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Learning Languages in Texas | ||
Tags: United States | Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| steve s. Newbie United States Joined 6123 days ago 39 posts - 39 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 1 of 39 25 July 2007 at 11:26am | IP Logged | ||
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Being an Austinite, born and raised, I have been exposed to Spanish all my life. I went up to Spanish II in High School but only retained a minimal few items. For some reason certain things like trabalinguas and the Pledge of Allegiance in Spanish stuck in my head. ;-) But very little else was retained.
I have finally decided to just become fluent in Spanish, then look at languages such as Portuguese and Italian. After reading Barry Farber's excellent book on learning languages, I became even more motivated. I have done a great deal more research, but have been more impressed with this site than most others. Current steps are: any time that I spend working out or driving (times that I would normally listen to the radio or mp3 player; a surprisingly large amount of time) is now spent listening to either Spanish music or Spanish lessons. Any reading material (I read quite frequently) is either Spanish lessons/instruction or books written in Spanish (just started Michael Crichton's, El Mundo Perdido, a book I've already read in English). The novel suggestion came from this site. Many of the mp3 lessons I am listening to come from here. I have only been doing this for a little over a week but have been amazed at how rapidly the words are coming. I figure that I'll continue expanding in this route until 4-5 months from now. At that point I will then have everyone I know that is a Spanish speaker (countless in Austin, Texas) speak to me only in Spanish. Open to all suggestions on this course of action. Thanks to this site in advance for all the information that it has already provided. ;-) Edited by steve s. on 20 January 2016 at 3:06pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| egg_uk Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6207 days ago 203 posts - 204 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 2 of 39 25 July 2007 at 3:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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good luck
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| steve s. Newbie United States Joined 6123 days ago 39 posts - 39 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 3 of 39 25 July 2007 at 5:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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| Roq71 Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6383 days ago 63 posts - 72 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Haitian Creole | Message 4 of 39 31 July 2007 at 6:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hey steve s.,
I'm in San Antonio and I've taught myself to speak Spanish over the last two years. If you really have the interest and persistence, you can learn Spanish in Texas very easily. You won't regret it. My recommendations: 1. Pimsleur Spanish - It's expensive to buy, and I would never suggest downloading it onto your iPod for free from the Austin public library. I did all 100 lessons and it helped me achieve good pronunciation, as well as enough Spanish syntax to help me build my own sentences. Also, it helped me get automaticity (quickness of replies, more rapid speech, etc.) to my Spanish. 2. 501 Verbs in Spanish - You need to get tenses down and I would look 'em up when I encountered them. I wouldn't try to read through this book; too painful. 3. Tejano stations - at first this is difficult but as time goes on you're listening comprhension will increase. 4. Notes in Spanish Intermediate - Free podcast from iTunes in which you can listen to two people speak Castillian Spanish for 10 minute increments. You can download the transcripts for $1.25 each. I did a few and it helped me out a lot. 5. Foreign Service Institute Programmatic Spanish - This is only for real masochists. I really learned a lot of structure of the language from this. You can download it for free from the internet (in the public domain). Enough material for months of study. That should keep you busy for a good long while. Good Luck 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Roq71 Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6383 days ago 63 posts - 72 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Haitian Creole | Message 5 of 39 31 July 2007 at 6:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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Spanishsense looks pretty promising. I haven't seen that before. Thanks.
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| steve s. Newbie United States Joined 6123 days ago 39 posts - 39 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 6 of 39 06 August 2007 at 8:57am | IP Logged | ||
Nice! Thanks much! It looks like I've got all but the first one covered, but I'll add Pimsleur in there...probably have to save up for it. ;-) Thanks! Go Spurs! ;-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| burntgorilla Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6233 days ago 202 posts - 206 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Danish | Message 7 of 39 06 August 2007 at 9:51am | IP Logged | ||
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I like the Practice Makes Perfect range. They do a verb tenses one, a prepositions one and a big general one. I only have the verb tenses, but it really helped me clear up some things, and people like the other books. I'm not sure how good it would be to learn from, but if when you start learning all the different tenses and want something to reinforce them in your head, try it out.
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| steve s. Newbie United States Joined 6123 days ago 39 posts - 39 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 8 of 39 06 August 2007 at 12:55pm | IP Logged | ||
Thanks, I'll keep it in mind! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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