How long would it take to learn Spanish?

LadyJ · 03-09-2009 09:15PM #1

I did French and German when I was at school and was pretty good at them but moreso at writing them, rather than speaking them. I never found it hard to learn or understand grammar or anything and I was quite good at translating things if they were written down. I was far from fluent in either by the end but I knew enough to do well at my exams etc. Maybe I just found the speaking part quite hard because I didn't do it enough though.....

Recently I've decided to try my hand at Spanish because it would be a handy language to know and I can see myself spending more time in Spanish speaking countries rather than French or German ones.

I really want to speak a second language fluently and am considering living in Spain for a few months at some point for work experience and to see if I can become fluent and have something impressive on my CV.

I'm just wondering how long it would take me to learn enough Spanish to be comfortable enough to get by over there. Is it a difficult language? How much would I need to know? I'm not sure if I'm the kind of person who would learn a language by living in another country but everyone I've spoken to who's done it says that I would definitely pick it up from living there.

Any answers people can give me will be very much appreciated!
Grassy ass! :pac:

R.D. aka MR.D · 04-09-2009 12:15AM

Hi!

I'm currently learning spanish because i'm doing exactly what you want to do! except i'm going to S.A!

I did german at school and it's COMPLETELY different but my OH who did french seems to find it easier so maybe they are more similar.

I'd recommend getting some structured lessons, i can't afford them so am trying to do it myself. motivation is my problem. Also pronuciation and feedback are missing.

i have had friends who moved to Spain and went over with a basic level and learned while there. i think if you force yourself to get out and chat even if your wrong it'll improve.

In general its quiet easy in the sense of verbs and stuff.

Definitly go for it!

I'll know more in about 2 months!!

Euroland · 05-09-2009 01:34AM

The best way to study any foreign language is by means of living in a country where that language is widely spoken. I'd studied Spanish for a few months while living in Argentina, and then just was using it there at work and in my daily life. Now, almost 10 years since I left Argentina, I still speak reasonably fluent Spanish. IMHO, Spanish is not a very difficult language to learn.

draoicht · 05-09-2009 04:52PM

I have read that to attain a reasonable level in Spanish takes about 800 hours, so to answer your question “How long?” would depend on how dedicated you are and how many hours you are willing to put in on a weekly basis.

But as you are talking about going to a Spanish speaking country, you would be spending your time immersed in the language and the hours would rack up very fast.

My advice would be to cover the basics of grammar and syntax, I highly recommend the Michel Thomas courses for this, and then try to get a vocabulary of approx. 1000 words.

You wouldn’t be fluent at this level but you would know enough to get by and once you’re in Spain and immersed in the language, it shouldn’t take too long to reach fluency.

Im using Assimil’s "Spanish With Ease" and Assimil say that this course will give me a vocabulary of 2500 words and take me to B2 on The CEFR scale http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Reference_for_Languages
Assimil takes about 6 months to complete.

greendom · 05-09-2009 04:58PM

The fact that you already have a decent level of French will be a great leg up for Spanish. Words and grammar are very similar and overall I found Spanish easier to learn than French ( I too learnt French first).

pronunciation is quite different though so that will take some getting used to.

BraziliaNZ · 15-09-2009 02:26PM

Pimsleur is awesome, kind of similar method to Michel Thomas but a lot more comprehensive, all 4 units would consist of 50 hours of lessons and you'll be able to speak it confidently, to a certain extent, but it gives you great building blocks. I have finished this and am starting in Cervantes institute next month for 6 hours a week, i hope that gets me somewhere.

forbairt · 15-09-2009 02:32PM

I'm actually in Madrid at the moment ... and I don't speak spanish ... I'm picking up bits and pieces as I go ... I had originally planned to do a 20 hour / week course which is available for 12 weeks starting the first and 3rd monday of the month ... costs about 1500 quid ... which to be honest I think is quite cheap .. considering thats 12 x 20 = 240 hours spanish .. there is another one that includes the culture aspects as well...

I've also been recommended this one by two people who after it could hold a conversation in spanish ... again it'll boil down to how much time you spend yourself and how much you interact as well.

At the moment I just don't have the time for this though as I'm too busy with work .. but I'm hopefully looking into it end of october

If you want any details I'll track them down and let you know .. or if you've any interest in moving to madrid I can give you some pointers (though I'm only here 3 weeks)

edit: I might add ... I find the bits of the language quite easy ... my spoken french would be ok given the amount of french friends I've got (but never really lived in france any length of time)

SIX PACK · 12-10-2009 09:03PM

Move to a spanish speaking country ... that way you wont have a choice but to start learning & speaking it to survive:)...

juanjo · 20-10-2009 10:18AM

...and don't mingle with english speaking pple when you go there, that's the worst you can do if you really wanna learn.

Forbairt, go to Alcala de henares and look for a bar called El tapon, close to the bus station and not far from the train either, The biggest tapas you'll ever see around madrid... and since they're REAL tapas... they're for free!

http://11870.com/pro/el-tapon/map

mise_me_fein · 22-10-2009 01:01AM

BraziliaNZ wrote: »

Pimsleur is awesome, kind of similar method to Michel Thomas but a lot more comprehensive, all 4 units would consist of 50 hours of lessons and you'll be able to speak it confidently, to a certain extent, but it gives you great building blocks. I have finished this and am starting in Cervantes institute next month for 6 hours a week, i hope that gets me somewhere.

Pimsleur is not awesome...it's slow boring and well doesn't explain well and not similar to MT at all.

MT method is good....get that and then get Learning Spanish like Crazy.

Just download the torrents for free. I'm living in Madrid now. I speak Spanish ok...started on those two and before crappy pimsleur.

The key is to speak and later to read and pick up vocab. Keep reading after the first 3 months of speaking.

You have to live with people that speak spanish if you live here. not worth it otherwise

draoicht · 22-10-2009 07:14AM

mise_me_fein wrote: »

Pimsleur is not awesome...it's slow boring and well doesn't explain well and not similar to MT at all.

Pimsleur, in my opinion, is both good and bad.

It does some things great, for instance, your pronunciation will be great after it and for what it teaches, you will know the material inside and out.

But the bad far outweighs the good, it only teaches a vocabulary of about 500 words, it doesn’t teach all the grammatical aspects of Spanish and for the time it takes to complete, about 3 months, you don’t get a great return on the time spent doing it.
Also, Pimsleur doesn’t have transcripts, so you are left to guess how words are spelled and cannot read or write in Spanish.

For me, its biggest downfall was how boring it is, I completed Level 1 and just couldn’t face another 2 months of it.

Learning Spanish to a native level requires using native materials; books, newspapers, films, radio and T.V., websites in Spanish.

A beginners course should set you up to start using these resources and I don’t think Pimsleur does this at all.

At the end of the Michel Thomas course, he suggests that you start reading and with the aid of a dictionary this is certainly possible.
Whereas with Pimsleur, I don’t think this is possible and you would still need to complete another beginners course to plug the gaps that Pimsleur left.

Duckjob · 22-10-2009 07:33AM

I did Pimsleur first and found it gave me a great grounding. I got into the habit of sticking on a unit or two whenever I was in the car. I was a bit of a slog, but it brought me to a stage when I found I was able to express what I wanted to say in most situations.

I also did Michel Thomas and found it more interesting to follow and also picked up a good bit that Pimsleur did not cover, particularly verb constructions.

Currently working my way through Learning Spanish Like Crazy. I'm nearly though Level 1 Part 1 and found most of it was well below my level gotten from Pimsleur and MT. I've hit the point now where I'm learning again, so it's all good

Eurorunner · 24-10-2009 08:03AM

I think they are all a slog! Not the fastest of learners so I think I will keep chipping away at it by using ALL of them.

Have used ..

Michel Thomas
now using Pimsleur
Have stuck 'learn spanish like crazy' on torrent download (

) following mise_me_fein's recommendation above.

Are there any others??
I spend a minimum 6 hours/week commuting - so theres a great opportunity to use these then. Also have spanish tv at home (Digital + channels with subtitles are great) and speak with a native spanish speaker on skype 3 times a week.
Progress has been slow - but getting there all the same..

Duckjob · 24-10-2009 08:21AM

btw

You can watch spanish TV stations online at www.wwitv.com . Useful for helping to immerse yourself in conversational spanish

mise_me_fein · 24-10-2009 02:22PM

Listen to Spanish music. If you have an ipod you can put the english and spanish lyrics in the notes section of the ipod and read them while you listen.

Listen to people like Shakira, Alejandro Sanz, Juanes and Calle 13.

I know some of the songs aren't great but if it's about learning they are useful and you hear different accents.

There's also a BBC Podcast for 15 minutes in spanish every day and they have reporters from Argentina, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Spain so you can hear accents here too. This is tough though.

draoicht · 24-10-2009 03:05PM

Eurorunner wrote: »

Are there any others??

F.S.I. (Foreign Services Institute)
F.S.I. courses were created by the American government in the 1960s to teach diplomats foreign languages.
Huge courses with lots of drills if that’s what your into.

Available here:http://www.fsi-language-courses.org/Content.php?page=Spanish

The Spanish basic course isn’t complete at the above link but if you look online for “Platiquemos”, this is the whole of the basic course re-recorded in places and rebranded.

Destinos
52 episode tv series, to learn Spanish, each episode 30 mins.,
The accompanying books and cds are very expensive but you could just watch the videos on their own.
Its based around a telenovela, a Spanish soap opera.

You can watch online here http://www.learner.org/resources/series75.html

Or you can use a downloader to get the episodes:
Episode 1 is mms://media.scctv.net/annenberg/Destinos_01.wmv
Change 01 to 02 for the second episode and so on.

They would be worth putting on an Ipod and watching on your commute.

Assimil: Spanish With Ease
Book based course with audio CDs.
This is what I’m using myself, it has short lessons that take between 15 to 30 minutes and are done at a rate of 1 a day.
You do the lessons twice, once passively and then later on you go back and do them actively.
Takes about 6 months to complete.
The audio can be found online so you would just need to get the book.
Book: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Spanish-Ease-Lehrbuch-Assimil-Method/dp/2700501314/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1256395700&sr=8-1

eamon234 · 24-10-2009 03:14PM

mise_me_fein wrote: »

Listen to Spanish music. If you have an ipod you can put the english and spanish lyrics in the notes section of the ipod and read them while you listen.

Listen to people like Shakira, Alejandro Sanz, Juanes and Calle 13.

I know some of the songs aren't great but if it's about learning they are useful and you hear different accents.

There's also a BBC Podcast for 15 minutes in spanish every day and they have reporters from Argentina, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Spain so you can hear accents here too. This is tough though.

I recommend Bebe - excellent music too!

Wallko · 24-10-2009 09:14PM

Hey, could someone PM the torrent site mentioned already, much appreciated!

oscarBravo · 25-10-2009 09:56AM

Wallko wrote: »

Hey, could someone PM the torrent site mentioned already, much appreciated!

Or you could, y'know, pay for the commercial product you're looking for.

The thread is about learning Spanish, not about breaking the law. No more discussion of torrents, please. If anyone has a problem with that, PM me - don't discuss it here.

Gone West · 26-12-2009 11:10PM

In my experience it takes around 9 months to a year of total immersion to get a decent fluency in Spanish.
Don't hang around or communicate with gringos or other extranjeros!

30-12-2009 12:03AM

Living with Spanish people is essential. That's when you hear and use your Spanish, talking about your day, asking your flatmates where to go out, being made to watch telenovelas and gossip shows and having to ask who on earth the 'celebrities' are

It's essential because you use a lot less Spanish than you realise in your day to day life. Unless you're working with Spaniards, it's just the same old 'hola, quiero X y X, gracias, hasta luego' at the supermarket, on the bus, in the post office. Just make sure your Spanish flatmates have absolutely no interest in learning English so they won't try to practise it with you.

How long would it take to learn Spanish?

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