www.CostaRicaTicas.com

I have been listening and really trying to learn Spanish with the Pimsler set.
But I am just having a tough time retaining the shit.

Plus the lessons are sometimes tough to follow as they advance.

Has anyone had success with another form of lessons.

I really want to learm but the Pimsler set is killin me.

I found 1-34 great then I felt lost

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Thank you for supporting CRT!

I am on lesson 6 of Pimmsleur Spanish 2 and I am the opposite. I find it getting easier. As it is stated many times on this board, YMMV.

One of the tricks I have learned is to take a break for a day or two then go back to the lessons. You will be surprised at how much you have retained. I also do a lesson 3 times. If I can't master it in 90 minutes oh well. The next lesson is going to repeat the stuff anyways.

The other thing I do is talk in spanish while I am at home. Instead of talking to yourself in English just switch to Spanish. It also helps if you have a Spanish speaker around you can talk to and ask questions about the language. Pimmsluer does some strange stuff that has annoyed me. They use kay for the word to alot but kay also means what so it really threw me off.

As for alternatives, just do a Google search. There are tons out there. I would recommend stuff that teaches you to speak in phrases similar to Pimmsluer so that you learn context instead of a bunch of words.

Not to be discouraging, but I've tried a lot of stuff, and in my opinion nothing comes close to Pimsleur for effectiveness. My method is to work with the program for 90 minutes daily, adding one new lesson each time and reviewing the two previously learned. I'm already up to Lesson 10 on Level 3, and only now am I beginning to feel it increase in difficulty as it's getting extensively into past tense.

One thing I would do concurrently is to buy a workbook such as "Spanish Verb Tenses" by Dorothy Devney Richmond so to provide a little more of the technical context of the language.

Good luck, and don't throw in the towel yet!

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Check out http://weluvlatinas.com/ for the web's best info on the latin american monger lifestyle...

These are the web sites that I use. Studyspanish.com is free with Audio files.and Caminos uses a book and teacher, but I have used the flashcards to help retain the info. I find that having the audio from StudySpanish.com helps out when trying to learn a new word.

http://www.studyspanish.com/

http://www.studyspanish.com/travel/index.htm

http://www.studyspanish.com/sounds/trav ... ases_s.htm

http://college.hmco.com/languages/spani ... /students/

Ig...

I have used the audio CD lessons by Michel Thomas , and it worked very well for me.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/007148 ... 29?ie=UTF8

It's not for beginners that know nothing about Spanish though.

If you already have the basic knowledge of a few simple vocabs such as numbers, dates, subjects, and some phrases in Spanish , this may work for you.

He does not spend time teaching you vocabs , but will teach you the basic core groups of things which one would need to know in order to have an understanding of the language and to construct sentences. Pronunciations, past present future tenses are also covered.

The setting of the audio is like a classroom situation, with Michel, as the granpa teacher, teaching in his own special way to a dorkish male student and a smarter young female.

Pace is medium to slow, which suits me well. I have finished going through the 10 CD's for over a year now, and will go back to them once a week just for the sake of review.

You are supposed to pop the CR in, play it , listen. of course I cheated and took notes when I first used them. Quite a number of Hollywood stars used his system or were taught by him.

It is not a be all end all audio CD lessons, but it helped me a great deal.

When I was starting out in spanish, I used the cassette set ""Learn in your Car" which is OK. But there are other simple things your can do:

-watch the news on spanish television - the announcers are paid to talk crisply and news in general is at a low reading/talking level, which is to your benefit. Many a latino baseball player has taught himself english by watching ESPN.

-watch spanish soaps on TV and enjoy the added benefit of the eye candy.

-turn on spanish radio stations while you're driving in the car.

In this way, you train your ear from a stream of sound to distinct spanish words.

Other ideas:

-eat at mexican/latino restaurants where the locals hangout. Order your food and talk to the waitresses in spanish. Flirt with them if they're cute.

-take an adult education course at the local college or university, or better yet, find an indenpendent teacher, freed from any school restrictions.

-find an interest group that meets to speak spanish. If you live in a medium to large city, they do exist. My spanish class meets every sunday at a mexican restaurant to speak spanish. We're currently reading a Harlequin romance novel in spanish. It's a hoot and fairly easy.

-when walking at the mall, walk closely to latino couples and eavedrop on their conversations.

- pick up a spanish magazine or newspaper and try to read it. Again, the language will be simpler than you would expect. Get a magazine with some hot Latina models in it. More inspiration.

I do and have done everything above, but nothing beats going to a spanish speaking country and communicating with those 'long haired dictionaries' in the DR or anywhere else for that matter. You get one-on-one training for however long you've paid.

Pimsleur is great for some folks. If you are having trouble following it, just slow down and repeat the same lesson five or six times until you just have it memorized. It may not seem prodcutive but it is doing its thing with the neurons in your brain.

Other products:
-Exceltra 200 words a day Spanish
-Michel Thomas Spanish
-Rosetta Stone (kinda sucks but may work better for you)
-Childrens books in Spanish. Barnes & Noble has an entire section of them.
-Watch your favorite movies with Spanish subtitles. Pause it and crack open the English Spanish dictionary when necessary.

-Just keep at it with determination.
-Don't overstudy.
-Find a local bar/club that has Spanish night
-Take a class at a local university
-Find a tutor at a local university
-Watch Spanish TV

I have been working on my Spanish for a while and can make myself understood in most cases and can talk my way into and out of trouble fairly well.

To begin with I did a 3 week intensive course in Mazatlan back in 2001. It was definitely intense and I learned a LOT of grammar, though I couldn't really converse with anybody at at that point. I halfheartedly did some vocabulary building at www.vokabel.com before I made my visit to CR and decided to make a more serious effort to learn. I took Spanish 2 at the local community college and my 3 week course was plenty to prepare me. At then end of Spanish 2 I moved to San Jose. In addition to Spanish 2 I began trying to read some simple books in Spanish, Harry Potter, the Hobbit, Zorro... I also watched Mexican soaps and listened to the radio in Spanish.

Of all those things I think reading the books increased my vocabulary a great deal. I didn't get much from the soaps or radio, comparitively. Once I arrived here, I got a lot of practice, as one would expect. At first I struggled to even carry on a rudimentary conversation with anybody. I found that I had better luck with educated persons because they didn't slur their words or talk as quickly.

After a year and a half of being down here, I can carry on a conversation in Spanish but my biggest problem is understanding spoken Spanish. I can't read a newspaper all that well, not sure exactly why, but I can read novels in Spanish and understand most of it. I can watch television and I can follow the general flow of the program but I haven't found any programs that I feel comfortable watching. But I find that watching TV with the sound off and reading the subtitles in Spanish works better than when the dialog is in Spanish. Another thing is to make notes when you want to say something and can't. I have friends who are biliingual and can help me translate if I can't do it myself. But it helps shore up your weak points and things you need. Might as well start with what you need, then learn the Spanish equivalent of seldom used words.

At any rate, I am hoping to get better at understanding spoken spanish, but I have learned a lot from reading. Vokabel is good. the 500 Spanish verbs book is good. I have Pimsleur but I haven't been using it. I can walk out my door and talk spanish all day if I want to. But that's my experience.

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"The only normal people are those you don't know very well." Joe Ancis

I did pretty well with Pimsler's, but am kind of stuck midway through #2. I think that the only way to really learn to speak a language is to use it. Best thing to do is to find a nice girlfriend who speaks no English, you can pick up a lot of vocabulary during pillow talk.