How long to pick up a language from scratch

mise_me_fein_V2

I'm thinking of going to Spain, Portugal or South America next year for a year or so and I'm wondering how long would it take for me to learn the language from scratch.

I'm 23. I know age makes a difference.

BaZmO*

How long is a piece of string?

It would depend on how much effort you put into it.

Gandhi

Spanish is a quite easy language to pick up. More important would be learning to be patient, and make yourself understood without speaking the language (hand signals etc). For example, always have your address written on a piece of paper so you can just hand it to a taxi driver.

Mediterranean / South American people are constantly waving their hands around when they talk so you will figure out what they mean pretty easily. I would just take a basic course, or even one of those tapes and head over to the country.

You will probably learn more in the first week of living through the language than you would have in years of school or college. Baptism of fire, man!!! (Baptismo del Fuego in Spanish - there is your first lesson!!!)

p.pete

Also try asking the same question in the Spanish languages forum.
For CD learning courses look up Michel Thomas, he's quite good though I couldn't recomend him for Spanish - possibly check the reviews he gets on amazon.

Just pick up a basic book on verbs and how to conjugate them and a dictionary
Spanish grammar seems very easy as does the language as a whole


I lived in spain for a year with my mother when I was 14 and I had a look at some BBC(I think it was them?) learning spanish book. Just learned absolute basics and got by just fine. If you want to learn more than that, you'll pick it up from being there. I was the only one of the pair of us that had any spanish so any communicating to ask stuff was left up to me if they didnt speak any english >.<

Magic Monkey

mise_me_fein_V2 wrote:

I'm thinking of going to Spain, Portugal or South America next year for a year or so and I'm wondering how long would it take for me to learn the language from scratch.

I'm 23. I know age makes a difference.

You could get a lot done starting now, and learn even more/polish it off during your immersion. How far you'll get in a year depends on how much time you have to study, your dedication to it, and learning materials. At a minimum, I would recommend:

- Pimsleur Spanish (should be available from your local library; uses native latin american speakers)
- Grammar book
- Dictionary
- Vocabulary book

You could go through the above in about 3 months, then progress to workbooks, readers, language exchanges, etc. BTW, even though they're very similar, Portugese is spoken in Portugal. And don't worry about the age thing, I started a year older than you