What is the best order to learn Spanish?

Question

Hola,

I am a beginner Spanish learner. This is my first week. With my past experience learning several foreign languages, I found the "order of learning things" has a lot to do with the end result and sustainable motivation.

Let me explain my question with an example: when learning Chinese, it is better to learn to recognize the characters before focusing on writing the characters. Yet traditional Chinese teaching programs require the students to learn to write the characters they have learned in the textbook in parallel to reading practice. This resulted in most students cannot even read newspaper articles after 3-4 years of study. Yet with computer entry, even Chinese people in China do not write the characters by hand often now.

I hope to receive advise from more advanced Spanish learners here about the "learning order" or focus order for learning Spanish.

Gracias

Answer 1

Do what the first respondant said and focus as much as you can on vocabulary and speaking.

I am a beginning Spanish student, but I speak German as a second language. When I started studying German, I focused intensely on grammar and writing because I had no German speaking friends. In preparation to attend classes at a German university, I was given a German fluency exam, which I passed. My writing and reading comprehension skills were good enough to place me with average level native speaking Germans, but because I relied so much on a dictionary to fill in unknown vocabulary and because I had extremely poor listening and speaking skills, I could barely keep up in class or talk with professors or fellow students.

Since you indicate you speak other foreign languages already, I think you probably realize that foreign language study is a long, multifacted process that offers few, if any, shortcuts.

In my study of Spanish, I'm trying to pursue the language with a more balanced approach than I approached German. Like exercising your body, you gain strength everywhere in foreign language study if you don't let any one area get too weak.

I hope my experience offers you some advice you can use. Good luck with your studies.

Answer 2

Unless you have access to native Spanish speakers or a conversation group, it is going to be easier to focus on reading and writing. I would also work on building basic vocabulary too. Without that you won´t be able to express yourself.

Answer 3

It's not like Chinese where you have a nice relatively simple language with a god-awful (though incredibly beautiful and wonderful and worth preserving) crutch of a writing system.

I would bet any amount of money within 20 years people all over the world will be learning Chinese through the roman alphabet and within 50 years not even Chinese people will be able to read and write their own language in the way it is written now. In my opinion the alphabet is the only thing holding it back from becoming the international lingua franca.

There aren't any curve balls in Spanish, if you learn the order of whatever book you happen to be learning from that will do you fine. As with any language it's essential not to neglect pronunciation and don't think the accents aren't important and you can just learn them later.

Answer 4

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Answer 5

Thank you for the suggestions. Both of you pointed out one very important area that's lacking in my Spanish learning experience -- I don't have easy access to native speakers to practice my oral skills. Any good on-line community you know of for beginners to practice? Mucho Gracias

Lenguajero.com. exclusively for Spanish and English. - BellaMargarita, Sep 22, 2011