[StillTryingForTheTop]

Currently, slowly, trying to learn Spanish and whilst the likes of Duolingo is bringing me along nicely, learning that "the peasant lived in the town with two dogs" is not really that interesting

I was wondering if there are any good Spanish websites out there that will be more interesting for me to try and read / develop my language skills

cheers

[jwi]

Blogs? They still have them in Spain. Eva Lopez blog is bilingual if that helps. Don't know about forums, don't think there are many (but I don't speak Castilian - so wtf do I know?).

I sometimes read desnivel.com

I learned enough French using Duolingo that I could skip the first four weeks of full time intensive classes when I started taking French classes in France— so Duolingo is not useless. (I spent approximately 1-2 hours a day for three months with Duolingo)

[SA Chris]

I picked up a smattering of French from duolingo too, on top of my already poor level. Worth doing as much of the talking and listening bits as you can.

I also  try and have subtitles on whenever watching any films, if it's possible, determined to get to a reasonable level eventually.

[cheque]

UK sí

[jwi]

Oh and another thing. And this is not to discourage you, quite the opposite. Most people who haven't mastered a foreign language vastly underestimate the time it takes to get to an intermediate level (i.e. self sufficient, or strong b1/weak b2 on the European common framework scale).

An average adult learner who speaks English as their native language (or any other Germanic language) should count on 450 h of deliberate study to learn spanish and just short of 600 h to learn French. For French that means an hour a day for two years of memorising verb-conjugations, vocabulary, and basic sentence structure. Listening to radio/reading books/watching movies help, but very little compared to deliberate study.

Many students believe themselves to be particularly slow, because they have fallen for some bullshit about how easy language learning is when you immerse yourself (the equivalent of fat people believing they can “get rock-hard abs in three weeks with this simple trick”). With a more realistic time-frame it's easier to keep plugging away.

Even my better half, who is fluent in four languages and speaks three of them at native level, needs quite some time to learn. (I got a bit disappointed when I discover that her main talent is a high boredom threshold and good work ethic... )

[SA Chris]

Cheers jwi. That's me fucked then

[jwi]

Why?

[tomtom]

Why?

He gave up after the 6th line

[jwi]

 

[fried]

14 years for me to go from zero to good B1/B2 in French. I'd disagree as an English teacher that structured study is better than listening to stuff though...depends how you learn. Duolingo is an excellent resource for beginners and it's free.

[cjsheps]

When I was learning Spanish (intermediate/advanced), I found Desnivel/Escalar to be a useful resource (desnivel.com). Lots of quality articles from the country's main magazine(s), and caters to all tastes.

If you're looking for good websites for learning in general, I'd strongly recommend the "italki" social network. They've changed the interface to focus on paid lessons, but it ultimately boils down to a free "matching" service. You can search for native Spanish (for example) speakers who are learning English, exchange Skype addresses, and then organise a 50:50 language exchange. I've really benefited from that contact with native speakers, and enjoyed being able to do something for someone else at the same time.

P.S. I have a few Spanish ebooks I can send you (ePub, MOBI, PDF). PM me if you're interested.

Good luck!

[cheque]

they have fallen for some bullshit about how easy language learning is when you immerse yourself (the equivalent of fat people believing they can “get rock-hard abs in three weeks with this simple trick”).

My mate went on an exchange trip to France for a summer when he was 12 or so and, by his description, could speak the language fluently while he was there. Despite the evidence that he failed GCSE French a few year staff later, could not remember a word of it and even his own anecdotes from the time supporting the idea that he was in fact speaking a weird form of Franglais that the other kids could understand and respond in due to their own grasp of English, he maintained the idea that he merely had to return to France and it would all come back. He also thought that he would be able to do this in other countries.

After a solo trip across mainland Europe which lasted a lot less time than he'd planned he quietly dropped the idea...

[mrjonathanr]

Hola StillTrying, wise words from jwi. If you find a really good Spanish site, do us all a favour and post it in this thread.

This has evolved out of Talo Martín's blog (guru of La Pedriza)
http://pedrizaboulder1864.blogspot.co.uk/

Try using http://lingro.com/
1 Copy the web address you want to read
2 go to lingro and paste it in and go
You'll view the web page through lingro. Hover cursor over a word you want translated- the translation will appear in a box. Quite a cool site, though you need to have some unerstanding of the language really.

I have a lot of teaching resources, I can send you stuff if you pm me and specify topic and level you're after.

PS if you haven't been to La Pedriza- do it. It's £40 each way on Ryanair.

[mrjonathanr]

Wordreference dictionary is excellent, SpanishDict probably easier to use for beginners though.

Below is a list of apps and resources for my lower sixth students, I edited out the material to cover a more appropriate level , there are some brilliant things to be found there. Thanks to my HoD who contributed a lot of it.  Obviously some is past beginner level, but may prove useful.

Do try http://www.languagesonline.org.uk/Hotpotatoes/Index.htm
- very good for beginners and up vocab and grammar
 
1. http://www.rtve.es News (noticias), Live TV (television en directo), Live radio (RNE en directo) and links to RNE poscasts, documentaries (“Somos Documentales”), weather, cinema, food… [mobile app available]
2. http://www.audiria.com/ Listening practice with transcripts and exercises.
10. http://www.elmundo.es and http://www.elpais.com Spanish newspapers online [mobile app available]
11. http://es.euronews.com/noticias/en-directo  TV Euronews in Spanish-with transcripts
12. http://oye.languageskills.co.uk/index.html Different activities for different levels,
14. http://quizlet.com/ Make your own vocabulary/ grammar flashcards and revision games and views the materials made by others such as these http://quizlet.com/Glenn_Smith
15. http://www.wordreference.com/  Bilingual online dictionary and forum (English-Spanish and Spanish-English) with links to other language support tools.
16. http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english-spanish Collins online dictionary, great to use for reading comprehension or translations.
17. http://lingro.com  Paste the link for the article you are reading in French and you can hover to find out what the key words mean in English.
18. http://mflteacher.com/   Click on Spanish, then on Gramática to find a page with excellent grammar notes, exercises and links to other sites to practise Spanish grammar
19. http://www.languagesresources.co.uk/ Great resources for different levels, including reading comprehension practice and worksheets.
20. http://servicios.ideal.es/videos/# Brilliant videos on a huge range of topics. Try summarising what they say, for practice.
21. http://www.20minutos.es/ Accessible reading and video clips. [mobile app available]
22. http://sacodeyl.inf.um.es/sacodeyl-search2/ Select Spanish Corpus from the drop-down menu to access a series of videos of Spaniards talking about different topics.
23. http://www.aulaintercultural.org/ Intercultural education, useful for A2 topics like immigration.
27. http://cnnespanol.cnn.com/   American and world news in Spanish.
28. http://www.bbc.co.uk/mundo/   BBC world news in Spanish [mobile app available]
 
MOBILE APPs for Spanish:
+tve (free)  App to view capture clips from National Spanish TV
Rtve.es móvil (free) App to watch all Spanish TV
El país (free) Leading Spanish newspaper
El Mundo (free) Leading Spanish newspaper
20minutos.es (free) Live news feed in Spanish
BBC Mundo (free) Live news feed in Spanish
WatchTV (free) App to access a wide range of foreign-speaking TV channels for free
Grabadora de radio español (free)  App to listen and record snippets from the Spanish radio-great for listen and transcribe practice.
Dítelo (£1.49) text-to-speech software (works for French and many other languages). Type what you want to say in Spanish and listen to it being spoken back to you. You can slow it down as needed.
CNN México (free) Live news feed from Mexico (local and world news)
Fotogramas (free) Cinema news (AS and A2) and trailers in Spanish
Duo linguo (free) Great to practise listening, speaking, reading and writing. All levels
Quizlet (free) Make your own flashcards and vocab/ grammar games; view materials made by others.
Popplet lite (free) Popplet (£2.99) Mind-mapping software, great for essay planning and revision.
iRAE (free) Dictionary from the Real Academia Española
Sinónimos (£0.69) Spanish thesaurus-great for essays
Wordreference (free) Bilingual dictionary with online forum to ask questions to native speakers
Conjugation Nation Spanish (£1.99) Fantastic app to devise your own verb practice quizzes
English-Spanish verb conjugator-word magic (£0.69) Useful verb reference
Las portadas (free) Look at the headlines from the Spanish-speaking press around the world

[SA Chris]

Why?

I don think I will ever be able to put aside 600 hours / an hour a day for 2 years.

[StillTryingForTheTop]

wow, thanks everyone, a lot to digest there

I am currently using the Duolingo app, and also listen to the Michel Thomas recordings in the car for about 1hr+ per day on the commute to / from work.

It seems to be going ok, only been at it 3 or 4 months now and languages have never been my strong point (a solid E in GCSE French at school) but I seem to be picking it up steadily

[jwi]

Why?

I don think I will ever be able to put aside 600 hours / an hour a day for 2 years.

Don't worry, it all adds up over time. How many hours did you do in school?

[mrjonathanr]

Depends on the school. To give a rough idea: ~ 400 taught hours in secondary school up to GCSE at age 16 supported by c~100 hours of homework, not including revision for exams and any extra effort on the part of the student.

Many schools will offer less, language learning is in something of a crisis in UK.

[jwi]

Interesting. In Sweden, English is taught at least 480 hours in primary school and between 100 and 300 hours in secondary school. Most people who enter university will have had around 700 hours of classes in English (not counting homework etc). A second modern language is taught 320 hours in primary school and about 100 hours in secondary school. Most Swedish university students will have good English, but at their second modern language they will be at survival/tourist-level.

[SA Chris]

Why?

I don think I will ever be able to put aside 600 hours / an hour a day for 2 years.

Don't worry, it all adds up over time. How many hours did you do in school?

Zero. I am fluent in Afrikaans though, and can count to 10 and sing Old Macdonald had a Farm in  (South) Sotho.

[sdm]

The way that foreign languages are taught in the UK is very poor. I left with an A in French at GCSE yet I was unable to hold even a basic conversation. I could muddle my way through ordering a meal at a restaurant but that was about it. I was taught endless verb tables and other useless information but I could neither speak nor write French.

I learnt more in a few weeks of minimal work on Duolingo and Rocket French than I did in 7 years at school.

[jwi]

Even French school children have to memorise tables of verb conjugations...

[mrjonathanr]

The way that foreign languages are taught in the UK is very poor. I left with an A in French at GCSE yet I was unable to hold even a basic conversation.

When did you do your GCSE sdm? Did you do controlled assessments in speaking and writing by any chance? That system was unfit for purpose.

[CrimpyMcCrimpface]

I wouldn't bother with DuoLingo, Roseta Stone, BBC Bitesize, or any course which encourages you to learn Spanish by means of learning phrases. The issue with this method is you never understand the mechanics of the language, so how can you make it your own? I learnt Spanish using Michelle Thomas method and can't recommend it enough. You can find his CD's in most libraries, copy them, listen to them in the car. At first you might find it slow because he's not telling you how to buy tomatoes in the market but you soon get to a level where you can structure sentences and hold basic conversation. He barely teaches nouns, its all verbs, which if you think about it, constitutes the largest part of communication.
In addition to those tapes I spent a lot of time listening to Spanish music and reading posts on Wordreference forums.

Source : After learning by his method I lived in Mexico for two years, worked in an entirely Spanish speaking role, and spent all my time with my ex's family, who spoke no English. I worked as a translator for while too.

[sdm]

The way that foreign languages are taught in the UK is very poor. I left with an A in French at GCSE yet I was unable to hold even a basic conversation.

When did you do your GCSE sdm? Did you do controlled assessments in speaking and writing by any chance? That system was unfit for purpose.

2003. For listening, we had a small number of pre-scripted conversations to learn. People memorised the responses needed for the scripts rather than understanding anything. Had the examiner gone even a tiny bit off script, we would have all been completely lost. I can't remember the writing assessment.

[jwi]

I wouldn't bother with DuoLingo, Roseta Stone, BBC Bitesize, or any course which encourages you to learn Spanish by means of learning phrases.

Duolingo is not centered around learning set phrases. It's just a fancy gaming interface to flash cards for memorising vocabulary, verb conjugations and some basic sentence structure.

[StillTryingForTheTop]

I learnt Spanish using Michelle Thomas method and can't recommend it enough

Yes, I have a few of those to listen in the car, as you say Duolingo doesn't explain structure but I am hoping the combination of the two methods will support each other

[Evil]

2003. For listening, we had a small number of pre-scripted conversations to learn. People memorised the responses needed for the scripts rather than understanding anything. Had the examiner gone even a tiny bit off script, we would have all been completely lost. I can't remember the writing assessment.

That sounds like my A* GCSE French from 1999, which was basically how good are you at memorising a script (speaking) and how quickly can you use a dictionary (reading, writing and listening). I guess I am good at all those things, but terrible at actually speaking French.

I have been trying to learn Spanish over the last few years, but it's very slow going (probably because I struggle to find time for deliberate practice).

[kelvin]

I'm finding the learning of Spanish perhaps the hardest thing I've ever tried to learn.
I have the M Thomas lessons and they got me speaking enough to communicate what I needed to say but seemed useless at helping me to hear Spanish. Duolingo gave me some words but I found the app frustrating, often marking me wrong for the right answer and making you go over stuff that seemed hardly relevent to progress.
So a week or so ago I stumped up for babbel - so far so good. Just working my way through the beginner courses and finding I have huge holes in my understanding.
If I'm honest, I've not put the hours in when I've been in Spain for months at a time climbing, added to the fact of spending time with too many non Spanish climbers who by necessity are using English to communicate and often me as a teacher. I was pretty lucky in Cornudella to make friends with many of the locals (I'm off to Font for a month in Nov with Catalan boulderers) but spending time with them just wrecks any Spanish learning I've managed. Catalan is too similar and I did French for five years at school, so I get immensely confused.

Like I say, one of the hardest things I've ever tried to do

[tomtom]

There are two ways of learning languages (as I understand) and different people learn in different ways.

I have friends who speak many languages - who start by understanding the mechanics and structure of the language - and those who learn mostly by imitation and repetition.

Similar to learning a musical instrument in a logical - follow the instructions way, or just copying tunes.

I’m shit at both

[kelvin]

I hear ya Tom - I've frustratingly not worked out which I am.

I should perhaps clarify my earlier post.  It's the learning of Spanish that seems to be my issue, not the Spanish itself. I've dreamt in Spanish whilst over there and automatically respond in Spanish to the often used phrases. I've thought in Spanish, which was a really odd feeling first time and when stopped by the police have automatically answered in Spanish and Catalan to English questioning.
The problem I have is non of the way of learning I've tried seem to fit me 

[mrjonathanr]

That's interesting sdm, controlled assessment came in 2009 but your scripted oral was pretty much in that style ie parrot-learned pseudo-spontaneous conversation. Gaining independence is a lot harder than learning a script (which is why schools do it) but the parrot approach can be a demoralising experience for pupils.

[Muenchener]

There are two ways of learning languages (as I understand) and different people learn in different ways.

I have friends who speak many languages - who start by understanding the mechanics and structure of the language - and those who learn mostly by imitation and repetition.

Similar to learning a musical instrument in a logical - follow the instructions way, or just copying tunes.

I’m shit at both

Speaking as someone who has used both methods, I can say that in my case it was age/stage of life related.

I got an A in O-level German at school (and Latin, and A-level French) by, basically, sitting down every evening and rote learning a page of the grammar book and/or the vocabulary book.

Moved to Munich 20-odd years later, relatively spontaneously for a freelance contract, wasn't part of a grand plan at the time, and promptly sat down in the evening in my hotel room and tried to do the same again. Found that I simply couldn't do it any more. At 15 to 18 years of age my brain was a highly trained rote learning machine, at 38 I was using it for other more important things and that particular skill had atrophied. So then I applied the talking to people in bars method, which worked. As an adult learner one can never become bilingual, but I'm fully fluent for all everyday intents & purposes.

(For A-level French we also had to read heaps of 17th century literature - and boy were they behind the curve in those days compared to Shakespeare. Molière - utter crap)

[mrjonathanr]

Interesting points Muenchener. You may not have quite seen all there was to Molière to be fair.

[jwi]

...or having been forced to read Shakespeare's sonnets.