Tricks That Remove The Pain from Learning Spanish

Reference & EducationEducation

  • Author Antony Masson
  • Published August 11, 2011
  • Word count 1,656

Whether or not you've ever spoken a single word of another language, you can learn Spanish. It is widely believed that new languages must be hard to learn, but it's something anyone can pick up. After all, there are a lot of great reasons to learn a language other than the one you grew up speaking. Knowing more than one language can really help if you do any traveling. It's also very likely that people right in your own city or nearby speak Spanish, making it useful at home too. Spanish is a very popular second language to learn for people who have never studied another language before. Let's look at some ways to make learning Spanish simpler. Picking up a new language is not as difficult as you might think. It's really quite a bit of fun if you don't make it into a chore! When you give it some thought, knowing another language can mean many great possibilities. You'll have an easier time when you travel. For one thing, it can make traveling much simpler. It will even increase your communication skills right where you live. Many jobs require applicants to know at least two languages. For people who live in the U.S., the language that is spreading most quickly is Spanish.

The first thing you should focus on is the way you pronounce words in Spanish. When it comes down to it, speaking a language well is what's most important. If you want to quickly get into the habit of speaking Spanish, get anything you can find written in Spanish and read it out loud. Whenever you hear people speaking Spanish fluently, record the words in your mind and repeat what you can recall later. This is a great way to teach yourself how to speak Spanish using the appropriate order of words and developing the right inflections. It's likely that you will have fun when you practice speaking out loud in a new language. Think of how it felt to learn songs when you were a child; this can be similar. Some people believe that one of the best ways to learn a language is to immerse yourself in the language for a while. So if you went to a Spanish-speaking country, you'd naturally be inclined to learn that language just to function in everyday life. In parts of the United States, you could easily immerse yourself in Spanish by simply spending time in certain cities. Usually what this means, however, is traveling to another country so that you are not able to simply switch back to your own language when it is convenient. Many people swear by the immersion method--they say it forced them to learn faster. This does, no doubt, test your comfort zone, and not everyone likes this. It's not for everybody, and you have to ask yourself if you think it would be the best thing for you. Find a good tutor, if possible. No question, CDs and books can be very good. But a tutor can answer questions that often times a CD/book cannot.There's nothing wrong with a CD, or book. However a tutor can provide the kind of help you may not receive from a book/CD. Tutors are usually fluent in the languages that they teach. Any good tutor will be knowledgable of the different dialects in the language.

If you really want to learn another language, you have to get to the point where you can actually think in it. You have to use an internal translation process, where you take your thoughts from one language and put them into the new one. You will need to start slow with this. Periodically throughout your day ask yourself how you would say the words you are thinking in Spanish. if you do this often, you'll find that you get much more skilled at it. You'll find that the internal translation starts to get easier. There will come a point when this will become automatic, and you'll think in Spanish without trying. Then, to improve your conversational skills, you'll want to practice speaking your thoughts out loud.

A good technique is to actually have the Spanish names for everything in front of you; you can use tags or stickers with the words written on them. This can be helpful to do wherever you can, whether in the rooms of your house or your workplace. This is a way you can immerse yourself in Spanish vocabulary by seeing the words and what objects they go with. By gaining a thorough knowledge of the right words, you won't later make a mistake that could prove to be an embarrassment. Beginners often unwittingly say things that are unintentionally funny or even offensive to native speakers. When you start seeing all these labeled items around you, the new vocabulary will start to feel more and more natural to you.

Signup for a course. A lot of people are nervous to take a language course with others. Courses usually involve speaking the language out loud as you learn it in front of the other students in the class. Lots of people find this intimidating.

But it's a great thing to do, no matter how many blunders you make in front of everyone. Actually that's the best time to learn because all the other people are learning and making mistakes. You can all make the same mistakes together. That's much better than doing it in real life where you people may be less forgiving of your mistakes.

As you listen to Spanish, pay close attention to what is being spoken. This will improve your 'hearing' for it. Some languages put more emphasis on the 'verbal' than the written. In fact, as long as the language is still "alive" you will have to learn how to hear the language. Writing the alphabet or the correct way to write a sentence is not enough. You need to be able to understand the language when you hear it. You'll get the best results by hearing the spoken language as much as possible. If, after hearing just a few spoken words of Spanish you know what language it is, you're on the sure path to learning success. You can go online! There are a lot of sites offering great information to help you learn Spanish. One great tool is Babelfish, a translation bot. Merely type the sentence in and Babelfish will translate it for you. You'll find this very useful because you can take any sentence, translate it, and then you can learn it in Spanish. Remember, how a sentence is structured in English is not necessarily how the sentence will be structured in Spanish! The translation tool will help you see how the words are rearranged in Spanish. There are also other online learning tools that you can take advantage of to help you learn Spanish and other languages.

Simple flashcards are a way you can easily test your knowledge. This may seem very simple, but it works well. Simply remembering what words mean is really what a large part of a language comes down to, and this method helps you do that. Test yourself or have someone else test you in areas like grammar and using verbs in a variety of tenses. You can use flashcards almost anywhere you go, as they are portable. You can make a game of it and have a friend or fellow student test you. Simply use one side for Spanish and the other for your original language. However you decide to learn, do it consistently. There are various methods, but all require a certain regular effort. Like learning most things, the best approach is to follow a step by step method. Don't try to start off reading a complex novel; begin with the alphabet and saying "good morning" and the like. Learning vocabulary before grammar makes the learning process easier. Whatever method you choose, remain with the program and don't skip from one section to another. This will make your absorbing of the new language much less difficult. Changing the order can cause you to miss something important. It doesn't make sense to try to change a proven method. Immerse your life in the new language.

Are you in close proximity to a location where most of the people speak in Spanish? An excellent way to learn is by listening to a fluent conversation between two people. You might also find that people in these neighborhoods are happy to help new speakers learn how to properly communicate. You'll get practice using your new language the way it is meant to be spoken without having to travel far to do so! Practice makes perfect! Just forget about it comes out, the important thing is to speak the language as much as you can. You can help to commit to memory new words if you use them in place of the appropriate words in your native tongue. As an example when learning Spanish, substitute 'uno' for 'one' and 'cena' for 'dinner.' By using the words often they'll become second nature to you. This way you'll be able to understand the words when you hear others speak them. This technique will really help you understand your new language when you talk to others who are fluent in it. Watch movies and television shows that are in Spanish. This is easy because there are plenty of Spanish TV broadcasts, and most movie rental stores keep a foreign language section. Doing this helps you to learn the proper pronounciation of Spanish. Your learning will accelerate if you don't have the ability to speak with an authentic Spanish speaker. Just start by watching with subtitles on. Then, as you learn to identify parts of speech and words, you can turn off the subtitles and see how much you understand. If you keep at it, you'll be learning more and more.

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