Grex Language Conference

View Responses

Grex Language Item 69: I need to learn **S*P*A*N*I*S*H**. How? Help please.
Entered by marcin on Sat Nov 19 05:27:18 UTC 1994:

I have a great desire to speak spanish, the language of Cervantes, and I am 
asking for your opinions on how to acompilsh that goal in shortest time. If
it makes any difference I speak polish, english, russian, and little german.
Thank you  v e r y  much.
                                               Pawel.

14 responses total.

#1 of 14 by srw on Sat Nov 19 06:59:31 1994:

I don't have any great ideas for you. Spanish is probably an easier
language for most English speakers to learn than Polish, Russian, or German.
Because Spanish is a romance language, it has little in common with
Teutonic or Slavic languages.

#2 of 14 by robh on Sat Nov 19 15:22:10 1994:

SPanish is disgustingly easy.  On the other hand, srw is right, it
has almost nothing in common with the other languages you already
know.

If you live in the Ann Arbor area, I have tons of beginner's
Spanish textbooks you can use.

#3 of 14 by brighn on Sat Nov 19 19:12:25 1994:

What?  No Romanian?  That would help.  :)
Seriously, the help provided by knowing Polish, Russian, and English is that
in general the more languages from different groups you know, the easier
(within limits) learning a new language from yet another group should be:
I found that to be true studying Japanese (knowing French and German within
the typical American public school parameters), and then later studying
trushka Ukrainian.

Spanish is probably the easiest of the Romance languages, primarily because
of the good fit between orthography and pronunciation (Italian and 
Portugeuse also has a reasonable fit, but have some more sound-spelling
correspondence differences that English literates have to learn, and French,
well, French is nearly as screwed up as English orthographically).  Knowing
languages from two branches of Indo-European is certainly a help going in
-- much (but not nearly all) of the grammar is similar enough to suss out, 
so the biggest difficulty is in learning the vocabulary (which a knowledge
of Latin, or at least of which English words have Latinate sources can 
help with).

Specific strategies for minimal leanrning time of course depend on the purpose
-- do you need to *speak* Spanish, *read* it, or both?  Will your major form of
discourse be formal, informal, or academic?

#4 of 14 by marcin on Sat Nov 19 20:35:19 1994:

Thank you for all your responses. For now the basic goal I want achieve is to
speak and understand spoken spanish. Getting more serious with the language
will come later as my knowledge of gramar and vocabulary grows. 
Do you think that language courses on tapes are a good idea, or maybe I should
stick with normal college book? Or maybe you know a different approach?
Thanx
..

#5 of 14 by brighn on Sat Nov 19 23:15:01 1994:

A book won't do much good unless you hear at least enough to be able to 
translate the written word to speech.  I'd say tapes at first, assuming that
a native speaker is not to be had.  Then, after a week or so, book learning
would be effective.

The most efficient way, IMHO, is to plop yourself down in the middle of 
dowtown Madrid with no money or passport and try to get out of Spain.
That'd learn ya fast.
Perhaps a bit dangerous and expensive, though.

#6 of 14 by marcin on Sat Nov 19 23:56:32 1994:

View hidden response.

#7 of 14 by marcin on Sun Nov 20 23:59:49 1994:

Thanx, I shall go with the tapes.

#8 of 14 by mdw on Wed Dec 7 10:22:53 1994:

There's a school in one of the sa countries (venezuela) where you can go
to learn spanish - not only do you get the advantages of a concentrated
course to learn spanish, but you are indeed also entirely immersed in
the culture.  It's probably a tad more expensive than brighn's solution,
but certainly a lot safer.

#9 of 14 by ecaceres on Thu Mar 16 08:57:54 1995:

hi. 
in fact ther are lots of scholls in south ameica that teach spanish for non
spanish speakers. now i'm learnin English , and in my language centre there are
students of differentt countries learning spanish.  (excuse my English gramar
and spelling)  anyway, Ithink it is an expensive solution . but if you could
learn the basic pronunciation of spanish , it will be easy to learn it by
reading, .

you know at least a little of spanish?

#10 of 14 by simcha on Fri Mar 17 19:08:36 1995:

Try a community college conversation course.  We have them here at
all hours of the day/eve/Sats.   3 times/week will only get you 
started, but might help complement the tapes.

I studied for 4 or 5 years.  Went to a parat of Spain where no one in 
a "small town" of 100,000 people spoke English.  (Oviedo, in the '70s).
I was silent for 3 days, not able to think of how to ask a question or
say anything.  6 weeks later I was dreaming in Spanish.
Nothing beats immersion.

#11 of 14 by bugger on Sat Feb 10 23:55:31 1996:

i think the easiest way to study spanish is to buy a computer program like
windows spanish

#12 of 14 by freida on Wed Feb 14 13:45:46 1996:

windows spanish?  they have such a thing?  I have not been able to find any
computer programs to teach me spanish...only ones which test the spanish I
already know.  Tell me more, please!

#13 of 14 by mdw on Fri Feb 16 12:51:40 1996:

Borders.

#14 of 14 by freida on Wed May 15 21:10:17 1996:

I don't live near a borders...I live in the hills of West Virginia...more help
than that please?  Where I can write for or order?  TIA

Response not possible - You must register and login before posting.