What are the perks of learning Spanish or any other foreign language for that matter? Well in the case of Spanish, next to English and Mandarin Chinese, it is the next most spoken language in the world. Learning Spanish too will serve as a bridge to learning other languages such as Italian, Mexican and Filipino (Tagalog), which have words, though a bit different in usage, stem from this wonderful language. Learning Spanish is easier than others claim to be – the basic things you will need are perseverance to study hard, patience for you won’t get it perfect the first time, and the strong will to succeed.
The key here is to immerse yourself in the language to learn it, similar to how you have immersed yourself to your native language since you were a kid. Audio and video are available online in huge amounts so it is up to you to use them to your maximum benefit. Make it a habit to listen to Spanish music and watch Spanish movies. Note how they speak, the accent and the stresses on the words. Once you have gotten the ear for Spanish, learning Spanish will become your way of life.
Unconsciously, you will be eating Spanish food, going to Spanish bars, and craving for everything Spanish, which will be very helpful to make you rapidly learn and appreciate the language. Upon immersion, you will notice you can relate the words you learn with the words you already know in your native language, which is a good technique to easily remember things instead of forcing them into your system by memorization.
Make use of books, dictionaries and online resources. However, it is best to learn how to speak first so you won’t end up having the proper knowledge of words but the wrong intonations and accents, which will be quite embarrassing once you converse daily. This is where mingling with the native people helps. There are many Spaniards eager to learn English so you can help each other out. This way, you can get yourself a practice partner who can help you out especially on the right accents and pronunciations, which are quite difficult to achieve for a non-native speaker. Once you are confident enough about your skills, why not invest for a travel to Spain? It will somehow force you to rely on what you already know. Besides, there’s no better way to learn a language than living it everyday.
But there is one course you should be sure to purchase. The Pimsleur Spanish course (and available for fifty other languages) is an incredible course you must add to your tool box for learning languages. The Pimsleur Instant Conversation course, for example, is perfect for someone who is not sure if they want to take the time and money to invest in mastering a foreign language, but at the same time would like a basic introduction for an upcoming trip or meeting some international colleagues.
The Pimsleur Instant Conversation course contains the first 16 lessons of the first comprehensive level of the language you are studying, so if you do decide to continue there will be some overlap. Some students are often slightly aggravated at the thought of spending money on the first comprehensive level, since this essentially only provides them with fourteen new lessons. Unfortunately the jump from lesson 16 in the first level to lesson 31 (the first lesson of Pimsleur level 2) is simply to much for most students to manage such a jump in instruction. Fortunately there are plenty inexpensive Pimsleur options </a> will substantially reduce the financial pain substantially.
If my memory serves me well, the first 16 Pimsleur lessons cover basic instructions and salutations, basic restaurant situations (ordering coffee, wine, water, etc)., asking where is the bathroom, basic directions, and phrases to explain where your from and that you don’ understand what the person you are speaking with is communicating. This isn’t enough to survive but will give you enough of the language to either get you motivated, impress your friends or host in a foreign country, or make you decide that being monolingual is not that bad after all!