What is the best way to actually learn spanish?

February 24, 2009 4:12 PM

What is the most effective way to spruce up my spanish in terms of private tutoring, immersion courses, extended night courses, etc?

I took 3 years of spanish in high school. I grew up in California (so was conversational in my youth), then moved to Oregon where I lost all of it (no surprise there)!.

I started working in health care and so my spanish is coming back to me. Now I live in Miami and it continues to improve but I want to get conversational and eventually approach fluency. I've had a couple ideas, but am not sure which are most effective/a good or bad use of money:

1. An immersion program. All I have is a month give or take unfortunately.

2. Private tutor 4 or so hours a day for a month, + my everyday spanish (grocery store, restaurants, transit, friends, etc).

3. Immersion program part time in Miami (expensive).

People tell me to do 2, but I wonder if the total immersion abroad would speed things up, or if doing immersion locally would give me more time and structure vs individual attention. Any educators out there?

posted by aussicht to education (4 comments total)

Three weeks of an immersion program in Mexico for me was like years of college work. When you are 24/7 speaking and hearing Spanish + the classroom instruction, you'll learn and remember it.
posted by birdherder at 5:49 PM on February 24 [1 favorite]

Since you're in Miami, try going to places where Spanish is spoken. Also try watching a lot of TV and listening to the radio.
posted by world b free at 5:56 PM on February 24

Watch spanish-language tv, rent movies in spanish, read "foto-novellas"--soap opera type stories in comic-book form in spanish, (the drawings help w/ comprehension), read the newspaper in spanish, speak spanish exclusively to anyone you're around who speaks it. Never ask someone who speaks both languages to translate it into the english words for you, keep speaking spanish and let them help you figure it out that way. Use your hands, point to things, act it out...Pretend you really have no options but to figure it out that way. Be willing...nay, anxious...to look like an idiot in the service of really sticking to speaking spanish when around native spanish-speakers. I've known people studying spanish who benefited greatly spending a month in Costa Rica in an immersion program, which includes living in the home of Costa Ricans, if you can afford it..I have no program info on that, though. You can probably google it...might be closer for you than Mexico. And gorgeous country.
posted by mumstheword at 7:54 PM on February 24

Along with other options, you might consider the Pimsleur audio lessons. I haven't used the Spanish ones, but I have used the French ones and found they really helped with aural comprehension and pronunciation.
posted by wheat at 4:17 AM on February 25