Best approach to studying Spanish?

Question

Hi guys,

What have been your approaches to learning Spanish, what have you had success with and what would you recommend to do / avoid when learning Spanish in future.

At the moment I am building vocabularly every other day for 1/2 an hour or so. I plan to do more once I have planned the best way of learning.

After consultation with friends / websites I have made it important to learn:

--> when to use articles

-->when to use subjunctive mood

--> when to use prepositions properly

Any other 'essentials' you would recommend?

Welcome to the forum! - --Mariana--, May 4, 2011

Answer 1

I see that you want to learn grammar first.

Do you know your own grammar?

I ask you this, because if you really don't know your grammar I want to make you aware that you still write and speak somewhat intelligently in your own language.

You can try to do the same thing in Spanish, and later if you decide to learn grammar you can do both yours and Spanish at the same time.

Answer 2

Yes, Spanish grammar is important and along the way you will learn more about English grammar than you ever thought possible... I certainly did!

I always push the use of vocabulary flashcards. I can't stress them enough. They build vocabulary, which in turn, makes it possible to understand spoken Spanish and makes it easier to express yourself.

Answer 3

I'm a big believer in learning new languages the same way you learned your first one. Don't study it - use it. Hold conversations, read books and newspapers, watch T V and movies, listen to the radio and podcasts. You can memorize dictionaries and grammars and still not be able to communicate in the language. Try not to translate in your head. You'll never be able to hold a full-speed conversation that way. You're much better off watching Spanish language T V for an hour than you are doing grammar drills for an hour. If you hear something you don't understand (which will be most of it, to start) write down what you thought you heard and try to look it up. Memorizing lists of words and conjugating verbs is all well and good, but it should only be part of what you're doing.

Answer 4

These are all good suggestions. Let me add one: write, i.e., compose in the language you wish to learn, then put what you have written into a translation engine and see what it says your words mean. Start with short sentences in the present tense, e.g., "I eat cereal for breakfast most days" and translate it into Spanish ("Como el cereal por el desayuno mucho días") and plug it into the SD translator which will give you three versions of what you wrote .... Then adjust your sentence until the translators give you back what you wanted to say! This will teach you conjugation, sentence structure and lots of new vocabulary --- umm, the hard way. 8-}

Answer 5

Hello Samian and Welcome to the SpanishDict forum

I would encourage you to take part in many of the excellent teaching activities and games here at SpanishDict. I have found taking part in the Picture of the Day kindly corrected by Cogumela and Word of the Day corrected by Tom B has helped me learn new and correct ways of expressing what I wanted to say in Spanish and learn new vocabulary at the same time.

Heidi's translation exercises for beginners will help you to learn : both the exercise based on the character Pepa, and the other stories/dialogues which you can listen to and write out. It is like a dictation but much more fun

Finally, I would also encourage you to join Skype chat. To do this, if you already have a Skype ID pass on your Skype ID to Heidi our Chief administrator who will then add you to one of the chats (The one most appropraite to your level.) If you do not yet have Skype we would encourage you to obtain one they are Free and can be downloaded quite safely to your computer. Once youu have it just create a user name then pass on your new Skype ID to Heidi and she will do the rest

I hope this helps

Answer 6

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I struggle with grammar in English as I have slight dyslexia, so I kind of re learnt my English beforehand. Learning how we form words and such like.

So learn your grammar before you try to learn someone elses!

Also take notes during the lessons so when you get stuck on a section of the flashcards you will always have a reference point!

And don't focus to much on the whole phrase, I just learn key words so I have a rough idea of what to say and what to write.

Hope this helps!