Learning Spanish...

[cbraver]

I took a little Spanish back in high school, but much of it is gone.

Anyone learn Spanish as a second language as an adult? How did you do it? Did you hire a tutor? My employer is considering having myself and a few others learn after work with a tutor. I've heard watching Spanish news is helpful?

Any tips would be helpful, as living in Miami it's time for me to finally learn Spanish. I used to have the attitude that they should just learn English, but, after five years of living down there I've learned that's a futile battle.

Any advice would be appreciated!

 

[stratman]

I'm a Miami native, I learned Spanish in school, my wife learned it as a teenager when she moved from Boston. Best way to learn is get a tutor and then hang around people that speak Spanish force yourself to keep trying to speak and sooner or later you'll get the hang of it, in Miami that's second nature. My folks learned over the years and the fact that their neighbors are Cuban and Colombian.

 

[mazersteven]

Any tips would be helpful, as living in Miami it's time for me to finally learn Spanish. I used to have the attitude that they should just learn English, but, after five years of living down there I've learned that's a futile battle.

You don't have to hire a tutor. Just go sit in Miami International Airport for a few hours. You'll learn real fast.

 

[rnatalli]

I've spoken English and Italian since I learned language as a child, but I did take it upon myself to learn French as an adult. French, Italian, and Spanish share similar structures and vocabulary so knowing Italian made it easier, but still difficult. I found that reading French forums and watching French movies helped immensely. I also listened to those learning CD's in the car on my way to work. People probably thought I was a nut talking to myself.

 

[stratman]

A tutor goes a long way, trust me Spanish (based on Latin) is a bit convoluted, but not impossible like Chinese. My Italian has gone completely rusty due to lack of use.

 

[highfihoney]

Over the last 10 years or so ive picked up quite a bit of spanish from my crew,my assistant is Mexican & taught me the important stuff first,like when the crew was talkin s#!t about me I know enough nowdays to tell them what i want done & to answer questions but they still slip alot of stuff past me.

 

[caupina]

As a Spanish speaking guy, I'd suggest you use the SAP and CC features on your TV, so you could listen to any program in Spanish (where SAP is available), and read the translation in English (where CC is available). That's what I do with my wife. She's learning English and even though she doesn't speak that much, she understand a lot, little by little she's getting the hang of it. Living here in SoCal I must say though she's learned more Mexican words than English ones.

 

[FguerraG]

Hey , how 'bout we start teaching you the swear words

as Mexican I consider my self an expert & I'll gladly give you the 101

 

[cbraver]

Thanks for the responses. Living in Miami, my focus is more on the Cuban slang and such, rather than Mexican.

I've never used the SAP feature on my TV, I'll give it a go. How does it even work? Someone does a voice dub in Spanish and then they have subtitles across the bottom of the screen in English?

 

[Joe Schmoe]

I took a few semesters of Spanish in college, and did quite well in it. Now it is totally gone. Amazing how fast language disappears when you don't practice it regularly.

 

[Rob Babcock]

You might want to give the Rosetta Stone software a try.

 

[stratman]

He won't get Cuban slang from Rosetta, just hang around Little Havana on the corner of 12th and Flagler. You also might get Central and South American slang too!

 

[caupina]

Thanks for the responses. Living in Miami, my focus is more on the Cuban slang and such, rather than Mexican.

I've never used the SAP feature on my TV, I'll give it a go. How does it even work? Someone does a voice dub in Spanish and then they have subtitles across the bottom of the screen in English?

That's correct. Most of the translation I believe is done in Mexico, but in a perfectly well spoken Spanish.

Slang, well that's another animal altogether, and unless you watch a movie made in Mexico or Cuba, you won't hear that much on the translation

 

[cbraver]

That's correct. Most of the translation I believe is done in Mexico, but in a perfectly well spoken Spanish.

Slang, well that's another animal altogether, and unless you watch a movie made in Mexico or Cuba, you won't hear that much on the translation

Yeah, I guess if I get the basics down properly I'll be able to pickup the rest. It's probably a good idea for me to learn proper Spanish anyways. I know that the Cubans rarely use the formal form, and almost always use the tu/familiar form, right?

I run HDMI from my box to my receiver, so I'll need to run RF from my cable box to my TV for SAP/CC and then back out to my reciever. I guess I'll use that when I want to use SAP/CC and then switch back to HDMI when I want to watch in English.

 

[stratman]

Yeah, I guess if I get the basics down properly I'll be able to pickup the rest. It's probably a good idea for me to learn proper Spanish anyways. I know that the Cubans rarely use the formal form, and almost always use the tu/familiar form, right?

I run HDMI from my box to my receiver, so I'll need to run RF from my cable box to my TV for SAP/CC and then back out to my reciever. I guess I'll use that when I want to use SAP/CC and then switch back to HDMI when I want to watch in English.

Cubans that use the formal form tend to be educated and older, regular folk use the familiar. Central and South Americans use the formal as they speak closer to Castillian. Some of the best Spanish outside Spain is found in Colombia and Peru (or Chile I always get that wrong.) Ironically Spain now is more into slang using Americanized words.

 

[caupina]

Cubans that use the formal form tend to be educated and older, regular folk use the familiar. Central and South Americans use the formal as they speak closer to Castillian. Some of the best Spanish outside Spain is found in Colombia and Peru (or Chile I always get that wrong.) Ironically Spain now is more into slang using Americanized words.

Being a Chilean myself, I don't think the Spanish we speak is as good (meaning well pronounced) as in Colombia. We tend to not pronounce the letter "s" at the end of the word containing it, we speak way too fast and use a lot of slang. IMHO Colombia's Spanish is one of the most well spoken ones, Peru's comes second.

 

[caupina]

Yeah, I guess if I get the basics down properly I'll be able to pickup the rest. It's probably a good idea for me to learn proper Spanish anyways. I know that the Cubans rarely use the formal form, and almost always use the tu/familiar form, right?
I

That's right!!!. Regarding the word "Tu", Cubans use it pretty much all the time, but if you want to impress anybody who speaks Spanish, especially someone you don't know, ie: when meeting people, use "Usted". "Usted" is pretty common in Colombia, they use it most of the time whereas in my country, you use it when being formal or well mannered, ie: talking with an older person, or your boss

 

[fmw]

I used to teach English as a second language in Japan. Many of my students were adults so I can tell you that it is certainly possible for an adult to learn a second language.

Since I am a native Spanish speaker and English is my second language, I can also tell you that Spanish is significantly less complex than English. Spanish has about 500,000 non-technical words compared to 1.5 million for English. The reason for that is that Spanish is a Romance language (from the Latin) while English is a hybrid of germanic and romance (church/ecclesiastical, house/domestic etc.) Also spelling and pronunciation in Spanish are very straight forward. In Spanish, words are spelled as they are pronounced and pronounced as they are spelled. You won't find things like to, too and two in Spanish.

Good luck with the lessons.

 

[Halon451]

I concur with the person who suggested Rosetta Stone. It can be a little on the expensive side, but luckily I got mine for free. Yeah, it won't teach you all the slang words and otherwise improper usage of the language that really comes to be part of the native dialect of a particular place, but it really does an excellent job of teaching you the fundamentals and how to actually 'speak' the language vs. merely listening to it. There are hundreds, if not thousands of those learning software CD's out there, and I've tried several of them, but Rosetta Stone has been the best so far.

It's kind of akin to teaching someone very proper English, but who the heck speaks that way? You have to learn the language first before you can twist it up you know.

 

[cbraver]

I used to teach English as a second language in Japan. Many of my students were adults so I can tell you that it is certainly possible for an adult to learn a second language.

Since I am a native Spanish speaker and English is my second language, I can also tell you that Spanish is significantly less complex than English. Spanish has about 500,000 non-technical words compared to 1.5 million for English. The reason for that is that Spanish is a Romance language (from the Latin) while English is a hybrid of germanic and romance (church/ecclesiastical, house/domestic etc.) Also spelling and pronunciation in Spanish are very straight forward. In Spanish, words are spelled as they are pronounced and pronounced as they are spelled. You won't find things like to, too and two in Spanish.

Good luck with the lessons.

Yeah, I can actually read and write it better than I can speak it. I have the basics down, but, not good enough to be confident in a conversation. Plus my vocabulary is too small still for speaking very much.

I concur with the person who suggested Rosetta Stone. It can be a little on the expensive side, but luckily I got mine for free. Yeah, it won't teach you all the slang words and otherwise improper usage of the language that really comes to be part of the native dialect of a particular place, but it really does an excellent job of teaching you the fundamentals and how to actually 'speak' the language vs. merely listening to it. There are hundreds, if not thousands of those learning software CD's out there, and I've tried several of them, but Rosetta Stone has been the best so far.

It's kind of akin to teaching someone very proper English, but who the heck speaks that way? You have to learn the language first before you can twist it up you know.

I'll check out Rosetta Stone. I agree with you that I need to learn proper first, the only real reason I'm interested in slang is because the Cubans use so much of it.


I wonder if watching movies with Spanish dubs and English subtitles would help too. I bet I have a few that offer that somewhere in the collection. I'm going to figure out CC/SAP this weekend when I get some time to hookup through my TV.

Thanks guys!