Best method for learning Spanish rosetta stone or pimsleur

Personally I found Rosetta stone impossible.  I don't know anything about the other method.  Living here was the best and still not very fluent but I have a mental block when in comes to languages.  Heck I have barely mastered English

Bob K

Forgot to add.... Welcome to the Forum.

Bob K

Welcome to the forum,  I love your "handle".  I didn't do either program.  For me immersion worked, but I am also a bit crazy I think.

You may already know but it bears repeating,  the Spanish here is bastardized.  We speak different then Cubans, Mexicans, Spanish from Spain etc.   Concentrate on structure, grammar and verbs, the rest is just vocabulary! That comes with immersion really fast.

For a good chuckle.....  Words can mean different things here.  I once had a client ask my why the girls seemed to be offended when he called guapa!  In Spanish guapa means beautiful.  Well not here!  Here it means pissed with you or upset.  So these girls all thought he was insulting them.

Another that jumps to mind is the word embarazada, which I thought meant embarrassed.  Oh hell no, this means pregnant...... LOL  whoops.

Thanks Bob K  for the warm welcome.  Yeah, it looks like it may be an uphill battle mastering the language from afar.

Thanks Planner also.  I'll make sure I don't repeat those particular mistakes, I've made a mental note...lol

Joe

If I could change 1 thing I would have spent time here early on going to Spanish class or hired a private teacher.

planner, Were you overwhelmed initially.  What was your level of Spanish when you moved there?

Joe

Hi Joe,  I knew maybe 5 words when I moved here, but I am crazy!!!!  There were isolated incidents that my lack of Spanish made me feel overwhelmed!  Once there was a fight in the parking lot of Jose Luis grocery store in Puerto Plata, it was a man and a woman. I got dragged into it as the woman thought the man was flirting with me in the store!  Just as that  happened security came and we ALL got our asses dragged to the police. That was about 6 months after moving here.  Yup fear, panic, overwhelmed all applied at that moment..  Someone found an English speaking policeman and I was immediately let go!  WHAT AN EXPERIENCE!!!! 

It would have been much easier if I knew the language and customs better!  I know them now and I can readily advise anyone to learn Spanish sooner rather then later. It is not imperative but it sure help!!!!

I've used both roseta stone and pimsleur, which is the most effective I guess it depends on the user. roseta stone has a good format, they show you a picture of the word, perro, a dog and a picture. one thing I didn't like about it was they introduced works I didn't need at zero level of Spanish, horse and a picture. well thanks a lot, I'm sure i'll need that right away. pimsleur on the other hand is strictly audio and they do start at zero level. only thing I didn't like was that the disk was 30 or so minutes long and you couldn't just go to anywhere on the disk as in, oh, I forgot a word and want to find it again, gotta go to the beginning again. it's very repedative which a process we all need to use learning. so at some time later you want to refresh you must go through 30 minutes of the disk and of that 30 minutes you get maybe 4 or 5 minutes of info. I still like pimsleur better than roseta stone. neither one is cheap, 5 or 6 hundred usd for the complete package from roseta stone but you can order it in parts. can't remember what I paid for pimsleur. roseta does have a good format but come on, horse at zero level Spanish. pimsleur is cheaper and you also can order it in parts. they advertise the government uses it for groups like CIA.  hope this helps

I used Spanish for Gringos. They concentrate on getting you speaking Spanish right away. Comes with a work book and CD's. And for my Dominican friends they have Ingles por Latinos.
Both very user friendly and not expensive. You can get it at Walmart.
I think Barron is the publisher.

I like Google Translate.

http://translate.google.com/#auto/es/Le … 20Spanish.

Click on the sound icon in the bottom right Spanish box to hear the phrase or work spoken.

Repeat it and speak it.

The example I gave is a sentence, but if you just type in a word you'll get more options like this:

http://translate.google.com/#auto/es/Learn

If you look at the icon beside the sound icon, it gives you examples of usage.

-Drak.

There are several free aps for your iPhone/android etc that I have used.  Some of them are better than others.  One sends me a new word every day and most have games of some sort which make it a little more fun. Most have some sort of test at the end of each unit also.   Since they are free or very inexpensive try a few to find what you like best.

I suggest you also check out "Butterfly Spanish" on YouTube.  There is a series of free short video lessons on common topics by a very enthusiastic young instructor.  New ones seem to come out from time to time. It's not a complete Spanish course, but does give you another voice to listen to and learn from which I find helps in learning to hear a new language. And they are fun to watch and listen to.