Learning Spanish in Barcelona

jcf

Hi there,

Im living in Barcelona have been here for 2 months and learning the
language is going really slow, its so frustrating i was in Valencia for a month
before doing a spanish course and so thats 3 months in total
and still i can just say basic sentences.

And because my job here is in English that doesn't help either ,
I had illusions of when i came here my spanish would be really good
after 3 months but that hasn't happened (I came as a beginner)
and now my girlfriend has started bitching to me about it.

How come Spanish people come to Ireland and they are fluent in a month ?

Anyone else who came to Spain (or another country) and learnt the lang,
quickly as a beginner ?

Any tips ? ive been going to classes and my understanding and reading
has improved greatly, it's just keeping up in conversations because it takes
my mind a while to translate and by the time it has another 5 things have been said ! which of course I haven't heard! .

rugbug86

try getting a phrasebook and carry it around. thats what i did when i spent the summer in spain... came home understanding a bit and make myself understood in shops and on buses and trains and stuff.

good luck!

Magic Monkey

Have a look here for advice and tips. Basically, the key lies in practising every day. Talk to yourself in the language. Talk to others. Carry around flash cards. There's no magic bullet. Some methods work better than others. That site will provide some insight into good study methods.

The quickest I've heard of someone learning English over here is 10 months. Not a sausage of it beforehand, but they were already bi-lingual (Catalan, Spanish), so that may have helped in acquiring it somewhat. And don't worry, speaking and listening is always going to be the most difficult aspect of fluency to master, as you can't control the speed, unlike when reading a book. Out of curiosity, what is your job, that doesn't require Spanish?

jcf

Working in IT, Tech support for a company in Britain,
so they wanted Native English speakers.

jcf

oh and thanks for the link btw !

MarceFX

Hey there!
Im a spanish guy who totally understand u!I dont really agree with the thing about "spanish ppl come to ireland and they're fluent in a month", no way!!Dont rush yourself, it takes a while...im also learning english,it's not easy either :P
When i started to learn it, i got surrounded by english native speakers,that's the best way at first, try to watch spanish tv, doesnt matter whether u can understand some or not,you will...also,have "intercambios",that's really a good way to speak spanish,learn it and meet ppl to have fun with!
At last, im improving a lot by means of "chatting" :P using msn messenger or similar chat software,it keeps your mind thinking in the other language you're learning,if u wanna try,just add me: saviabruta@hotmail.com
Greetingz!

Augustino

The best place to learn spanish, is Mexico

I started as a beginner at college and was expected to reach the level of post A Level students after 8 months of 3 hours a week of classes. That was tough but with the pressure, most people learned Spanish really fast. You could try setting goals, like making sure you know all the tenses, are learning vocabulary related to certain topics each week, etc.

The main thing is being around Spanish speakers and using it whenever possible. I'm currently studying in Spain and it's all too easy to end up hanging around with only English speaking people. I swore I wouldn't do it, but it's almost impossible not to. I at least have 3 Spanish flatmates and an 'intercambio'. Who are you living with? If it's English speakers, change flat. You will learn nothing if you are working AND living with them. You need the daily contact with natives.

Do you watch much TV? I realise Spanish TV is dire but it does help with comprehension and vocabulary. You could pick a series to follow or a news programme to watch and make sure to see it every day. You said your problem is comprehension so this should make a big difference. I know loads of people at college who still can't follow a real conversation after 2 years of classes, because it's too fast. I never had that problem because I watched Spanish TV from the beginning. You could try language CDs as well and listen to them on your way to work, or the radio.

Where is your girlfriend from? Is she Irish? Explain that it takes a long time to learn a language and everyone is different. Some people learn bit by bit, others are rubbish for ages and suddenly cotton on after a year or so. There is no reason to be bitching at you after 3 months, especially if you were a complete beginner. Spanish really isn't as easy as people think, look at the number of Brits in Spain who never managed to learn any.

Judean Reg

I spent a number of years living and working in Portugal. Hadn't a word of Portuguese when I went out there but with time I got to a point where I could hold down a conversation. My vocab is still not great but I get by. I mainly used TV (as suggested above) to learn and just by talking to people and trying to speak to them. I had some very funny moments along the way I can tell you. One thing which was suggested and I found it really worked was to get little yellow post-its and stick them on everything in my appartment with the Portuguese word for the item written on it. Then every time I used that item I would attempt to say the word. i.e I put a sticker on my fridge with the word "refrigerador" on it, then every time I went to the fridge I would repeat the word. It certainly helped me anyway.

My advice, keep at it, it'll come eventually and when it does it makes life so much better/easier!

eyerer

Augustino wrote:

The best place to learn spanish, is Mexico

why is that then?



roughly, how much do you need to know before trying to watch/read spanish media?

Dun

When I went out to Spain I already had five years of secondary school Spanish and two years of University-level, but there was a guy out there who went out three months before I did, and by the time I arrived there, he could speak Spanish way better than me (mind you it didn't help that I was nine months out of practice by then). One of his techniques was to take a short-ish article from the paper everyday. He would then look through it and underline words from each sentence that he didn't understand, not all of them, he just judged whether or not he thought they looked important to the meaning. He then looked them up, and wrote them down in his notebook. He never re-read his notebook, it was more-or-less the writing-down that helped it stick. At the end of the day, the lesson is - you just need to get an idea of the meaning of what's being said, not every single word. And don't get hung up on speaking to people in Spanish, or concentrate on getting every single word right.
When you hear foreigners speaking English, I think like most people you'd probably prefer to hear them blunder along at a decent speed (like "I study learning English since one year with the university" that I heard recently) rather than hear them slowly drag out a perfectly-formed, gramatically correct sentence. So don't be afraid to do likewise in Spanish!