learning english as a spanish speaker

July 28, 2005 8:57 AM

A friend of mine is trying to learn English (he is a Spanish speaker), and knows very little English. He lives in a Central American country, and I am going to send him a good book and some CDs for learning - they dont have English textbooks in his school. Can anyone suggest a good series on learning English for Spanish speakers? Is there a audio series that is really solid? Or books that are good? My Spanish is okay, but not enough to be making those kind of judgements.
posted by jare2003 to education (3 comments total)

this isn't helpful for the basics, but once he gets those, english-language movies are a great way to get used to american or british accents (both hearing them and learning to speak with them) and idioms. I knew a guy who studied english that way and his english was indistinguishable from that of a native speaker. (I also met a guy who did the same thing when learning spanish, with similar results).
posted by clarahamster at 1:27 PM on July 28, 2005

can't help with the textbook, but can confirm what clarahaster says - at least here in s america there's a lot of stuff on tv (certainly cable, but i think terrestrial too) in english, and many undubbed films, so hearing the language is not a problem. he should be able to buy textbooks locally - everyone wants to learn english - and it would be much cheaper than you buying, especially with postage, so you might consider just sending cash, or buying a "real" book in english that would interest them (english books are much harder to find than material aimed at spanish speakers for learning english).
posted by andrew cooke at 2:35 PM on July 28, 2005

He's in Central America, and I lived in this town for a few months (about 30,000 people), and i can safely say that the materials there are of really poor quality - like intended for Spanish->English business travelers. His school cant afford textbooks, so he just gets copies, and theres no grammar reference or anything else - he needs a basic introduction to the language.

His family also are pretty poor, and cant afford cable (6/month), so they have access to only one broadcast channel, and everything is in Spanish (no English subtitles) - i would have thought it would have been a good idea otherwise.

I know theres a lot of Spanish->English learners in the US, so i figured someone could suggest something.
posted by jare2003 at 4:45 PM on July 28, 2005