Learning Spanish Quickly in the US?

crabintheocean — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 19:01:19 -0800

I need to learn to speak Spanish as quickly as possible. There are a couple of small problems - I live in DC, work irregular 12 hour+ days, and don't have the money or the vacation time to go abroad... I feel really daunted by this, but I keep coming back to the fact that speaking Spanish would vastly expand my options, and I badly need expanded options over the next few months.

Several years ago I lived in the UK, and visited Spain often enough to speak decent tourist (Castillian) Spanish. But I couldn't summon any of it up now, and I need to speak South American Spanish.

As mentioned, I live in DC and I work hours that probably make it impossible to regularly attend a class, or even to meet up reliably with Spanish speakers. My day isn't just long, it's irregular, changes at short notice, and it's almost always six or seven days a week. There is no possibility of going abroad for an immersion course, but it might be possible to take a short immersion course in the US. The problem would be money, but if I found something I thought would work, I'd try very hard to find the money. My employer won't help with costs, and I need to keep this quiet from anyone beyond my coworkers and immediate boss.

I drive a lot, and I've thought about buying CDs for the car, but I think they probably wouldn't be enough - I learn very quickly in an immersion type environment, but wasn't great at languages at school, when learning was more passive. I tried listening to Spanish language radio in the car, but it was way too fast for me to even seperate out words. I need to do this fast and properly, and honestly I think I'll find it tough to push myself on this while pushing myelf on the 101 other things that need attention 24 hours a day.

So what are my options? Are there CDs that are amazing, or a US based immersion course, or something else I haven't thought of?

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Learning Spanish Quickly in the US?