Posted on 03/04/2021 2:45:12 PM PST by freedumb2003
Has anyone had any success with online learning? I am about to retire and soon will probably be where they speak Spanish. I can get by on my Spanish but just. I cannot carry on a conversation.
I have looked at the big names like Rosetta Stone, Babble, Mondly and the like but still do not know what I should do.
I plan to do it an hour a day, just like a job.
I do not trust the side by side reviews as they conflict and many times are hiddenly sponsored.
Cost is not a big deal but I am no sanguine about an open-ended subscription.
Thanks!
Duolingo is free.
When you get there, avoid english speakers and english language press as much as possible. Watch soap operas. Talk to people as much as you are able. Expect it to take awhile to kick in, you are in this for the long haul, so no need to be in a big hurry. Language ties itself to events, so as you live out the daily events of your life language will connect and start to fill in.
Once you finish your Duolingo course, start reading books. Read the New Testament in Spanish. Read novels. Read the newspaper. At first, don’t stop to look up the words you don’t know, they are too many, and you’ll figure most of them out by context. But read and talk to people. And avoid english speakers as much as you can until you start to feel like you’ve got it.
Thinking ahead would be Chinese - Russian is so 20th century
DuoLingo is also built into Windows 10.
Try this one out. This gent seems to have a gift for languages, and teaching them. I’m about to start on the Mexican Spanish lessons.
Do not fall for the marketing of Rosetta Stone and similar techniques. Adults do NOT learn language like kids do. Period. Rote memorization of phrases doesn’t teach you the language. It gives the illusion you are learning the language.
You learn language by learning the grammar + adding vocabulary + repetition, until you train your brain to process in the new language.
That is why it is hard. PM me and I’ll tell you what to get.
Your best dictionary is a long-haired dictionary, but you are probably already married.
My Vietnamese friend said she learned English by listening to country music.
Peruse later.
Bump for reading later.
Back when I was in college (many years ago),the conservative history professor suggested that we learn Russian while it was still an elective.
Having played around with Mandarin a bit, I now see what a mistake I made. Chinese has its quirks, but there is virtually no grammar to master. Russian has lots of grammar!
It was not a total loss. I can write out my wife’s Christmas list using Russian letters. Drives her nuts.
I have been doing quite well with Duolingo. It’s basic is free and quite good.
This is good advice. I found that watching kids cartoons in Spanish was even better. The vocabulary was smaller and they enunciated well. News programs too usually have good speakers.
That is how I learned Dutch back in the 60s. My firs serious girlfriend was a Dutch exchange student. She spoke perfect English but when she knew I was teaching myself some Hollands she quit speaking English with me.
I'm most familiar with Pimsleur and it's almost strictly audio with you producing oral repetition. It's all about conversation in real world (albeit sometimes dated) settings and there's no explicit grammar or spelling instruction.
If your goal is to quickly produce some of the target language and use the language in real life situations it's great. If you really want to dig into grammar, read a lot or are at an advanced level it's probably not for you.
I understand Babbel is similar but also spends time on grammar and spelling. As one site puts it:
Duolingo is good. I’m using that as well as Pimsleur to brush up my Spanish.
Duolingo....I started using it a few years ago before business trips started to take me to Mexico and South America. As others here have noted, it’s free and for the most part, short of daily interaction with a Spanish speaker, I’m not sure that there’s much that could be better, cheaper or faster.
On a related note, I downloaded about five language packs from Microsoft Translator on to my handheld and have used those quite extensively while travelling. My favorite experience with it was doing cold sales calls with the engineering department of a cement manufacturer in South America..... surprisingly, it went way more smoothly than I would have expected. It wasn’t perfect but it was close enough that we could easily say we understood each other.
I asked an old German guy who spoke german, English and Spanish, and likely other languages how to learn Spanish? He told me to get a horizontal dictionary! His terms for a Spanish speaking girlfriend!!
My recommendation: Pimsleur. https://www.pimsleur.com/
I speak a few languages and have even worked as an interpreter. IMO, Pimsleur is a relatively painless way to get your feet wet in another language. I think they offer sample lessons. Worth checking out.
I made a similar statement in front of a senior class in high school back in the 60’s.
The teacher ripped me a new one.
If you have netflix and want to watch a show
in Spanish, be sure to check out Grand Hotel,
one of the best Spanish soaps I’ve seen..
Many spanish novelas are overly dramatic, not
Grand Hotel, though.
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