Painless Spanish

If learning Spanish language were easy, everyone would be speaking it, right? Well, half a billion people in the world are fluent in Spanish, so it cannot be that hard. The trick is to find a good book, a good system and try to have some fun.

Good Spanish language book

There is a range of books designed to help you learn Spanish. Some of them focus on the vocabulary, others on the grammar, but all the good ones have one feature in common: they have a CD or a DVD that comes with them. For English speakers, pronouncing Spanish language words can be a challenge and the best way to learn each new word is to hear how it is spoken by a native. Of course, your DVD might be spoken by a Spaniard or by a Mexican, so your learning will be slightly biased.

Another popular and useful feature of a good Spanish language tutorial is pictures. Combined with a spoken word from the DVD, pictures will imprint the new word in our mind much better than just written word. So, don’t be shy to look for a Spanish language book with fun and colorful pictures, they are not for kids only. Our mind works in such a way: the more senses we use when learning, the better our memory absorbs new words.

Learn to speak Spanish through news and movies

Once you develop sufficient vocabulary, try to use your knowledge to find out what is happening in the Spanish-speaking world. There is a number of Spanish language radio stations to help you check the football games, new songs by Ricky Martin or watch some telenovelas on TV. Look for movies in English with Spanish subtitles, or Spanish movies with English subtitles, it is a perfect way to learn whole phrases, some of them very useful in everyday life. Learning Spanish language through contemporary context would bring the language to life for you and you will develop more interest in building your vocabulary in order to understand more.

People who like to read novels might get tempted to read some classics, such as books by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Leave that for the time when your Spanish language is much more advanced. Spanish language writers tend to write in a very ornate way, using complicated phrases and syntax and are very difficult to read in their original form. You might enjoy reading an English language version together with its Spanish original, sentence by sentence, to see how different sentences are formed in the two languages.

Go to the source

Once you are comfortable with your Spanish vocabulary and grammar, try to spend some time in a Spanish speaking country. Immerse yourself in the culture and the way of life. Learn a bit of the slang and localisms not available in the books. Learn the recipes of your favorite dishes, flirt with the locals and chat with the old people sitting in front of their houses watching the world pass by. For that is the reason you started to learn Spanish, after all.