Learning Spanish

Eager to see your replies! I rely on google translator app. Slowly I'll learning repeat word. I doubt I will ever understand spoken language... too fast

I just bought Rosetta Stone. I had it when it first came out, but my computer got a virus and the disks were scratched. I was never able to get the full use out of it. I have a very vague memory of using it. Now you just download it and you are able to recover it if anything happens, so I am willing to give it another try.  I am also using Doulingo, because it is free so why not? I will let you know if it is worth spending the money on Rosetta Stone, as I just downloaded it a few minutes ago. 

If anyone else knows of any other Spanish learning programs, please let us know how they worked.

Thank you

You may want to check your library - our library allows access to both Rosetta Stone and Mango languages. I've found lots of books and audio resources through the library.

This is what I recommend, you learn to hear, speak, read, and write it. My wife uses it and its starts you with conversational Spanish and moves from there. You can repeat lessons all you want to make sure you got it right and can remember it.
My wife is doing well with it.
https://www.amazon.com/Fluenz-Spanish-A … ds=spanish

Forgot to mention in my earlier post, but before moving to PR, I listened to the Coffee Break Spanish podcast and it was very helpful.  Now that I am back in the states, I still refer back to the podcast every so often to help preserve what I learned.

Duolingo is fantastic for learning, especially being a good product and it is free. The forum section of the program is a phenomenal tool. I would suggest using 123teachme.com, Fluencia, Spanishdict.com and Foreign Service Institute Basic Spanish course. Rosetta stone is a good product, just slightly overrated in my opinion. I did learn a lot of vocabulary using Rosetta. 

Which is the better program depend on how much Spanish you wish to acquire and how proficient you want to think in the Spanish language.

If you wish only the ability to simply converse in basic conversation applying short sentences, using only Duolingo, Rosetta stone, etc. will be sufficient. Definitely all of the programs will teach you some advance skills. However some are better at helping you learn to reason and solve for a suitable answer, instead of memorizing a response without understand the language structure. 

Some of the best ways to learn and improve communicating in a new language are communicating with speakers who speak clearly enough for you to understand, also those who text using mainstream vocabulary and reading news papers online. Writing your own thoughts in Spanish is a crucial skill to develop.       

If you have interest in achieving an intermediate level or above, use a combination of programs. 123Teachme has quizzes and technical explanations on many aspect of Spanish. The website also has verb conjugation tables and illustrations. Fluencia in similar to Rosetta Stone, but Fluencia provides explanations for the concepts of the language structure, detail explanation of pronunciation of sounds, cultural facts, and Fluencia and Spanishdict will explain why an answer was incorrect.

Foreign Service Institute course really is of an academic style and contains details on intonation, accents, stresses and other phonetic uniquenesses of Spanish.

Probably it is best to use Duolingo long enough to advance to a level where you desire to form sentences longer than 6 words and in different tenses. Next simultaneously use the other resources to fine tool your ability.

There was an increase in my confidence and dedication to continue learning Spanish when I began to deduce meanings of an unfamiliar words by breaking down the word stem, noticing the composition of sentences and comprehension  the context of the paragraph. That really felt like progress. I was memorizing less and reasoning more.

Espero que esto te ayude.

I have been going through the struggle of learning Spanish seriously for the past 2 and a half years in Rosario, Argentina. Here are my recommendations:

1. Spanish Language Transfer
This is a free set of lessons I highly recommend. It has helped me a great deal and I constantly refer to it. Even after mastering the basics it's a great source to strengthen your skills. It's a teacher with a student, non-scripted. You can also download each lesson so when you're on the go, or the internet goes out you can still learn. I would tell anyone just starting out to start here. It's not about memorization but a method. Simple things like the word "tener" (meaning to have) equals the part of the word "tain" in English. So sostener means sustain, contener means contain, mantener means maintain, et. Poner (to put) equals "pose" in English. Suponer means suppose, imponer means impose, etc.

2. The Spanish Dude, Butterfly Spanish, etc. on YouTube. There are so many resources on YouTube that it can be a little overwhelming but I really like those two. The Spanish Dude is fast paced with his "Spanish Quickies" but it's fun and really helps with the basics. I have a lifetime membership so I get additional resources but he has a ton of free lessons, along with downloadable worksheets on his website. The woman on Butterfly Spanish has a great attitude and I really enjoy her lessons.

3. DuoLingo. I really liked this at first and I sometimes still refer back to it. After a while I felt I needed something more substantial which lead me to seek out what I mentioned above. The communities are helpful and I find that I use them more when I'm learning out of the program than I do with the program itself. Like when I search for the meaning of a term in Google, many times a link I find will take me to the DuoLingo community explaining something.

4. SpanishDict. Also free. Again, a great translator with a good community which I am always referring to to understand the meaning of a combination of words.

5. Download Chrome if you don't have it and add the Google Translate extension. This is a must. I am constantly reading articles in Spanish and you simply select a word or words and the extension will translate the words you highlighted.

6. As mentioned above, recently I've been devouring online Spanish language articles on subjects I am interested in. I have basically been devoting myself to this for the past few months after feeling I was spinning my wheels trying to memorize. This has helped me tremendously. There are so many combinations of words that mean something different  when combined than if you translate them literally. Also, this method starts exposing the  fact that certain words that you have learned to mean one thing also have very many other meanings in the context of a sentence. I have since started writing down these combinations on index cards with their English translations. Once you start reading online, especially with newspapers, you'll find the same unfamiliar phrases start popping up time and time again, basically forcing you to understand their meaning. Phrases like "Así como". I've learned what "así" and "como" mean separately so when I try and translate them it makes no sense. I search online for help and come to find the combo means "As well as" which is a very common phrase. "En vez de". I used read that as "In time of" but it actually means "instead of". Things like that.

7. If you are on FaceBook, change your language settings to Spanish. That has ingrained many words into my brain as I reference FaceBook a few times a day.

I was impressed with Spanish Language Transfer (SLT) and will add it to my arsenal of tools. STL is similar to the Michel Thomas method of learning Spanish, a gradual and relaxed pace of learning.