Learning Spanish

Bergs

Hi

My GF is fluent in Spanish and I would love to give it a good go. I have absolutely no background in Spanish but would love to learn. Can anyone please give me advice or directions on where and how to learn Spanish affordably in Dublin city centre

Thanks

TrastoCat

If you are interested I'm teaching Spanish in Dublin. I'm a Translation & Interpretation student from Spain, a native Spanish speaker with academic knowledge of my mother language. I can offer you private lessons a beginner level at an affordable price. My standard is €15 per hour (normally is €20 or more), but we can also negotiate something cheaper depending on the lesson hours that you want to take. Send me a private message so we can talk about it

Ravelleman

I would recommend the Instituto Cervantes if you want structured classes, which is something that beginners really do need. Their prices are subsidised by the Spanish government and they have excellent learning resources.

Danny153

Hi, I'm fluent in both English and Spanish. I learned Spanish as a second language through a series of Spanish lessons that last a little under a month called Synergy Spanish. They are based on the only 138 words you will ever need to learn to come up with over 88,000 different phrases to communicate in Spanish as easily as you do in English. Anyway, it worked wonders for me when I first traveled to Mexico.

I would recommend to anyone,
Buena Suerte amigo (Good Luck my friend
http://www.Basic-Spanish-Words.com/Synergy-Spanish/

torqueturn

I have developed a web-based tool to help language students expand their vocabulary and importantly, learn noun genders. It is cheap, accessible and easy to use and caters for Spanish, German, and French

Check us out on www.leVocab.com

Heikki

It quite simple. Buy a teach yourself course and an audio course like Paul Noble and study them at home. And also get your gf to teach you..

niallcon4re

Like the last post, I think you can learn a lot.

Michel Thomas (who in my opinion Paul Noble copies) has an excellent 8 hour introduction to Spanish. It takes longer than 8 hours as he says something like "it is possible is "es posible" and then you are meant to pause, and say out loud (important that you say outloud) and then a while later he will ask you again how to say it, you need to pause, try to remember it and then say it out loud, listen to the tape and see if you were right.

Use this - it is amazing. I'm sure you can find it on the internet. Within a couple of months you'll be able to say "if I had been there I'd have seen it" and other complex grammatical points.

It doesn't teach too much vocab (days of week, numbers, directions etc) but teaches you the grammatical structure of the language, with using the terminology of grammer i.e. uses "laymans English". After a few months I understood Spanish grammar and now it is just a matter of learning the 100,000 words!!!

After, this first level, I used to listen to "newsinslowspanish.com" where they speak really slowly in Spanish about the events of the week.

I also watched a t.v show designed for students "destinos" where they speak slowly early on and even explain the grammatical points at the end of the episode, designed by some professor in the US of second languages.

You can do all the above for free.

niallcon4re

Danny153 wrote: »

Hi, I'm fluent in both English and Spanish. I learned Spanish as a second language through a series of Spanish lessons that last a little under a month called Synergy Spanish. They are based on the only 138 words you will ever need to learn to come up with over 88,000 different phrases to communicate in Spanish as easily as you do in English. Anyway, it worked wonders for me when I first traveled to Mexico.

I would recommend to anyone,
Buena Suerte amigo (Good Luck my friend
http://www.Basic-Spanish-Words.com/Synergy-Spanish/

Sounds rubbish! if you only have 138 words what happens when the other person uses one of the thousands of words you don't know?

You won't speak Spanish with this, maybe just ask directions or order food in a menu but not a chance you can have a proper conversation.

Heikki

niallcon4re wrote: »

Like the last post, I think you can learn a lot.

Michel Thomas (who in my opinion Paul Noble copies) has an excellent 8 hour introduction to Spanish. It takes longer than 8 hours as he says something like "it is possible is "es posible" and then you are meant to pause, and say out loud (important that you say outloud) and then a while later he will ask you again how to say it, you need to pause, try to remember it and then say it out loud, listen to the tape and see if you were right.

I know Paul Noble takes other people's fantastic models and passes them off as his on revolutionary methods. I do find that strange but marketing in introductory language packs seems very fickle. I never tried MT but Paul Noble's course is supa dupa and very affordable. I cycle and play video games while listening. After finishing that, you can move onto the full 90 hours of Pimsleur Spanish. And let the language soak in almost effortlessly.

For vocab I make my own flashcards. This takes patience but when you see the results you will do more. Link words using vivid memory. Like you said newsinslowspanish is good. Have TVE online tv on if even in the background and just enjoy the cadence of the language. After a few weeks and months It will seem more natural. Read and translate newspapers, websites, whatever your interests on Wikipedia in Spanish and mix It up. And complete a begginer and intermediate course at home.

davwain

Ravelleman wrote: »

I would recommend the Instituto Cervantes if you want structured classes, which is something that beginners really do need. Their prices are subsidised by the Spanish government and they have excellent learning resources.

I could use similar classes in Russian. It's a matter of finding them in Toronto, but I do feel that, with hard work, I can one day speak Russian as well as I can Spanish (around an intermediate level).