This post is about learning to speak a language using Spanish as an example.
I’m convinced that I did quite well learning German (my mother tongue) while I was not even attending school. I then completely screwed up with English as a foreign language and ended up as a I-can-do-grammar-but-cannot-understand-you guy after more than 10 years of education (to be honest, most others did not better as well). So I decided to look for a better method when learning another languages – this time I started with Spanish. Eventually I decided to try the as my alternative way of learning – in combination of total immersion (see these ). Mainly I liked the approach being a lot closer to how I learned my mother tongue – speaking and understanding comes first, grammar second. Eventually I found a great opportunity to combine my understanding of learning languages and a language school and took some time off to attend an intensive course at in Boquete, Panama. Below are listed a few resources – some based on the Pimsleur Method, others are some great podcasts to improveunderstanding of Spanish in daily life.
Best for absolute beginners. The Pimsleur Method from the guy who invented it. Expect to learn a few new words every lesson. These words and phrases are nicely brought up again a few lessons later for reminder ().
Similar to the Pimsleur method, but a lot more natural speaking. Also it’s not so topic-oriented, but more grammar-oriented. I’d go for that as a nice addition for the Pimsleur, but it also works for total beginners when starting at the first level – definitely a good joice as well ().
The guys from Notes in Spanish have some nice free audio podcasts. Lessons of around 10mins each. Available for beginners, intermediates and advanced speakers ().