How long does it take for the average student to learn Spanish?
Who should I learn Spanish from and where? What tactics should I use to learn Spanish?
7 Answers
I apologize upfront for how long this is! I've got lots of suggestions.
I have taken two years of high school Spanish and two additional years from community college. I have acquired a good mastery of written Spanish but need some practice with conversation, though I have been taught pronunciation very well. I think that what I have learned has been great, and I feel extremely comfortable with the language. But my learning has been spread out - if I had practice with Spanish speakers I would probably be much better.
I think that you need to figure out what learning style is best for you. A big question, of course, is this: are you going for conversational fluency (just spoken) or are you going for all-around (spoken, written, reading) fluency? For all-around, I really believe that a college course is ideal. It isn't the most fun, but you are exposed to multiple learning techniques and have great speaking opportunities. Check a local community college's listings.
I am currently learning German and am taking a different approach - I am listening to the Michel Thomas German course on audio CD. He is a genius language teacher that gets you speaking immediately and teaches you grammatical intricacies all on audio. For me it is working wonderfully. He has Spanish courses as well, which you can acquire at a bookstore or on Amazon.com.
Finally, this website has an interesting learning program which I have not done much of, but that many people have used and that seems to be popular. You might really enjoy the hands-on, multimedia approach! I just looked at the lesson plans and can attest that if you go through this program, you will have learned A LOT of what you need to know. I highly recommend it! Just click on the "Learn Spanish" page at the top left of this website and go! You will be speaking, reading, writing, and learning grammar and vocab right away, and best of all it is FREE.
One last word of advice - look for an approach that gets you into grammar right away. You need grammar more than vocabulary. I had a friend who took two years of Spanish in high school but only was taught vocabulary. She knows random words but can't say anything articulately. So learn the grammar, and you can always use dictionaries to find what you are looking for independently. I think that all of the systems I've mentioned would work great for you. And once you've learned a bit, start finding simple Spanish books or readers that you can try to read. Have a dictionary and verb book handy, and you'll learn lots of new verb forms and vocab words. Make it fun, and use Spanish for whatever you do. I use Spanish Bibles from time to time online when I do devotions, for instance.
Hope some of this helps! ¡Buena suerte con la idioma! =)
Sincerely,
Trevor
How long does it take for the average student to learn Spanish? Answer: a life time. you can always improve it, it never end.
If you are serious about learning, definitely practice speaking it. All The Time. People who don't practice speaking may have a good grasp of reading/writing complex statements, but when spoken to they will have a huge difficulty in responding and understanding what is being said, even if they could write it perfectly, the words just won't come easily. That is my biggest suggestion, from the get-go always remember to speak it and listen to natives speak it to become familiar with the languages flow.
Other than that StillLearnin has good suggestions, as well as search the forum for this topic which has come up numerous times and will have even more ideas. 
I know a number of people who have spent two months or so in an intensive immersion study program. After that they are able to converse and get along well, but not speak fluently. After another two or three months, most of these friends of mine have a good handle on the language, at least in their own field of expertise. None of these people have ever reached a point where they feel there is nothing more to learn in Spanish (or in English, for that matter)
It was about four years before I could speek comfortably. I took spanish courses at my highschool. Once I got pretty good, i would read books in spanish, visit spanish websites, and just look up words in the dictonary to remeber. Good luck, it's a great language!
Every time I read out of an english dictionary, I find a word I never knew- and it's my first language! I'm sure you know what I mean, you can always learn more; especially in your second language. It just depends on how fluent you want to be!
I use free Internet resources like this page, livemocha.com, busuu.com, spanish.about.com... I also use the book Colloquial Spanish with two audio Cd-s, one little grammar book and dictionary. I also recommend a language school in your city, if you have money for that. You can also watch movies, cartoons, TV series in Spanish and try to read books. I agree that you can learn whole your life, just be persistent. Good luck!
