a person’s language, you’ll never know what they are looking for. You might try to sell them something that is out of their price range. Or, unluckily for you, you might sell them something lesser than what they came for. This is where having employees learn Spanish pays off.

Many companies in the US do international business. They need to speak to their business associates on the phone, by email, or even through video conferencing. You will not want a receptionist handling such matters. For this reason, it’s necessary to have people of importance to the company learn Spanish.

Sometimes Spanish speaking people from businesses you work with will come directly to your office. If this happens, you need to have people who have taken the time to learn Spanish to greet them. They should be able to conduct business with the visiting associates. If you don’t learn Spanish yourself, you can at least have employees who can translate for you.

So, having established that it is important to your business for employees to learn Spanish, how can you make that learning available? One way is to hire a company tutor. This person can come into the office several times a week and work with selected employees to help them learn Spanish that relates to the office environment.

This is an ideal set-up because it takes little time from the workday to learn Spanish, yet it ensures that employees will attend. It keeps the material geared to the specific needs of your company. It also guarantees as small a class size as you dictate.

Having employees learn Spanish can be a great boon to your business. It is well worth the trouble and expense of making learning materials and teachers available. If you own a business, consider going bilingual and you won’t be sorry you did.

So What Is The Best Way To Learn Spanish?

Learn Spanish Today

admin — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 19:07:00 +0000

How To Learn Spanish Today With A Tutor

Some companies hire tutors for certain employees so they can learn Spanish for business dealings. You might also hire a tutor to get personal instruction. If you’re lucky enough to be able to get a one-on-one tutor to learn Spanish with, you should be able to progress quickly. This is even truer if you know how to take full advantage of your tutor’s knowledge.

When you first sit down with your tutor, before you begin to learn Spanish, ask about his/her background. Ask questions about where they grew up, where they went to school, where they have worked, and especially, what language they spoke in all of these situations.

Make sure the tutor you have selected has something to teach you. Think of it this way. You can learn something from anyone, but no one can teach you everything. Learn Spanish with someone who can come as close as possible.

Once you get a feel for where your tutor’s talents lie, you will be able to glean from their wisdom all they have to offer you. If the tutor has lived in a country that interests you, you will have a great resource to learn Spanish in that dialect. You can also learn about the culture of that country.

If the tutor has worked in a field that is similar to yours, that is helpful. It means that they will know technical words that you deal with every day. It also gives you something in common to talk about as you learn Spanish.

Show up on time to your tutoring sessions. If the tutoring takes place in your home, be there and ready for your lesson. Don’t make the tutor wait for you to finish watching a television program before you will begin to learn Spanish, for example. Besides that, you should offer a soda or coffee, since all the talking can dry out the mouth.

When you’re working with a tutor to learn Spanish, one advantage you have is that you can ask all the questions you want. Use this knowledge to the maximum. When you’re having your tutoring sessions, ask every question that pops into your mind.

Don’t let the questions end with the lessons, either. Keep jotting down your questions in between lessons so that they can be answered when you meet again. When you get the answers, write them down or record them. This kind of interaction makes you more involved and enthusiastic about your quest to learn Spanish.

After you’ve learned the basics with your tutor, make a list of things you need or would like to learn. If you work in a field with a lot of technical jargon or specialized tools, you can make a list of these words you need to know. Your tutor will help you learn Spanish names for the items on your list.

The right tutor can fulfill your need to learn Spanish with ease. Treat your tutor in a respectful way and you can expect to develop a strong working relationship. If you have a choice, opting to learn Spanish with a tutor is a wise move.

So What Is The Best Way To Learn Spanish?

Learning The Spanish Language

admin — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 18:50:46 +0000

Learning The Spanish Language By Using The Arts

Do you want to learn Spanish and enjoy yourself at the same time? There are many ways to do this. If you’re a person who enjoys the arts, a good way to learn Spanish is to take pleasure in the arts of Spanish speaking countries.

There is a great deal of very good literature that comes from Spanish cultures. You can go to the libraries in cities and even larger towns to find Spanish literature in its original language. Ask the librarian or do a search in the computerized catalog under Spanish language writers.

If you take time to learn Spanish to a certain extent before you try this, you will have the best results. This is a practice that is mainly meant to improve already existing language skills. After you check out a book that seems interesting, begin to try reading it. You will come to words and phrases you don’t understand.

This is when it is good to have someone who will help you learn Spanish by answering your questions. If you don’t have someone like that, you can sometimes get into a discussion group, whether in person or on-line. This is also a good way to learn Spanish culture because there are novelists and poets from virtually every Spanish speaking country.

Another way to learn Spanish through the arts is by watching Spanish language movies. One way to learn which movies are good is to find out which have been nominated to win foreign language Academy Awards. There have been some very moving and sometimes funny movies that have been acknowledged.

When you watch the movies, there are often subtitles. Don’t take these words as an exact translation. They usually are just an approximation, and sometimes not even that. As you listen carefully to the words, you will find the subtitles hilarious at times in their inaccuracies. Watching a movie gives you context for language and makes it easier to learn Spanish.

Even Spanish language television, although perhaps a lower form of art, can help you to learn Spanish as well. The nice thing about television is that there is a constant supply of programs. You can watch and learn Spanish every day.

There are different types of programs. There are many Spanish soap operas. This might not be the type of program you would normally watch. However, you will find a lot of common usages that will help you learn Spanish. There are also dramas, game shows, and even sit-coms.

People who aren’t even trying to learn Spanish have been doing it for years through listening to Spanish language songs. The trick is to find a song that has lyrics clear enough to understand completely. Then, sit down with a recorder and tape the song.

Once you have the song recorded, you can go through it a phrase at a time. Write down each phrase as you hear it. Then use the Spanish you know along with your Spanish-English dictionary to translate it. Pretty soon you will learn Spanish from the song enough to sing it as you work.

If you learn Spanish better through the arts, you will have enhanced your language skills while gaining a deeper understanding of life. After all, that’s what the arts are all about.

So What Is The Best Way To Learn Spanish?

Learning How To Speak Spanish

admin — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 18:33:55 +0000

Learning How To Speak Spanish By Using The News Media

For most people, news is a part of life. They listen to the evening news to get the upcoming weather or to find out what is going on in their area that day. They buy newspapers to get a handle on local politics. You can also use the news media to learn Spanish better.

One way to get news to learn Spanish better is to subscribe to a Spanish language newspaper. You can get the information on how to do that through your local library. They will have the contact information for the newspapers, so that all you have to do is get in touch with them and place your order.

Once you get the paper, you can try reading the articles. You might have problems at first, but continue on. Use a translation dictionary. Whenever possible, find out about the story through other sources as well.

See if what you understand as you try to learn Spanish matches what you find out in your own language. Sometimes, the perspective is different, causing a discrepancy between the two stories. This only makes the reading more interesting. It helps you learn Spanish on a whole different level.

If you have trouble obtaining a Spanish language newspaper, you can find articles from Spanish newspapers online. Search under “Spanish language newspaper” and you will find several choices of online newspapers from all over the Spanish speaking world.

You can treat these in the same way you treat the newspapers that arrive in the mail. Translate them and work at understanding their meanings. Another way to learn Spanish through the news is to look up an English language newspaper.

Print off a page. Next, if you have the option, request a translation into Spanish. Print this off and you can compare them to learn Spanish better. You will have a clear understanding of the story and of the way the words are used to tell it.

Another form of news media you can use to learn Spanish is television news. In times past, few people in the US had access to Spanish television stations. Now, there is a variety of Spanish language stations to choose from. Besides that, there is news on virtually every one of them.

To learn Spanish by watching the news, you have two choices. First, you can put yourself to the test by watching it in real time. This gives you practice in adjusting to the cadence of the spoken word. You will be surprised at how much you will get out of the broadcast if you listen closely.

The second option is to record it and watch it a little at a time. You can learn Spanish in more depth this way by translating every word. It will take more time, but you will learn Spanish vocabulary that is up-to-date. You will also know about current events in Spanish speaking countries.

Using the news media to learn Spanish better is a good choice for a busy person. It doesn’t require a lot of time, even if you translate. Furthermore, you stay in the loop while you learn Spanish better than ever before.

So What Is The Best Way To Learn Spanish?

Beginning Spanish Lessons

admin — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 18:11:19 +0000

Beginning Spanish Lessons: How to Learn Spanish Greetings

In your first attempt to learn Spanish, the first thing you will be taught about is greetings. What do you know if you don’t know how to say “hello?” Learning the greetings will help you to learn Spanish in its simplest form because you don’t have to worry about too many verb agreements or word orders. The greetings are taught in simple phrases. No extra words need to be looked up or added. As I said before, as you learn Spanish the first phrase you need to know is “hello.” In order to say that in Spanish, you would say, “Hola.”

“Hola” can be used formally or casually to say hello to anyone you might run into. If you are trying to say hello on the phone, you might use “bueno” or “diga. ”

If you would like to say “goodbye” in Spanish, you would say, “Adiós.”

If you would like to say, “How are you?” you would say, ” ¿Cómo estás?” To say, “Good afternoon.” you would say, ” Buenas tardes.” To say, “Good morning” or “Good day,” you would say, “Buenos días.” “Good night” in Spanish is buenos noches, and to ask what someone’s name is, you would say, “¿Cómo te llamas?”

Once you get these down, you will think it’s a breeze to learn Spanish, but you are in for some more complex terms a bit later on down the road. Other basics that you can start mastering are numbers, the alphabet, telling time, asking directions, gender, color, body parts, and family.

Learning these types of everyday terms will help you learn Spanish faster because you will able to practice these words everyday. People say hello and good night all of the time so you will feel comfortable practicing your Spanish often.

Later on, you will be able to form more complex greetings such as, “Hello, how are you are you doing?” or “Hi, the weather is pleasant today, isn’t it?”

You can begin to get a little more advanced by asking “What’s up?” or “What’s new?” To say that in Spanish, you would say “¿Qué hay?” If you want to say, “How’s it going?” you would say, “¿Qué pasa?” If you would like to say “nice to meet you” you would say “Mucho gusto.”

Those are just a few of the more intermediate level greetings that you will help you to learn Spanish while getting to know many different people.

In Spain, it’s often a common thing for people to kiss each other on both cheeks when they meet. However, men will usually shake hands. Even though people kiss each other often when they meet, they don’t do it all of the time. For instance in the context of a business meeting, you would not catch people kissing each other on the cheeks.

If you are in America, you may not want to try kissing anyone as you learn Spanish, even if it’s another Spanish person. Most people of different cultures have gotten used to the American culture, and American’s usually don’t kiss when they first meet. However, should you visit Spain, you may want to try this. It will add to the fun as you learn Spanish.

So What Is The Best Way To Learn Spanish?

Learn Spanish Program

admin — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 07:30:53 +0000

Learn Spanish Program: How People Learn Spanish in Conversational Classes

The traditional way to learn Spanish has been to start where a first grader would start. You learn the Spanish alphabet, learn simple Spanish words, and learn simple Spanish grammar. You advance in the same way throughout your studies.

The trouble is, it seems that after a course like this, people may learn Spanish to a degree without ever learning how to hold up their end of a conversation. Speaking in an informal setting is very different from speaking in a formal class.

For this reason, many people who give courses for people to learn Spanish have changed. They now give what are called “conversational Spanish classes.” These classes, by their nature, must be taught by someone who is extremely fluent in conversational Spanish.

Purists would have you dive right into a conversational setting, stumbling as you find your way. Generally, though, you will learn Spanish words that are necessary parts of a conversation first. These can be small words like “and, or, she, what,” and so on.

After you have that basis, you will usually be given a thin volume of conversational topics. These have about two short pages for each topic. Words related to that topic are given. Then, some questions are given as conversation starters.

When you use topics like this, you use the book as a starting point to learn Spanish rather than as the point of the class. You might, for example, have a topic about going on a trip in a car. There will be words that denote different parts of the car, such as the trunk. Then there will be words about stops you make along the way, like gas station.

You use the conversation starters to get you going. In this instance, a question might say, “How did you get your car ready for your last trip?” The students can all use the topic words, along with the small words they know, to answer the question and learn Spanish.

Everyone will get a chance to answer the question eventually, but the conversation should be a lively interchange of ideas if the facilitator is any good at all. As you learn Spanish more, you will have even more to say about each topic. You can draw on words you have learned in other lessons.

Once you have a few lessons under your belt, the facilitator might have you set aside the book for some lessons. During these times, you can talk about yourselves. You can get to know each other. As you learn Spanish, you will also find out what your classmates do and what they like.

Of course the topic words will not give you all the words you need to carry on a normal conversation. They are just a starting point after all. This is where the facilitator comes in. You try to use Spanish words that you do know to describe what you mean. When you get your point across, the facilitator will supply the word.

In conversational classes, the facilitator helps you out, but classmates also help each other. It’s a group effort to begin and sustain a conversation. As you learn Spanish, you will find that it’s less effort than pleasure.

So What Is The Best Way To Learn Spanish?

How To Learn To Speak Spanish

admin — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 07:07:16 +0000

How to Learn To Speak Spanish By Getting The Most Out Of Classes

After you enroll in a Spanish class, you expect to learn Spanish right away. You might leave it up to the teacher to drill the words and conjugations into your head. You will get more out of it, though, if you do your part to get more out of the class.

As soon as you enter the room for the first time, begin to get to know the other people. You might not think this is necessary to learn Spanish. After all, you didn’t come to socialize, right? The truth is that knowing these people will make it easier to interact and communicate with them. Your learning experience will be much more pleasant.

If the class goes in the traditional way, the teacher will start with a few basic Spanish words. To learn Spanish, begin thinking correctly about these first few words and you will set a precedent that will carry through all your language learning.

To do this, look at the object and think the Spanish word. Don’t think the English word and then translate it in your head. That’s a bad habit to get into and it won’t help you learn Spanish much either. If you start out learning correctly, the rest will go much smoother.

Some things when you learn Spanish are just easier than English. Your teacher will soon get into going through the alphabet. Pay attention. The sounds of the Spanish alphabet go by very strict rules that rarely change. If you want to learn Spanish, it’s easy to spell if you have mastered the alphabet rules.

To learn Spanish, you must learn to conjugate verbs. Learn the standard conjugations once. As you learn new irregular verbs, write down their conjugations. Then, assume that every verb is a regular verb unless you know otherwise.

Many classes these days, especially adult classes, are conversational classes. It is an advantage to learn Spanish this way because you are prepared for dealing directly with people when you finish. There are some ways to make your conversational class go better.

Listen to the other speakers when it isn’t your turn to talk. People often make the mistake of thinking so hard of what they want to say that they get lost to the conversation that is going on. If you listen, you will have to speak without premeditation, but this may help you to think faster in any situation as you learn Spanish.

Remember, even though it’s a conversational class, it doesn’t mean that you can’t take notes. You won’t want to spend much time with them. Focus on the conversation to learn Spanish, but take the time to doodle words or phrases that you want to remember. You can write them down later, or better yet, speak them into a recorder.

Merely being enrolled in a Spanish class doesn’t guarantee that you will learn Spanish. You need to bring your whole self into the process and be ready for anything your teacher throws at you. If you are, you will no doubt learn some Spanish by the end of the class.

So What Is The Best Way To Learn Spanish?

Your Name:
Your Email Address:

(This is a private and fully protected mailing list. You can unsubscribe at any time).