Learning Spanish

I've never been good with human languages other than English. Before I set out to Dominican Republic, I went out and bought a Book and CD set by Oxford for Latin American Spanish (which ended up being mainly Mexican). I didn't have time to even start the course before I got to the Dominican Republic.

And it's probably better that way.

Many of the Spanish words, if you have a good English vocabulary, map easily to English equivalents. But that's not enough. A Spanish vocabulary is also necessary, and learning the vocabulary is probably better in person than through a book. In that way, there's no translation from one language to another happening... the trick isn't to speak or read and write in Spanish, the trick is to think in Spanish.

The trick is not to associate Spanish words with English words. The trick is to associate Spanish words with existing objects and concepts. It's not too difficult after being immersed in Spanish for about 3 days.

Tools of this should be a Spanish-English dictionary, for the times that people aren't around who can help you express yourself.

If you're stuck on conjugations, ignore them but know the root verb. For example, you don't have to know all the conjugations of tener [To Have] when you start, but when people correct you, think it through. In this way, you avoid learning the mechanics of the language - instead learning the language as a child does.

This is what works for me. At least so far. And in doing that, I've found I can associate more words of languages to the same things. Perhaps it is because I am visual in learning, or perhaps it is because I am too lazy to attack conjugations at their core (considering they bested me in my teens while attempting to learn French and Spanish at the same time...)

Really, the trick isn't the courses. It's knowing and understanding how you, as an individual, learn - and what works for you, and what does not.

It's unfortunate that in my youth I did not understand how I learn as well as I do now - and it's also unfortunate that the educational systems I have been exposed to did not accomodate my learning of how I learn. Or maybe it is fortunate, since it serves to show me examples of what does not work for me.

Spanish is actually pretty easy once you get both feet into it.