How I did it: I moved to my then boyfriend's (now husband's) Spanish speaking country not knowing any Spanish.  I spent the first two months there seeing the country and meeting friends and family, then took immersion classes for three months (4 hours a day). 

I should have started the classes the minute I stepped off the plane because I spent two months not understanding a thing.  However, after only a week of classes I could begin to have polite conversation.

After three months of classes I felt that they were not benefiting me much and just continued to practice with friends and family.  After about a year of immersion, I took two more weeks of classes just to brush up on the grammar (i.e. the subjunctive) that I still couldn't get my head around on my own.

I finally felt that I was fluent when I could serve as a translator between my English speaking family and my husband's Spanish speaking family at our wedding.

Lessons & tips:

• Start as soon as possible.
• Ask people to correct you when you make mistakes.  Some people are too polite to tell you your pronunciation is wrong or that you are using the wrong gender.
• Learn where the accent marks are on your keyboard.

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Jun 14, 2010, 03:35PM PDT | 1 comment | 3 cheers