Best way to learn new languages.

I need to learn Spanish. What is the best way you good people have found to learn a language later in life. Plus most of my employees don't speak English well. I'd also like to read novels by Spanish authors in their original form.

I'm looking at the roseta stone but it's pricey and you don't even get to keep the materials to sell later. I took a course or two in college but have forgotten most of it. I'd like to be able to read and converse fluently. Please help give me some idea if you can.

Originally Posted by i10casual

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I need to learn Spanish. What is the best way you good people have found to learn a language later in life. Plus most of my employees don't speak English well. I'd also like to read novels by Spanish authors in their original form. I'm looking at the roseta stone but it's pricey and you don't even get to keep the materials to sell later. I took a course or two in college but have forgotten most of it. I'd like to be able to read and converse fluently. Please help give me some idea if you can.

That's an incredibly stupid thing to do. Unless of course you will be dealing with straight up Spaniards. Every Spanish speaking country has different lingo. Watch Univision or Telemundo where the Spanish is neutral and not really swayed toward one group and you can also download Rosetta Stone for free if you look around...

Don't you mean estúpido? I like google translate! Yeah, no **** joven, I know each colony has it's own dialect. You're pretty negative. In this regard, I just have a thing for the spanish civil war and would really like to read about it pre-translated and maybe things that didn't get translate.

Originally Posted by i10casual

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Don't you mean estúpido? I like google translate! Yeah, no **** joven, I know each colony has it's own dialect. You're pretty negative. In this regard, I just have a thing for the spanish civil war and would really like to read about it pre-translated and maybe things that didn't get translate.

Es algo bien estupido que hacer? That doesn't even translate well in Spanish. I'm not being negative. Just warning you that proper Spanish will confuse some people who aren't familiar with Castellano.

I'd suggest the following.
1. Try to find native spanish teacher and good textbook to learn from.
2. Let the teacher teach you grammar in school and learn vocabulary at home.
3. Try to read spanish books for children, translations for fairytales you know or easy to understand shortstories. In case of doubt, just ask your teacher I'm sure he has some recs for you.

(That was the way I learned it - however this was when I was 13 - 15 years old. Hopefully it helps, though.)

Cool, thank you both.

My advice is to find a teacher from Spain... we Spaniards speak the proper language, and it will give you the European touch. I mean, people from South America, in general, find the accent from Spain the most stylish one, people than belong to the upper classes there come often to Spain to get that accent. (The main difference is that we pronounce "c" like "th". For example: Cerrado (closed) "therradoh"... while Mexicans would say "serradoh"). It´s like the British accent for the Americans, I guess. Another piece of advice would be to tell your teacher to start talking Spanish right from the beginning, and focus on conversation, rather than giving you a huge list of words and verb tenses to learn. If you have some primitive knowledge of Spanish prior to these classes, you´ll notice that you are going to learn much faster. You´ll start tilting your head like a dog, but you´ll soon learn. It´s better to understand and make yourself understood, even if you make mistakes, and let time polish those mistakes, than to know a few verbs and phrases perfectly. And one last advice, read a lot, start with magazines. Buy the ones about things you are very interested in, I love cars, so the very first words I learned in Swedish were the ones for clutch, brakes and top speed... If you can´t find magazines from Spain, try this link: http://www.youkioske.com/ I´ve learnt a few languages that way, I can tell you it works pretty well.

Where do you live? If your in any big metropolitan city, you can easily learn a new language by studying the traditional textbook way, and then by setting time aside to immerse yourself in the language where you can apply your textbook learning.

All the korean businness owners in LA eventually learn spanish just by being around spanish speakers. People say it is difficult to learn a new language, but if you are forced to learn in a sink or swim kind of way, I bet most people would quickly learn.

+1 to watching TV. I learned a lot from Univision news & the telenovelas are great too.

-1 to learning castillian Spanish. The accent can be much harder and there are usage & grammar differences. Absolutely no point if you are in the U.S. or travelling / working in Latin America.

Use Rosetta Stone. You don't have to pay for it...

Read news articles in the language you are attempting to learn. Actually try to decipher words before going right over to Google Translate. News articles are the best because they're accessible in their writing and they're to the point.

After that you should be set, just try watching movies and reading books in that language. I'd also recommend talking with people on Live Mocha or with a friend that knows the language.

Great thanks. Maybe i can find an Argentine teacher here, best of both worlds. When in Chicago I was picking up on the smooth boricuas spanish but when I got to my new town the sharp sounding mexican spanish is throwing me off as it runs together.

Hombre mentioned downloading rosetta stone for free. Anyone got a good site to do that from?

The best way I find is through using a program. e.g. Rosetta stone.

The rosetta stone has a strange policy. You can't resale their product. They keep all the rights, you merely rent the material for a few hundred.

Originally Posted by i10casual

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Great thanks. Maybe i can find an Argentine teacher here, best of both worlds.

worst idea ever... you need somethng slightly more neutral maybe a teacher from venezuela or the area around bogota. the dialect of argentina is probably the most difficult to understand.