noglider
I have a recommendation for getting started in Spanish; a free podcast of 90 short lessons called Language Transfer. It's a teaching conversation between the teacher and student. It has truly great insights for native English speakers learning Spanish.
I recently finished 3 semesters of Spanish at Queens College* and the old school rote grind gave me a good base of vocab and grammar, but...In order to get conversational, this winter I started with an 1-1 tutor. I think it's the only way for me to get past "translating in my head" - I hear a sentence, translate it to english, decide on a response and translate it to Spanish - so clunky!

*I'm not suggesting formal classes but CUNY is $80/semester for city residents over 62, non-matric!!! Up to 3 classes/semester.