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Teach Yourself Spanish?

By Jorge Chavez

Republish: EasyPublish™
Published: 24Oct2009
Word count: 520
Viewed: 326 time(s)

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Many people dream of being able to speak another language someday. Too few of them ever really realize their dreams and become fluent. Why is that?

The main reasons for the hesitancy that keeps them monolingual are: 1. Lack of an opportunity to learn and 2. Self-consciousness or fear of making mistakes and looking foolish. These are real problems, but both can be overcome.

The biggest factor in "lack of opportunity" is usually time. People say, "I would really like to learn to speak Spanish, but I don't have the time. Usually they are thinking of the traditional classroom way of learning languages that they experienced in high school. You know how that works. At a certain time you go to a certain place and sit there for an hour while a teacher lectures you on some aspect of the language.

But that is the OLD way! Now it's very different. You can teach yourself Spanish! How? You go online, download a Spanish-learning course to your hard disk, then offload the audio lessons to your iPod or other portable audio device. You then practice your lessons any time, anywhere you want to! You are in complete control of the time and place.

Many learn a language while commuting, driving long distances, exercising, at night, on weekends, etc. Suddenly the time opportunity to learn a language opens up to you and becomes MUCH less restrictive and MUCH less demanding. Under these circumstances you will likely find that you DO have the time!

And a good course will have excellent native Spanish speakers interacting with you, so that you learn it right, without an accent, the first time. Remember that your accent will be no better than that of your teachers.

Overcoming the self-consciousness and concern about making mistakes is a mental hurdle to clear. EVERYONE makes mistakes with a new language. We all did, as children, while we were learning English. Just relax and don't worry about it. Laugh at your own mistakes and try to do better. People will understand! Don't sweat it!

If the person with whom you are speaking doesn't speak English, they will respect you and appreciate the fact that you are trying to learn their language. If they speak both Spanish and English, they will have gone through the same learning process that you are trying. They will be sympathetic and helpful.

The important thing when you teach yourself Spanish is to reach out and communicate. If you are not sure how to correctly say what you want to convey, take a stab at it, point, draw pictures, whatever, but communicate! Ask "Como se dice...(How do you say...)" and learn from the experience. As you try to communicate, you will rapidly get better at it. You learn by USING the new language. Through use, especially in a real-life situation, the words stick in your mind much better than they ever will in a classroom.

So that's how you overcome the two principal hurdles to learning conversational Spanish, how you can teach yourself Spanish. Now that you know that, you can go ahead and get started learning! :-)

Jorge Chavez is a writer and businessman. He grew up with English and began to learn Spanish only after he was 30. Now he has three groups of friends, family and clients: one that only speaks Spanish, one that only speaks English and a third that, like him, speaks both Spanish and English. Click on this link for the best way to teach yourself Spanish. For the best way to learn Spanish fast and easy, visit his Learn Conversational Spanish website.

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