Wanting to learn Spanish in one year

Superdub2

Howdi all,

This is my situation.

I want to go and work in a spanish speaking country in one year. i am a chartered accountant on a training contract and the opportunity will arise in a year to 15 months.

As such i want to learn spanish so i can go and be able to function in spanish. i have never learnt any Spanish before. i just started doing online lessons with rosetta Stone and wanted to supplement this with classroom lessons. I live in Dublin and would prefer weekend lessons.

thanks for any help.

gzoladz

This may be a good place to start:
http://dublin.cervantes.es/en/default.shtm

I would rather get a good self study pack to start and complement it with online material, but I agree that everyone has his own preference.

browneire

Lookup a set of language tapes from Michel Thomas - found them quite good.

Superdub2

Cheers.

but does anybody know of any weekend classes?

Also how proficient in Spanish were you able to become without actually being immersed in a native spanish speaking community??

And how long did it take you aswell as how much did you do a week etc??

All help and advice appreciated!

dolliemix

google cervantes dublin. they do good classes

Neamhshuntasach

Well i picked up conversational español in less than a year by just hanging around with some Mexican Americans and studying a bit now and then. I eventually went and done 3 months lessons in Guatemala and done volunteering. In my opinion you can only go so far without lessons or being immersed in the language. But it's worth trying to study yourself because it gives a good base to start with.

draoicht

Im currently trying to learn Spanish myself and these are the methods Im using :

1 Michel Thomas courses
Very good introduction to the Spanish language. The course comprises Michel Thomas teaching two students Spanish with the idea that you participate as a third student.
There are two courses, Beginner which is 8 hours long and Advanced which is 5 hours long. Although in theory its just one course cut in two.
By the end of the advanced course you will have a good command of most of the tenses in Spanish although you will be lacking in vocabulary.

2 Assimil Spanish with Ease
This comes with a textbook and audio cds and comprises 109 short lessons that you do at the rate of one a day.
The lessons are dual text meaning that on the left page you have a dialogue in Spanish and on the opposite page a translation in English of the dialogue.
The cds contain the dialogues from all the lessons.
After the 50th lesson you start what they call the “Active Phase” where you return to the 1st lesson and try to translate from English to Spanish.

You could complete Michel Thomas in a couple of weeks and Assimil in about 6 months.
After I finish Assimil I will move on to native materials such as Newspapers,Radio, Movies etc.
I will also look at doing an “intercambio” i.e. conversation exchange, the libraries in The Ilac and Cabra organise them.

Im not a fan of organised classes, though you might be different, but have a look at why these guys think classes are bad for you.http://www.antimoon.com/other/englishclass.htm
BTW the antimoon site is great for anybody thinking of learning a foreign language.