Learning Spanish. How Difficult Is It?
- Thread starter Voley
- Start date
Yep, agree with this. I found the initial evening course a piece of piss, but when I got here the back log of work I did pushed me like a doddle through the initial parts of the course, but from for example past the 'participios irregulares' and onwards it gets difficult imo.
Not to mention making conscious efforts to go to places where everyone is mostly Spanish who speak to you like you're a native speaker and jibe you (in a friendly way)cos you're not as up to speed as them
makes you want to learn even more so you can verbally kick their arses next time. 
It's difficult as an 'extranjero' not to fall into the trap of ONLY making english speaking friends once you travel and the like because your spanish will never advance.
It's incredibly fun and rewarding though...speaking of which I have to get ready to head off to an organised ''intercambio drinks and tapa'' now -never been to one before and going alone. eek!
Lo Siento.
Second As Farce
yeah, living in Barca/Madrid, it's sooo easy to just hang out with Anglophone people (especially as people in the former aren't generally the friendliest to Brits ime), knew an American guy who lived there and managed to get by not speaking word of it for 6 months.
travelling too, you're staying in hostels with other foreigners and you spend all your time with them if you want... shit... some friends of mine went backpacking in LatAm for a year and they're still not as fluent as me on a fair few lessons and 5 months in Spain.
AndrewNumLock
Well-Known Member
I'm pretty interested in doing an evening course as well. Any recommendations for where to go?
http://www.languagecoursesuk.co.uk/book/course.php?course_id=2224&length=70&level=beginners
Is £159 for a two hours a week for ten weeks a good price?
Lo Siento.
Second As Farce
I think I paid about that for 26 weeks when I did it, that was at Suffolk College about 4 years ago though. Might be worth looking at local colleges and schools do see if they do adult evening classes, rather than private schools?
yeah, just looking, some of the colleges round my way do 15 weeks for £100, less for concessions (on benefits or over 60s) - state institutions subsidise this stuff so long as you agree to sit some sort of test at the end.
Mrs Magpie
On a bit of break...
@weltweit
Mandarin seems quite easy once you've got the tonal bit. I've only done a few lessons (sitting in with kids just starting to learn).
Japanese seems to have all these different conventions according to the status of the person you are conversing with.
Mandarin seems quite easy once you've got the tonal bit. I've only done a few lessons (sitting in with kids just starting to learn).
Japanese seems to have all these different conventions according to the status of the person you are conversing with.
Lo Siento.
Second As Farce
see, I've never come across someone who learned a language like that. Not saying it's not possible, just that the 'teach-yourself' industry makes a lot of money on good intentions, there's a massive amount of self-discipline involved in just learning a language on your own, and I don't think there's a substitute for the focus that classes gives you.
Three years in and I'll confess to only understanding about 50% - 60% of any conversation. No lessons. Just learning on the street. I mix socially on all levels, so there are plenty of people willing to correct any grammatical errors I may have picked up.
Have to admit I haven't really put in the effort. I see people around me grasp it within Six months. Didn't want to make learning the language a job, or get stressed about it.
Basic conversation is OK, but I still get lost in anything beyond. I'm not a natural language person. Some people are. And, my hearing is a bit wrecked. I reckon the average English speaker with no knowledge of any other language could crack it fluently within a year if they put in the effort. The grammar all starts to just sound right after a very short while. Far fewer irregular verbs than with English, and those that are irregular are some of the most commonly used, so you learn them very quickly.
Have to admit I haven't really put in the effort. I see people around me grasp it within Six months. Didn't want to make learning the language a job, or get stressed about it.
Basic conversation is OK, but I still get lost in anything beyond. I'm not a natural language person. Some people are. And, my hearing is a bit wrecked. I reckon the average English speaker with no knowledge of any other language could crack it fluently within a year if they put in the effort. The grammar all starts to just sound right after a very short while. Far fewer irregular verbs than with English, and those that are irregular are some of the most commonly used, so you learn them very quickly.
Voley
🐭
You doing it at Penwith, NVP? I wanted to do that one but they don't seem to do any concessions anymore
*dreams of the Picos......sigh*
Yeah, Penwith. It's £130. They didn't mention any concessions to me, though, you're right.
ETA: AndrewNumlock - sounds pricey to me. Mine's not as much as that for two hours a week for 25 weeks.
The BBC links Mrs Magpie posted are good for basic Spanish.
I watch them now and realise just how basic they are. But, still I realise how much more I have to learn.
You can get by on a basic level very easily. If you're very eloquent you don't need a large vocabulary to express yourself meaningfully, but you'll still have to learn to understand others and follow rapid conversation picking out words and even phonemes.
I spent a lot of money learning German on a one2one basis. That was good, but the best way to learn any language is to just speak it regularly every day. I'm sure there are plenty of native Spanish speakers in the UK willing to inter-cambio. Basic Spanish in return for advanced English.
I watch them now and realise just how basic they are. But, still I realise how much more I have to learn.
You can get by on a basic level very easily. If you're very eloquent you don't need a large vocabulary to express yourself meaningfully, but you'll still have to learn to understand others and follow rapid conversation picking out words and even phonemes.
I spent a lot of money learning German on a one2one basis. That was good, but the best way to learn any language is to just speak it regularly every day. I'm sure there are plenty of native Spanish speakers in the UK willing to inter-cambio. Basic Spanish in return for advanced English.
No idea but minime is about to learn it from next week!
Excellent! She's at a good age to learn a new language too! Make sure she does all her 'deberes'!
Just back from my intercambio event - had an excellent evening! Met a lovely (but keen :/ ) guy called José who is born and raised in Barcelona who goes along often to practice his english so we coupled up and I spoke only in Castilian Spanish with him while he answered me back and spoke mostly in English. Intercambios are a great way to meet people and have a chance to purposefully utilize all you have learnt - very important. I'll highly recommend this method once you have the conversational basics locked down.
jonnyd1978
Handsome lads are playing chess in your area
Nothing much further to add, just to say that I found some aspects of learning Spanish far easier than French. For example:
Chico - boy
Chica - girl
Hermano - brother
Hermana - sister
I also found Spanish people were very patient and impressed when you try it with them. Good luck!
Chico - boy
Chica - girl
Hermano - brother
Hermana - sister
I also found Spanish people were very patient and impressed when you try it with them. Good luck!
madzone
Physically unfavourable
Unlike the french who just look at you like you're a fucking idiot for trying to communicate with them in their own language
It was easy enough picking up a lot of the basics of Spanish as I traveled through Central America, although made a little trickier by the big changes in accent from country to country. I also got a little lazy because etnea picked it up much faster than me...
A lot of people do language courses in Guatemala where costs are v. cheap and the accent's quite clear, everybody I knew who did that rated it highly - at least until they got across the border and couldn't understand a word those mumbling Hondurans were saying.
Voley
🐭
There's one on a Friday, too, but it's during the day. 10am till noon.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Latin American Spanish varies hugely from country to country.
Some - Mexicans, Guatemalans, Peruvians - tend to speak reasonably slowly. Basically, it is those places where there are large indigenous populations that people speak more slowly - for most Guatemalans, for instance, Spanish is their second language.
Others - Cubans, many Chileans - can speak at a million miles an hour. Argentinian Spanish is quite easy to understand once you get used to it – essentially, it is Spanish spoken with an Italian accent, but they also tend to speak fairly slowly.
Bugger, this thread has made me want to go back to Latin America.
Some - Mexicans, Guatemalans, Peruvians - tend to speak reasonably slowly. Basically, it is those places where there are large indigenous populations that people speak more slowly - for most Guatemalans, for instance, Spanish is their second language.
Others - Cubans, many Chileans - can speak at a million miles an hour. Argentinian Spanish is quite easy to understand once you get used to it – essentially, it is Spanish spoken with an Italian accent, but they also tend to speak fairly slowly.
Bugger, this thread has made me want to go back to Latin America.
Y_I_Otter
Dangerous Terroirist
Voley
🐭
Most common insult I heard in India is 'benchod': sister-fucker. Make of that what you will.
Anyhow, first Spanish lesson went well today: we did a load of stuff on pronunciation. the tutor's great, very patient. The guttural throaty bit was a laugh - results were, um, 'varied' from the various pupils.
Gonna enjoy this I think.
clandestino
no llevar papel
I've just signed up for a beginner's Spanish course and I'm wondering how difficult it is.
I'm OK with languages normally. Got through my 'O' Level French and German no problems but faltered a bit at 'A' level. I only got a 'D' for French. I seem to get by whenever I'm in France, though.
I've been reading a bit of Spanish text to warm up for it and it seems that quite a few words are similar to French. Do you think this might help?
Any ideas how I might get on?
Cheers.
I did Spanish at evening class and really enjoyed it. I was a bit slack with homework and practice so it took me ages and ages before I was ready to do my GCSE, but I wasn't learning for any other reason than to enjoy it so it didn't really matter. Forgotten huge chunks of it now - and I only took my GCSE in 2006 - but by far the best way to progress is to meet with a friend and just chatter. Me and Eme did this on a weekly basis and it really helped me tons.
I went to Argentina in 2005, and there was a tiny language barrier as they pronounce their Ls differently - so pollo is poyyo in Spanish and pojjo in Argentinian. But the biggest shock was nipping over to Brazil for lunch and suddenly not being able to understand a word. It's easy to forget how useful even a basic understanding of a language can be.
goldenecitrone
post tenebras lux
Spanish is relatively easy until you hit the subjunctive. Then it gets pretty difficult.
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