Teach Yourself Conversational Spanish

The great news about Spanish is that it is one of the easiest languages for an English speaker to learn. lots of Spanish words are very similar to their English couterparts beacause of their Latin roots. Just go to any Spanish language website and you will immediately recognise many words and will probably even understand a couple of Spanish phrases without ever having taken a single lesson. Additionally there is widespread accessability to music, television and other types of media in Spanish.

One of the great things about Spanish is that after learning the alphabet, which is similar to English, you can start reading aloud almost immediatley since the rules are very consistent and straight forward.

If you are thinking of learning a new language, then Spanish is certainly one to consider.

Eight Reasons Why You Should Learn Spanish

1. Communicate with 350 million native Spanish speakers worldwide.
Spanish is spoken by at least an estimated 350 million people around the world and is currently the 4th most commonly spoken language worldwide.

2. Communicate with Spanish-speaking people at home.
If you live in the US, it is possible to maintain almost daily contact with native Spanish speakers in many cities or even in rural areas. This is certainly the case in the many states bordering Mexico, or such states as Florida and New York where many immigrants of Cuban ancestry reside

3. Learn Spanish to enhance your travel experiences.
If you've ever dreamed of visiting far-off, exotic, tropical places, you don't have far to look when you consider the great number of Spanish-speaking countries that fit this description. Wherever you decide to go, be it to Central America, or to Spain, the mother-country of the Spanish language, knowing the language will get you far

4. Use Spanish to improve your employment potential.
Know a second language? Great, you're hired! If you have proven yourself to be a capable employee with just the right job skills AND you speak a foreign language such as Spanish, you are much more likely to land that job of your dreams than if you are monolingual.

5. Learn Spanish to improve your knowledge of your own language.
Spanish is from the Romance language family of languages, its roots coming primarily from Latin, the language spoken by the Romans. As you might know, English, too has many words of Latin origin. Because of this, knowing Spanish helps speakers of English (as well as some other European languages) broaden their vocabulary in their native language.

6. Learn Spanish to prepare for study abroad opportunities.
Many high schools, colleges, and universities offer study abroad opportunities. Many different types of programs are available to choose from and they vary in time from as little as a week of study to one semester, or even a whole year.

7. Better appreciate Spanish-speaking cultures.
Apart from opening up access to areas of "high" culture such as art, literature, and history, a knowleged of Spanish can help learners understand and appreciate day-to-day culture in the Spanish-speaking world.

8. Learn Spanish to make lifelong friends.
As most people would probably recognize, the primary purpose of a language is to facilitate communication between people.

Spanish Language Courses

Home Study Courses

Unless you are naturally gifted at learning foreign languages, its just not realistic to think that you will achieve
proficiency in Spanish after going through just one Spanish course or series of Spanish courses. It takes years of effort and study (or relocation to a Spanish-speaking country). Unfortunately, I have not found a course that will give us a shortcut.

Michel Thomas: Over a period of more than fifty years, Michel Thomas has developed and perfected a unique method of teaching languages. His approach gives startling results within a remarkably short time, all without the need for books, memorizing, or homework.

In essence, Michel Thomas breaks a language down to its component parts and enables learners to reconstruct the language themselves to form their own sentences, to say what they want, when they want. The experience of learning a language becomes so exciting and satisfying that it stimulates self-motivation and builds confidence.
Pimsleur Spanish: The Pimsleur method is a state-of-the-art language learning course. The popular Pimsleur course does not use a book but uses a completely aural approach to language learning, perfect for learning on-the-go. Features a proficiency-based system that helps the student learn through listening and speaki
Rosetta Stone: With Rosetta Stone, you will learn Spanish the way you learned your own native language, without translation or memorisation. Native speakers, real-life images, speech recognition and fully interactive software teach you like you learned your first language-naturally.

Rosetta Stone is self-contained and intuitive to use. There are no complicated lists to memorise or handbooks to read. With Dynamic Immersion%u2122,
. Learning Spanish Like Crazy: Discover how to quickly and easily learn to speak the real Spanish - the spanish that native Latin Americans actually speak.

If you want to quickly learn how to speak the real Spanish and not the useless junk taught in textbooks, classrooms and other Spanish courses and if you want to master it without spending your last dime - this might be the most important product you will come accross.
Accelerated Learning Spanish: Accelerated Learning language courses have been designed with a whole range of activities to meet your preferred learning style. They innovatively integrate music, pictures, imagery, spoken and written material and interactive games to ensure that the learner is relaxed and enjoying the learning process.
Learn Spanish, Linguaphone Self Study Spanish Course: The largest and most comprehensive collection of quality home study language courses on the Internet. For those who want to learn how to read, write and speak the Spanish language, you will find a course here that suits your needs.
Learn Spanish Language Skills with Spanish Software and Spanish Resources: This section of the Transparent Language site provides Spanish resources to help you learn Spanish vocabulary, Spanish grammar, and Spanish pronunciation. It also presents information on Spanish software programs and Spanish audio CDs to help you learn to speak Spanish.

Great Stuff on Amazon

Resources for Teaching Yourself Spanish

Spanish With Michel Thomas (Deluxe Language Courses with Michel Thomas)

by Michel Thomas

Amazon Price: (as of 10/12/2008)

Michel Thomas Advanced Spanish

by Michel Thomas

Amazon Price: (as of 10/12/2008)

Spanish Plus: Learn to Speak and Understand Spanish with Pimsleur Language Programs (The Sound Way to Learn Languages)

by Pimsleur

Amazon Price: $115.00 (as of 10/12/2008)

Accelerated Learning: Spanish

by Juan Kattan-Ibarra

Amazon Price: (as of 10/12/2008)

Rosetta Stone Spanish Workbook, Level 1, Language Learning Success

Amazon Price: (as of 10/12/2008)

Add Your Language Learning Tips

Let us know about your efforts

pablo518

Hi
An very interesting and informative lens. Loved the UTube video's.

Hast Luego
Pablo
Spanish Bank Account

Posted April 07, 2008

social1sub

I like your lens an is a great review for Rocket Spanish. Rocket spanish is a great resource to learn spanish.

Posted October 06, 2007

Ebanque

Nicely done. Well laid out, interesting and accessable. 5*

Posted July 10, 2007

klim

Nice lens on ways to learn spanish now, 5*! kyan from learn spanish language, rocket spanish

Posted July 04, 2007

LaurieKristensen

Hi Sandy, excellent lens, 5 stars... I saw your post on Forum KnowHow. Wishing you all the best... Laurie

Posted June 29, 2007

Free Online Spanish Lessons

FSI Course Features

The Foreign Service Institute has developed a series of language-learning courses for use by the state department and other government agencies. These courses have been developed, tested by use, and improved over a period of many years. Working with the Departments of Defense, Education, other government agencies, and various universities, the FSI has created the largest body of complete courses for languages of the world available anywhere.

The courses consist of a large book prepared by experts in the language, and a number of tapes or CDs recorded by native speakers. Many languages are presented in levels (up to four), so students can go on to achieve greater mastery of the languages they choose. The first level of these courses is sufficient for a working knowledge of the grammar and pronunciation, and will serve the needs of travelers and business people. All of these courses present the subject language in a way that allows students to master the material quickly and thoroughly, while moving at their own pace through lessons and reviews.

Thes courses can be found for sale at all kinds of prices up to $800.00, however, it is possible to obtain a version of them for free at
This site.

Although the lessons are excellent and very easy to use they are orientated towards South American Spanish.

If you feel this is a good way to learn then I would recommend you use them along with any of the following:

Spanish Newspapers

An excellent way to learn a language is to read newspapers in the language and try and see how much you understand. It also gives you an opportuinity to find out how different peoples view the same news.

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