How I did it: When I met my Puerto Rican boyfriend, Alex, in 2006, the idea of NOT learning his language didn't cross my mind. When he was at my house talking on the phone with his family, I enjoyed listening to him speak in Spanish. I thought the language sounded beautiful but (although I knew he wouldn't) I thought, "He could say any terrible thing about me he wants and I'd just think 'Oh that sounds beautiful, I wonder what it means'".

So I picked up a few phrase books, "1001 Most Useful Spanish Words" , "See it and Say it in Spanish" and "Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish". Of all of those, Magic Key to Spanish got me the furthest - I got a solid beginning foundation of the language's grammar and vocabulary - without either I wouldn't be able to have basic conversations. I also took a class in high school and tried using my basic Spanish with my boyfriend. Honestly, the book helped more than the class. Even the pronunciation guide in that book was incredibly useful. (I could tell because using what I learned about pronunciation from the book, I spoke to Alex and he said I sounded better than a lot of "foreigners") I learned the most common verb tenses (and plenty of verbs) and a lot of vocabulary. I also would read in Spanish to Alex from "First Spanish Reader" by Angel Flores, which is a dual-language book. To get to an intermediate level I went through "Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Verb Tenses" and "Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Pronouns and Prepositions". The books are extremely useful if you decide to use that knowledge in your spoken conversations.

Lessons & tips:

• Be patient, getting even the basics (By this I mean enough to have basic conversations without your Spanish sounding too broken) will take some time, it may take 6, 12, 18 or more months, depending on your motivation, how much you study every day, and whether or not you're using the methods that are most useful to you as an individual.
• If a method isn't working for you, use something else. There are plenty of books, audio programs, sites, etc that you can access.
• Speak with a native speaker of the language and ask them for help, if you feel it's necessary.
• Don't think that classes are the only way - I found them to be much more expensive and much less effective than self-study with other materials.
• Be patient with pronunciation - since almost every letter is pronounced the same way in each word, Spanish pronunciation is one of the easiest to master. Some pronunciation guides are great - I don't believe that with this language you necessarily need to start with an audio program - though if you do choose do use books first - speak out loud what you've learned (using the lessons + pronunciation guide) to a native speaker. My pronunciation went from "OK" in the beginning, to "very good" now, after a few years (two people have told me I sound Mexican which is a compliment)

Resources: Products were already talked about. Madrigal's Magic Key and books in the Practice Makes Perfect series are excellent.

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May 29, 2010, 08:06PM PDT | 0 comments | 1 cheer