Learning Spanish

[Domus]

Frustrated by not being able to speak another language I have signed up for lessons at the local adult learning centre. At my advanced age I am struggling to retain it. Looking online there seems to be a few Language exchange sites where you can chat on Zoom and help each other. ie a Spaniard who is looking to improve their English who can help me improve my Spanish. I suppose it is a 21st century penpal scheme.
Has anyone used such a thing? I don't want to register and be bombarded by offers of marriage from a Phillipino bride etc.

 

[Brandane]

Buena suerte!

 

[ColinJ]

Ha ha!

I have never used such a service, but would also quite like to learn Spanish (and/or French and/or Danish).

You can get endless practice listening to Spanish (French, Danish...) by watching boxsets of foreign dramas on Netflix, Prime, iPlayer, All4 etc. and the subtitles are there for you to check your understanding. I suppose you could pause the playback and repeat what you had just heard.

Very handy if you want to learn how to say "We will kill one of the hostages every hour until you get us 10 million euros and a helicopter"!

 

[DCLane]

Hola. Como estas?

Mucha gente quire mejorar su Inglés.

My suggestion is to give it a try. And anyway, Filipino brides speak Filipino. You're more likely to get someone from Mexico or similar

P.S. My Spanish is atrocious. I should be able to speak it since my Father's fluent in Spanish and Catalan, but I never really learnt properly.

 

[figbat]

Have a try with Duolingo.

 

[vickster]

Have a try with Duolingo.

This

 

[Domus]

Filipino brides speak Filipino.

I assume it was a Spanish colony and so they spoke Spanish. Every day's a school day.

 

[AndyRM]

Seconded on the "watch stuff" front. But bear in mind that accents can vary wildly, same as English really.

I'm fluent in French, but in my final year of high school we had a Québécois PE teacher who I could barely understand.

 

[JtB]

When I married a Spanish señorita I couldn’t speak Spanish and she couldn’t speak English. So I learnt Spanish from her in Spanish like a child learns its first language. In my opinion, “total immersion” (though not necessarily marrying your teacher) is the only way to learn and become fluent in a second language.

 

[glasgowcyclist]

I've done the language exchange thing and it's an excellent tool. I didn't use any of the current platforms though, instead I found contacts through language forums or friends and arranged either a weekly café/restaurant meeting or online. We'd do 30 minutes in English then 30 minutes in Italian and it was very helpful.

If you want to watch Spanish films or TV series, you can find these on Netflix (I'm currently watching The Heist, in Spanish).
There's a browser plugin for Netflix which was first called Language Learning with Netflix but is now called Language Reactor that gives you much more control and more features than the standard subtitles within Netflix. With LR you can see both English and Spanish subtitles simultaneously, you can pause the film and click on a particular word in the subtitle to see a definition.

Another tool I came across recently is Youglish which will search all of Youtube for the phrase or word you want to hear in the target language. It returns video results with the word being used in context so you can hear how real native speakers say it and it does allow you to filter 'standard' Spanish from other Latin American pronunciations.

 

[markemark]

I got my Spanish friend a piece of paper with 'mucho' written on it. It means a lot to him.

 

[AndyRM]

I got my Spanish friend a piece of paper with 'mucho' written on it. It means a lot to him.

Your coat is over there...

 

[HobbesOnTour]

I can't really see the advantage of two learners bouncing off each other on different languages when there are so many better resources online. I'd see it as more useful at the "polishing" phase.

Spanishdict.com is very useful and incorporates videos.

Duolingo ( as much as I like it) for speaking practice is not great (and its Spanish is Latin American Spanish!). Although its forums are a great source of info.

YouTube and podcasts though, is where it's at.
In both, you can adjust the speed of playback, slowing speech down until you get it, then speeding back up.

I can't stress enough how speaking out loud really helps.

You don't say how long you've been at it or at what level you are?
It can be frustrating to be listening to something and not having a clue because it's more advanced than you are.
Surely the best people to practice with are your fellow students?
And your teacher should have some recommendations.

A thing I found very helpful was to use my phone's voice memo to record new vocabulary, maybe up to 20 words.
I could listen a few times then test myself. Then go back a few days later and try again. They were always there on the phone. A little and often can be a big help for retention.

Best of luck!

 

[DCLane]

When I married a Spanish señorita I couldn’t speak Spanish and she couldn’t speak English. So I learnt Spanish from her in Spanish like a child learns its first language. In my opinion, “total immersion” (though not necessarily marrying your teacher) is the only way to learn and become fluent in a second language.

Love at first sight then?

My brother-in-law and his wife couldn't speak to each other when they first met. He's not really learnt her language but she's fluent in his - which, given she's in his country is helpful.

 

[glasgowcyclist]

I can't really see the advantage of two learners bouncing off each other on different languages when there are so many better resources online.

It's but one tool in a vast arsenal. Different strokes and all that.