Foo - If you learned another language as an adult, give me some tips.

I'm retired, but I want to learn Spanish for personal development, fun, and because the language skill would be helpful in SW Florida. Deciding how to proceed is the only thing stopping me at this point.

Several years ago, I bought the complete Rosetta Stone DVD/CD set for Spanish, but it remains unopened. After making the investment, I decided to consider other options. I've thought about adult education classes, a university course and hiring an instructor for intensive one-on-one instruction to get started. As a result, I haven't done anything to take the first step.

I thought it might be instructive to inquire here about your experience with learning a new language as an adult. How would you recommend proceeding? I'm willing to spend 1 or 2 hours/day and will pay whatever costs are necessary for equipment, classes or whatever. My initial goal is to be comfortable with conversational Spanish. Writing might come later.

I want to do this. I need to do this. Your suggestions will be appreciated.

I'm retired, but I want to learn Spanish for personal development, fun, and because the language skill would be helpful in SW Florida. Deciding how to proceed is the only thing stopping me at this point.

Several years ago, I bought the complete Rosetta Stone DVD/CD set for Spanish, but it remains unopened. After making the investment, I decided to consider other options. I've thought about adult education classes, a university course and hiring an instructor for an intensive one-on-one commitment to get started. As a result, I haven't done anything to take the first step.

I thought it might be instructive to inquire here about your experience with learning a new language as an adult. How would you recommend proceeding? I'm willing to spend 1 or 2 hours/day and will pay whatever costs are necessary for equipment, classes or whatever. My initial goal is to be comfortable with conversational Spanish. Writing might come later.

I want to do this. I need to do this. Your suggestions will be appreciated.

Didn't you read my rosetta stone spanish thread?!!!!!

They dropped me off at Frankfurt International Airport.

Couch

They dropped me off at Frankfurt International Airport.

Couch

You said frank and furt.

You said frank and furt.

Nein!

Couch

I learned to speak jive in case I had to help gentlemen ordering dinner on an airplane one day.

Nein!

Couch


Ja!

eine kleine nachtmusik!

I'm retired, but I want to learn Spanish for personal development, fun, and because the language skill would be helpful in SW Florida. Deciding how to proceed is the only thing stopping me at this point.

Several years ago, I bought the complete Rosetta Stone DVD/CD set for Spanish, but it remains unopened. After making the investment, I decided to consider other options. I've thought about adult education classes, a university course and hiring an instructor for an intensive one-on-one commitment to get started. As a result, I haven't done anything to take the first step.

I thought it might be instructive to inquire here about your experience with learning a new language as an adult. How would you recommend proceeding? I'm willing to spend 1 or 2 hours/day and will pay whatever costs are necessary for equipment, classes or whatever. My initial goal is to be comfortable with conversational Spanish. Writing might come later.

I want to do this. I need to do this. Your suggestions will be appreciated.

Move to Mexico or Puerto Rico for a few months, you will be conversational in lotsa things....you should especially ask the locals where the 'donkey show' is.

Hi there... the local Puerto Rican chiming in...

The best way to learn a language is to talk with people in that language. No amount of theoretical study (Rosetta/Classes/etc) will ever beat talking to native speakers. Too bad you are in the South West of the Sunshine State, had you been closer to the Orlando area I could tell you to come over with some beers... and I wouldn't charge you a penny (you pay the beers tho).

Another method of learning is to watch TV programming spoken in the target language AND with subtitles on the target language. That requires you learn a little bit of reading first, but is excellent to learn to understand the words correctly, at the usual pace of native speaker. Since both English and Spanish use *almost the same alphabet, this is very doable.

Option number 3 is kid shows. Might sound silly, but these shows are designed to teach language skills to babies/toddlers who don't know the language yet. They are perfect for an adult who doesn't know the language either. Depending on how far down south you are, you might still get the few Spanish stations that target kissimmee.

But remember, regardless of what method you choose, if you are not committed you will never learn. Choose a method and stick to it.

Move to Mexico or Puerto Rico for a few months, you will be conversational in lotsa things....you should especially ask the locals where the 'donkey show' is.

I have no idea what the donkey show is or where's at. But if OP is in SW Fla, Kissimmee is just as good as PR to learn language skills and is reachable by car. ;)

For an enjoyable experience, find a singer that you like. Get the music and the words. It doesn't take long at all before you know every word in the song, and even feel like singing along with it.

Nana Mouskouri does have some in Spanish. (It's listed as 8 out of the 12 languages she has recorded in.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nana_Mouskouri (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nana_Mouskouri)

Didn't you read my rosetta stone spanish thread?!!!!!

Yeah.

Lots of practice! J'étudie la français comme un adulte et il suce des gonades d'âne

Je regarde beaucoup de films avec les dialogues français pour aider mon oreille à apprendre les sons et les phonèmes du français.

Hi there... the local Puerto Rican chiming in...

The best way to learn a language is to talk with people in that language. No amount of theoretical study (Rosetta/Classes/etc) will ever beat talking to native speakers. Too bad you are in the South West of the Sunshine State, had you been closer to the Orlando area I could tell you to come over with some beers... and I wouldn't charge you a penny (you pay the beers tho).

Another method of learning is to watch TV programming spoken in the target language AND with subtitles on the target language. That requires you learn a little bit of reading first, but is excellent to learn to understand the words correctly, at the usual pace of native speaker. Since both English and Spanish use *almost the same alphabet, this is very doable.

Option number 3 is kid shows. Might sound silly, but these shows are designed to teach language skills to babies/toddlers who don't know the language yet. They are perfect for an adult who doesn't know the language either. Depending on how far down south you are, you might still get the few Spanish stations that target kissimmee.

But remember, regardless of what method you choose, if you are not committed you will never learn. Choose a method and stick to it.

For the OP talking to the people has one huge advantage. That is the Spanish he wants to learn.

Imagine learning perfect Oxford English and then trying to talk to someone from the deep south. Hard enough dealing with accents/dialects of your first language.

Best way to learn other languages is to talk to people, because then, you are put on a spot and you absorb better when there is some kind of pressure, a pressure to understand what the other person is saying. Also, watch a good foreign movie without subtitles, preferably spoken in language you are trying to learn and try to put 2 and 2 together, or watch English speaking movie with subs of that language if available.

Hi there... the local Puerto Rican chiming in...

The best way to learn a language is to talk with people in that language. No amount of theoretical study (Rosetta/Classes/etc) will ever beat talking to native speakers. Too bad you are in the South West of the Sunshine State, had you been closer to the Orlando area I could tell you to come over with some beers... and I wouldn't charge you a penny (you pay the beers tho).

Another method of learning is to watch TV programming spoken in the target language AND with subtitles on the target language. That requires you learn a little bit of reading first, but is excellent to learn to understand the words correctly, at the usual pace of native speaker. Since both English and Spanish use *almost the same alphabet, this is very doable.

Option number 3 is kid shows. Might sound silly, but these shows are designed to teach language skills to babies/toddlers who don't know the language yet. They are perfect for an adult who doesn't know the language either. Depending on how far down south you are, you might still get the few Spanish stations that target kissimmee.

But remember, regardless of what method you choose, if you are not committed you will never learn. Choose a method and stick to it.

Thanks for your thoughtful response and the advice others have offered.

There are lots Spanish speaking folks here who help me with work at our home, work in restaurants, WalMart and every other commercial establishment. After I learn some basic vocabulary and appropriate phrases, I'll start engaging these locals in Spanish.

The Spanish TV shows are abundant, so that's an easy resource. I sure hadn't thought of kids' shows, but my 2 yr. old granddaughter and I can tune in to some of them; she might pick up a little Spanish, too. We have several Mexican music radio stations as well.

I'm considering a compact DVD/CD player with quality earphones to make the Rosetta Stone system truly portable. Otherwise wasted time can be put to use learning (waiting for my wife, dining alone, oil change waiting room, Starbucks, etc,).

You are clearly right about the importance of being committed. My lack of action suggests I've been plain lazy or afraid of the challenge. Guess I've just got to dial it up a notch or two.

Again, thanks.

Move to Mexico or Puerto Rico for a few months, you will be conversational in lotsa things....you should especially ask the locals where the 'donkey show' is.

and how would you know about these?

Also try here www.meetup.com (http://www.meetup.com)

Find a local Meetup group that is for people practicing/learning Spanish. There has to be one in SW FL, if you're near a decent sized city, that is.

Lots of practice! J'étudie la français comme un adulte et il suce des gonades d'âne

You Boilermakers are all romantics, with your French, lofty science and engineering studies and other fluffy stuff. At IU we focused on learning the language of Bob Knight...loud, hard core, animated, in your face, using a chair to make an important point. I guess I forgot profane.

What does your post say, besides lots of practice?

Also try here www.meetup.com (http://www.meetup.com)

Find a local Meetup group that is for people practicing/learning Spanish. There has to be one in SW FL, if you're near a decent sized city, that is.

I'll put that on the list. I didn't know such groups exist. Maybe I can find a Spanish Weight Watchers group!

You Boilermakers are all romantics, with your French, lofty science and engineering studies and other fluffy stuff. At IU we focused on learning the language of Bob Knight...loud, hard core, animated, in your face, using a chair to make an important point.

What does your post say, besides lots of practice?

paraphrased loosely for decency, learning a language (In my case, French) as an adult sucks donkey's gonads. The next post was I watch a lot of movies with French dialog to train my ear to hear the sounds and phonemes of French.

Finally, I also speak Spanish, and German, and some Russian. I took Latin for 2 years in HS, and that helped a lot, and oddly enough, I can understand Romanian in written form with occasional errors due to the French and Latin.

Now, as to speaking Bobby Knightish IUese, I have always been of the opinion that obscentiy is a sign of a limited imagination and limited ability of self expression, especially when a cutting, pithy remark would better serve.....especially if the recipient thinks it's somehow a compliment. :p That happens a lot with IU folk, though. ;)

I've been learning internet English.

OMG! ROLFLMO!

the breaks on your bike are bad. your ready to fix them?

paraphrased loosely for decency, learning a language (In my case, French) as an adult sucks donkey's gonads. The next post was I watch a lot of movies with French dialog to train my ear to hear the sounds and phonemes of French.

Finally, I also speak Spanish, and German, and some Russian. I took Latin for 2 years in HS, and that helped a lot, and oddly enough, I can understand Romanian in written form with occasional errors due to the French and Latin.

Now, as to speaking Bobby Knightish IUese, I have always been of the opinion that obscentiy is a sign of a limited imagination and limited ability of self expression, especially when a cutting, pithy remark would better serve.....especially if the recipient thinks it's somehow a compliment. :p That happens a lot with IU folk, though. ;)

Thanks, Tom. It may be too late for me, but I am determined to try. Spanish should be less difficult than French, German or Russian, and having lots of spare time will be an advantage.

I'm sure movie watching will be helpful, and fun, once I develop a bit of foundation in vocabulary and phraseology. If the experience turns out to be like sucking donkey parts, I may have to switch to studying politics or law or something more suitable for an IU guy.

I'll put that on the list. I didn't know such groups exist. Maybe I can find a Spanish Weight Watchers group!

If not together, certainly both exist separately.

Oh yeah.. activity groups are good. I wouldn't suggest riding bikes with Spanish speakers, we can barely breathe, let alone talk. There's always Spanish Mass tho... and it's free. And if you ever feel like following some feral hogs into the woods with a group of heavily armed Puerto Ricans, I could probably arrange something.

Oh yeah.. activity groups are good. I wouldn't suggest riding bikes with Spanish speakers, we can barely breathe, let alone talk. There's always Spanish Mass tho... and it's free. And if you ever feel like following some feral hogs into the woods with a group of heavily armed Puerto Ricans, I could probably arrange something.

There's an interesting idea for multi-tasking: go to mass and work on the Spanish. Our nearest parish offers Spanish masses.

Find a Latina girlfriend(or mistress)....

Francais n'est pas une probleme.
Espanol esta no problemo.
Deutsch spielt keine rolle.
Vlaams in niet moeilijk.
Nederlands is gemakkelijk.
But English can be difficult, at times . . .

Find a Latina girlfriend(or mistress)....

Sleeping Dictionary?

Another method of learning is to watch TV programming spoken in the target language AND with subtitles on the target language. That requires you learn a little bit of reading first, but is excellent to learn to understand the words correctly, at the usual pace of native speaker. Since both English and Spanish use *almost the same alphabet, this is very doable.

You be careful with the TV show trick. For a while, I was watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer in Spanish with Spanish subtitles. (I wanted to learn the language; plus, it let me feel that I wasn't totally slacking when watching TV.) I noticed very quickly that the spoken Spanish and the written Spanish didn't match. Sure, they might both be decent translations of the English, but they weren't the same words. I suspect that the written translations are done first, but the spoken translations might need to be different to fit the amount of time the character is talking on-screen.

(I did like some of the phrases that I saw on that show, that haven't come up anywhere else; maybe folks trying to translate Joss Whedon get a bit more inventive? "Out of the frying pan, into the fire" turned into "De Guatamala a Guatapeor".)

As others have said you need to be immersed to really get it. I used to travel to Mexico every year and learned practical Spanish from that. I got real rusty and was going to travel to Spain so I got back into learning and found a program online in the virtual world called Second Life. The immersion is almost the same as in real life since you have trainers and people from actual places in Spain and learn Spanish in real time while visiting virtual places in Spain. You just don't get to see the body language but you hear the dialects and the local colloquialisms. Technical learning like in a University or from DVD's etc suck. They won't teach you the dialects or the fine nuances of real speaking.

As others have said you need to be immersed to really get it. I used to travel to Mexico every year and learned practical Spanish from that. I got real rusty and was going to travel to Spain so I got back into learning and found a program online in the virtual world called Second Life. The immersion is almost the same as in real life since you have trainers and people from actual places in Spain and learn Spanish in real time while visiting virtual places in Spain. You just don't get to see the body language but you hear the dialects and the local colloquialisms. Technical learning like in a University or from DVD's etc suck. They won't teach you the dialects or the fine nuances of real speaking.

Ok, I get it; immersion, interaction, trying to translate well-spoken Spanish is the best way to learn. It seems starting from scratch, as I am, still requires some basic work in vocabulary and phrasing to get started. An I missing something?

Basic work might help but it's still probably best just to jump right in. A personal instructor is the way to go. DVD's are usually too stringent. It would be like teaching English like this: I first meet you, "Hello sir it is absolutely my pleasure to meet you on this occasion." Instead of "Yo whats up man."

That kind of thing.

Should I donate my unopened Rosetta Stone set to Goodwill?

Should I donate my unopened Roseta Stone set to Goodwill?

Rosetta Stone is an excellent tooolset for a language. It's based on Berlin Language school immersion techniques and will actually help you really learn the language as opposed to learning enough to pass tests.

Rosetta Stone is an excellent tooolset for a language. It's based on Berlin Language school immersion techniques and will actually help you really learn the language as opposed to learning enough to pass tests.

Muchas gracias, Tom. I bought the complete set (beginning thru advanced), so I'm glad it will be helpful.

Gracias, Tom. I bought the complete set (beginning thru advanced), so I'm glad it will be helpful.

De nada, mi amigo! No hay problema de ninguna manera o forma.

¿Después de todo, no se debe a un tipo de Purdue ayudar a aquellos menos afortunados que ellos, al igual que los estudiantes de IU?

something more suitable for an IU guy.

Hamburger U is accepting applications for graduate programs!


Seriously, good luck, e buona aventura.

¿Después de todo, no se debe a un tipo de Purdue ayudar a aquellos menos afortunados que ellos, al igual que los estudiantes de IU?

Oh really! Guess I'll have to get back to you on this, mi amigo.