The explanations of the tenses at the beginning of the Barron's book have been indispensable in my understanding of how each tense works. SO much of learning the language is just knowing how to conjugate properly. I read it from cover to cover (and did the exercises), and it was pretty helpful.īarron's 501 Spanish Verbs seems like its the standard verb conjugation reference. "Easy Spanish - Step by Step" is a pretty good introduction to the basic language mechanics. is an amazing resource for contextual sentences and conjugations, but books are nice for laying in bed and reviewing stuff. I recommend duolingo to learn basic vocab, but don't expect any miracles to happen regarding "fluency" with ANY app.Ĭlozemaster 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).Īlso, get yourself a decent book that explains grammar, and a book will all the conjugations of the main verbs. 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.ĭuolingo has a good introductory podcast for folks that are earlier on in their learning. The intermediate phase is a LONG journey to get towards advanced, so that's where most folks fall off. Españolistos isn't terrible if you can handle the husband's terrible Spanish accent (he's a gringo from Texas).īoth of those would be in the intermediate phase. Notes in Spanish is pretty good, but it's Castillian, so I avoided it for that reason. Look for podcasts that are geared towards Spanish learning. I can't emphasize how helpful this has been. If you're serious about making progress, find language partners and a teacher (or two) on. 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. I'd supplement Pimsleur with something like Destinos (telenova online for learning Spanish) to get some variety into your practice. 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. They'll familiarize you with basic travel phrases and help you to start getting a feel for the mechanics of the language. I highly recommend Anki, but you can obviously use whatever tool fits our needs although spaced repetition is something I'd definitely look for.įor the early stages, I'd recommend Pimsleur. Follow the advice about building core vocab to get a baseline set of words under your belt. You can do a "send to kindle" from your browser on any Radio Ambulante transcript on their website, and it renders perfectly for offline reading. Lastly, for anyone else learning Spanish, I'd recommend News in Slow Spanish for lower intermediate level, and then I'd suggest Radio Ambulante (with the transcripts) for upper intermediate/advanced level. This has really helped boost my vocabulary. Lastly, you can dump the words from your Kindle into an Anki deck or other flashcard program for independent study. Otherwise, things get pretty cumbersome (translating too much stuff makes you lose context). I think a good target is text where you already know about 90% or more of the words. From there, you can install an English $TARGET_LANG dictionary, and just touch the words that you don't know for instant translations. One thing I'd recommend for anyone hoping to make reading a part of their studies would be to get a kindle with a touch screen (paperwhite or otherwise). As an upper-intermediate Spanish student/speaker, I spend about 1/3 of my language study time reading Spanish books, transcripts, blogs, etc, so this seems like a nice tool.
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