4 ms·

Do you have any sources in particular for a beginner in Spanish? Which blogs do you recommend do you have anything on technology? Which news? I know http://lit

by adminu 8y ago

Do you have any sources in particular for a beginner in Spanish? Which blogs do you recommend do you have anything on technology? Which news? I know http://lite.cnn.io/en http://lite.cnn.io/en which has all the articles in Spanish as well. Really useful but sometimes a bit to cumbersome to read for my level.

tmountain 8y ago
Definitely. http://lifehacker.com/5903288/i-learned-to-speak-four-languages-in-a-few-years-heres-how http://lifehacker.com/5903288/i-learned-to-speak-four-langua... Start with that article. Follow the advice about building core vocab to get a baseline set of words under your belt. I highly recommend Anki, but you can obviously use whatever tool fits our needs; although spaced repetition is something I'd definitely look for. For the early stages, I'd recommend Pimsleur. It's roughly 30 audio lessons per unit. They're about 30 minutes each. They'll familiarize you with basic travel phrases and help you to start getting a feel for the mechanics of the language. You can take Pimsleur all the way through the 4-5 units that are provided, but it's pretty narrow (travel/business Spanish), and it's VERY formal, so not a great long-term resource. I'd supplement Pimsleur with something like Destinos (telenova online for learning Spanish) to get some variety into your practice. Your real goal is getting to the point where you can consume level-appropriate media to make learning less of a chore and more fun. If you're serious about making progress, find language partners and a teacher (or two) on italki.com. I can't emphasize how helpful this has been. Look for podcasts that are geared towards Spanish learning. Notes in Spanish is pretty good, but it's Castillian, so I avoided it for that reason. Españolistos isn't terrible if you can handle the husband's terrible Spanish accent (he's a gringo from Texas). Both of those would be in the intermediate phase. The intermediate phase is a LONG journey to get towards advanced, so that's where most folks fall off. You can make some tremendous early gains just by getting some basic vocab and travel phrases, and that kind of learning is pretty intoxicating; however, really learning a language is just a matter of discipline (practicing every day), and grinding it out. Duolingo has a good introductory podcast for folks that are earlier on in their learning. I recommend duolingo to learn basic vocab, but don't expect any miracles to happen regarding "fluency" with ANY app. Clozemaster is good once you're further along for drilling the mechanics of sentence structure into your brain via thousands of "reps" (yes, sometimes it really just feels like physical exercise for your brain). Also, get yourself a decent book that explains grammar, and a book will all the conjugations of the main verbs. Spanishdict.com is an amazing resource for contextual sentences and conjugations, but books are nice for laying in bed and reviewing stuff. "Easy Spanish - Step by Step" is a pretty good introduction to the basic language mechanics. I read it from cover to cover (and did the exercises), and it was pretty helpful. Barron's 501 Spanish Verbs seems like its the standard verb conjugation reference. SO much of learning the language is just knowing how to conjugate properly. The explanations of the tenses at the beginning of the Barron's book have been indispensable in my understanding of how each tense works. I wish you luck. Feel free to email me if you want any additional pointers (tinymountain [at] gmail).
wild_preference 8y ago
http://lite.cnn.io/es http://lite.cnn.io/es times out for me.
- johnsonjo 8y ago
  The previous link ended in ‘en’ not ‘es’. Edit: sorry for not checking the site. I now see the site links to the es ending url and that times out for me as well.

by adminu 8y ago

tmountain 8y ago

Definitely. http://lifehacker.com/5903288/i-learned-to-speak-four-languages-in-a-few-years-heres-how http://lifehacker.com/5903288/i-learned-to-speak-four-langua... Start with that article. Follow the advice about building core vocab to get a baseline set of words under your belt. I highly recommend Anki, but you can obviously use whatever tool fits our needs; although spaced repetition is something I'd definitely look for. For the early stages, I'd recommend Pimsleur. It's roughly 30 audio lessons per unit. They're about 30 minutes each. They'll familiarize you with basic travel phrases and help you to start getting a feel for the mechanics of the language. You can take Pimsleur all the way through the 4-5 units that are provided, but it's pretty narrow (travel/business Spanish), and it's VERY formal, so not a great long-term resource. I'd supplement Pimsleur with something like Destinos (telenova online for learning Spanish) to get some variety into your practice. Your real goal is getting to the point where you can consume level-appropriate media to make learning less of a chore and more fun. If you're serious about making progress, find language partners and a teacher (or two) on italki.com. I can't emphasize how helpful this has been. Look for podcasts that are geared towards Spanish learning. Notes in Spanish is pretty good, but it's Castillian, so I avoided it for that reason. Españolistos isn't terrible if you can handle the husband's terrible Spanish accent (he's a gringo from Texas). Both of those would be in the intermediate phase. The intermediate phase is a LONG journey to get towards advanced, so that's where most folks fall off. You can make some tremendous early gains just by getting some basic vocab and travel phrases, and that kind of learning is pretty intoxicating; however, really learning a language is just a matter of discipline (practicing every day), and grinding it out. Duolingo has a good introductory podcast for folks that are earlier on in their learning. I recommend duolingo to learn basic vocab, but don't expect any miracles to happen regarding "fluency" with ANY app. Clozemaster is good once you're further along for drilling the mechanics of sentence structure into your brain via thousands of "reps" (yes, sometimes it really just feels like physical exercise for your brain). Also, get yourself a decent book that explains grammar, and a book will all the conjugations of the main verbs. Spanishdict.com is an amazing resource for contextual sentences and conjugations, but books are nice for laying in bed and reviewing stuff. "Easy Spanish - Step by Step" is a pretty good introduction to the basic language mechanics. I read it from cover to cover (and did the exercises), and it was pretty helpful. Barron's 501 Spanish Verbs seems like its the standard verb conjugation reference. SO much of learning the language is just knowing how to conjugate properly. The explanations of the tenses at the beginning of the Barron's book have been indispensable in my understanding of how each tense works. I wish you luck. Feel free to email me if you want any additional pointers (tinymountain [at] gmail).

wild_preference 8y ago

http://lite.cnn.io/es http://lite.cnn.io/es times out for me.

johnsonjo 8y ago
The previous link ended in ‘en’ not ‘es’. Edit: sorry for not checking the site. I now see the site links to the es ending url and that times out for me as well.