juancarlosimr

. . . . start with the comedies: Marriage of Figaro, Barber of Seville. Or maybe Don Giovanni (I love Mozart, can’t you tell). I hated opera for some odd reason. One day I said I would go to one and I did and fell in love. I’ve seen these three so far and I plan on seeing Die Fledermaus and Carmen next.
They are showing the Abduction From the Seraglio in Houston. I’m tempted.

or South America.

I skipped this year (last year I went to France, Italy and England). I missed out on a Venezuela trip this year.

That’s not going to happen next year.

I’m a native speaker of Spanish, but how I learned English fast (and picking up on French and Italian now) is diligently working for it. Every thought that passed to my mind was translated into English (in your case, Spanish). Put yourself in a Spanish or Mexican city in your imagination and see yourself getting through the day. You need to know the basics: “I’m hungry”, “where’s the bathroom”,”hi, how are you?”, “where’s the bus station”, etc. Then move on to other things.

Even if you don’t know the words or conjugation you know how to make words and phrases using parts. Even if you say “me-baño” to say you want to go to the bathroom is a great start. Soon you will tell yourself “I can’t be saying that on the streets of Madrid!” and you’ll learn the proper way.

One other thing that helped me was translating anything I could read in my native language to the target language (Spanish for you). No need to have a dictionary, pen and paper all the time. When you read a sign, try to say the same thing in Spanish. If you can get one out of three words you are making a great step, your mind will become used to it and you’ll be doing it effortlessly as you progress.

What else? Watch native speakers speak. Truly watch them. Their mouth. Spanish has some sounds not really found in English (not by themselves anyway). Forget trying to roll the “rr”, if you can’t do it, pronounce it softly or do it in your throat like the French. Focus on the others: the vowels, the m, the n, the l, the t, etc.

Ok, I stop now.

Suerte!

-JC
www.imrphoto.com