How long have you been speaking/learning Spanish?

Question

Just thought it would be interesting to hear from you all about how long you have been speaking Spanish and where you are now with it. I know it would be encouraging for me in my learning process to hear your story as well as for others in the forum. Feel free to share funny stories or the inspiration as to why you took up Spanish in the first place!

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Answer 1

Started last September as a university class 4 hours a week. I suppose I can read Spanish well enough but spoken Spanish is giving me trouble -_-

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Answer 2

I learnt a year of Spanish in college with about 3 hours per week. I think I can understand basic Spanish, write basic essays etc.

I was going to learn Japanese, but I got into Spanish because my friend convinced me, he said it was easier, and more useful than Japanese. So I started learning Spanish, and now I was glad that I chose Spanish in the first place.

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Answer 3

I, like most other I'm sure, studied Spanish while in high school and in college. However, was not fluent by a stretch. I decided about a year and a half ago that I wanted to be fluent in a second language. Now that I had my general goal, I needed to decide which language to conquer... To do this, I looked at a few things..

First I thought about why my efforts to learn a second language had failed previously. Second, I assessed what I thought it would take to learn a second language, which led to my third question to "myself", in which I explored the availability of resources which will facilitate becoming fluent in the language. My conclusions provided the foundation for my approach and learning. My findings indicated that I, as I would assume others as well, failed at learning a second language the first time around because I attempted to learn via translation/vocabulary. I considered that in learning English as a child, I wasn't given vocabulary words on a whole, but that my learning consisted of simple phrases and commands, coloquial sayings, as well as, constant ques and reminders such as devices that we use, the movies that we watch, and the music that we listen to. That said, I concluded that it would take the same type of emergence into a second language to become a fluent speaker. The former two considerations made, I decided that Spanish would be the language that I would pursue. I chose Spanish because living in Texas, there are many, many resources such as television channels, music stations, books, movies and all available in abundance. In addition, there are many private tutors and schools that are available. Now that I knew what I wanted to learn and what I needed to do to learn it, I set out to work.

First, I contacted a good friend from Argentina whom I knew tutored Spanish and began classes one hour per week. Now that this was done, I needed to re-build my world in Spanish because I concluded that in order to become fluent, I needed to "live the language". This began with me changing all of my devices to Spanish language mode. Therefore, the mp3 player, computer software, websites, phone, and any device/software that offered the option. In addition, any software/device purchased in the future had to support Spanish language. I subscribed to magazines that covered topics of my interest, but were in Spanish. I purchased books on the topics that interest me as well and those too were in Spanish. One of the most most difficult tasks was to find Spanish music in the genres that I like. But with a little determination, I was able to pull it all off...oh and off course, you can't make it too far with out a quality online translator such as www.spanish.dict.com. Oh and lastly, there are the many awesome podcast subscriptions through iTunes..

Armed with my treasure chest of resources, I began to live my life in Spanish. It was difficult at first because all that I knew was vocabulary. This was good, it was a start, but as most of the advanced people here can tell you, you need to be familiar with the way things are said (idiomatic expressions), because although direct translation works...life is much easier when you know the phrases. I listened to music and podcasts daily, wrote in my journal almost all of the time, and read books/magazines. Looking back today, I am glad that I took on this challenge, and I am also proud to be able to say that I am mostly fluent.

My tutor tells me regularly of how impressed and proud she is of my progress. So yes, you can do it! Yes, it will take work...but it can be done. Buena suerte en su aprendizaje!

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Answer 4

since september 15, 2009 (: and its been a great thing that i did because, i love to learn new things. & i've always wanted to learn espanol . i am still learning spanish 1 in my school. i've also made some pretty great friend[s] in that class as well.

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Answer 5

I think I have been learning for about a year. I was learning Japanese then I took a break to learn Spanish. It's coming along nicely I think. I want to be conversationally fluent, and I expect to be in 6 months or so. Then I will return to Japanese.

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Answer 6

Hey, I`ve just learned a new phrase which really relates well to your question!

"¿Cuanto tiempo llevas hablando español? "

It means just what you are asking - For how long have you been speaking spanish?

Llevo un año hablando español. Todavía no hablo muy bien

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Answer 7

Rena, please make a search before posting a topic which has already been addressed several times, thanks

How long have you been studying Spanish?

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