I'm interested in teaching myself Spanish and was wondering what program and/or book you'd suggest? Any help at all would be appreciated. Thanks, Michelle
I learned a small amount when I was very young...mostly the bad stuff of course. A few years ago I bought a set of CDs called Instant Imersion Spanish. I found it on sale at Office Max but I found the web site listed on the front cover. You can find it HERE. Since then I also found a vast amount of free help on the internet. Here's a short list ... Little Explorers, Activity Village, and, Teacher's Board. I realise these are mostly for kids but they helped me a lot because it's easier for me tot learn some thing when I can read along instead of just listening. By the way, they will try to sell you something after you've used up their free sections... fair warning. Before You Know It lets you download a free trial also. Your best bet is to use up your freebies first and then do some bargain hunting. Also, if you know someone who home schools, you can get the best free program around. I try to sit in on my friend's school sessions as often as I can. Their programs are so much easier to learn from. Last but not least, having Spanish speaking friends helps a whole lot. Just make sure you can trust them. I've had some of my friends play pranks on me by telling me to say things that didn't match the conversation. It was all in fun, but it confused me terribly! At Alta Vista, you can translate your favorite pages from English to Spanish after you learn how to pronounce words and understand the alphabet pretty well. Enjoy your language learning.
check your local library's website. Lots of public libraries offer Rosetta Stone software free online!! This is a curriculum that costs hundreds of dollars, and really works. If your local library does not offer it, many others do, only thing is you might have to pay $30 or so for a library card because you don't reside in their city/county. It's free from my public library for anyone with a library card (which is free for residents, and $20 or so for people who live farther away). http://www.rosettastone.com/
I'm a former homeschooler, and even though I'm just a kid hear me out. I've observed that kids learn easier if, besides using a curriculum of some sort even one you've developed yourself, if you speak the language with the child outside of lessons it becomes far more natural. Also, and this is just sort of something almost silly, go to the library or ebay or something and find spanish sesame street tapes or something close (to be honest I'm not even sure that there is a spanish sesame street)
Actually there is a spanish sesame street version called "Plaza Sesamo". I used to watch it when I was small. And yes, cartoons are a good way to learn another language. Kim
If you are just starting, check if your library also has Pimsleur CDs. It would help you to learn the first few hundred of words easily.
Find a class. Learning from a book is more or less useless. There are too many nuances that books and cds can't cover. As someone who speaks 4 languages, 1 of which I began learning on my own (and then quickly realized that I was reinforcing bad grammar so picked up a course), if you've never learned another language before you need to take a course to really get anything out of it. If you can do a full immersion program in Spain/Latin America, that's even better, but a few weeks or a summer will not cut it.
I also recommend checking with the library. We have Muzzy AND Rosetta Stone in our local system - both of which are wonderful, and neither of which could we afford to buy on our own. Also, see if you have anyone in your area that speaks Spanish naturally. It is far easier to learn a language when you are using it in "real life" versus learning one sentence at a time that may or may not be used in daily conversations. We have new next door neighbors from Paraguay and they are trying to learn to speak English while we learn Spanish so we get together twice a month just to talk together. We learn more in that hour than we do in 2 WEEKS of studying online & through books/dvds! love, mom
I really like the "Teach Yourself" language series. I leared how to speak Swedish from it. It comes with a book and CD's. They are fairly cheap, too.
