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Okay, i'm ready to learn Spanish

HotAndTender

HotAndTender

Member
Dec 6, 2017
856
It's been on my mind for years and years to learn to speak spanish and since i've got a lot of spare time due to the worlds events i thought i'd give it a go.

I've seen Babble and Duolingo are the most popular websites/apps to use but i was wondering if there's anyone hear that prefers a single platform or if there's an alternative?

¡Gracias!
 
AgentOtaku

AgentOtaku

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,444
Always curious about this as well as I'm a Puerto Rican who can't speak a lick of it either :(
I did have mild success with Duolingo tho
 
Hollywood Duo

Hollywood Duo

Member
Oct 25, 2017
41,964
Duolingo is the best free resource there is. There are a bunch of podcasts that you can use too. I liked Coffee Break Spanish although they do focus more on European Spanish.
 
HardRojo

HardRojo

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
26,128
Peru
Well, I'm a native Spanish speaker so I can share my experience learning English if it's any help for you. I did study the basics at an institute, that was enough for me to get a decent grasp at the language and after that I simply kept studying on my own by playing games and watching movies/shows with English audio and subtitles, reading stuff in English on the Internet in a daily basis, reading English and communicating with others in English as often as I could.
Basically, study the basics any way you can until you get a basic grasp that'll let you navigate through some media and keep going from there. Spanish is a hard language to learn perfectly as a foreigner, it has many quirks but don't worry about them, learn at your own pace and keep trying to make it part of your daily life somehow.
Edit: And I haven't lived for long in an English-speaking country, only that one time I lived in the US for about 6 months, but I was already very fluent by then.
Dog-FacedPonySoldier said:
Mi cana de pescar esta en la cocina.
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The ñ in caña is very important, it could be the difference between saying "What a year!" (¡Qué tal año!) or "What an anus!" (¡Qué tal ano!).
 

enchiladas potosinas

Member
Feb 11, 2020
84
personally I like memrise. I really like the learn with locals feature so that it's not just a robotic voice that you listen to.

languagetransfer is really good. I would recommend listening to this mixed with duolingo or memrise for added vocabulary.

after that, if you are willing to pay, italki is great for tutoring. gospanish is good as well.
 
Keyser S

Keyser S

The Fallen
Oct 26, 2017
8,480
Lot of people have said Duolingo is not the best at teaching grammar when it comes to spanish

Lingodeer is good option for that - Babble too.
 

Deleted member 3208

Oct 25, 2017
11,934
These are the most important words you should learn: Insecto. Sabandija.
 

Deleted member 11985

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
4,168
I started using Pimsleur a few months ago during my commute. Coronavirus has put a halt to it recently, but when I was using it everyday, I would say that it was probably the most effective app I'd used because it was all about speaking. The only thing that sucks is it's expensive. It's $20/month for a subscription on the mobile app, and like $500-$600 to buy a full course, outright.

Also, just to put a dampen on the Pimsleur thing a little, it's important to know that there isn't one single learning resource that will teach you everything from nothing to fluent. You have to use a combination of learning materials and immersion. So if you don't want to pay for Pimsleur, then you can use Duolingo and supplement it with a book or some other online resource, and you'd be just fine for learning the basics. And even if you did go with Pimsleur, then you'd still have to supplement it with a book or something else to get the basics down.
 
OP
OP
HotAndTender

HotAndTender

Member
Dec 6, 2017
856
I'm willing to pay for more extensive learning so i think i might go with Duolingo

compo said:
Also, just to put a dampen on the Pimsleur thing a little, it's important to know that there isn't one single learning resource that will teach you everything from nothing to fluent. You have to use a combination of learning materials and immersion. So if you don't want to pay for Pimsleur, then you can use Duolingo and supplement it with a book or some other online resource, and you'd be just fine for learning the basics. And even if you did go with Pimsleur, then you'd still have to supplement it with a book or something else to get the basics down.
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Yeah i understand i'm not going to be fluent with just using an app, weirdly enough i love listening to raggaeton and the Viva Latino playlist on spotify so there's that. Also Tom Segura is doing a podcast in spanish so i could give that a go in the future.
 
janusff

janusff

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
18,135
Austin, TX
spanish is easy!

do you know how to spell socks? S O C K S

you just said something in spanish! it means, "thats, what it is!"
 
Fhtagn

Fhtagn

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,615
I've been learning Spanish with Duolingo and I think at the pace I'm going it's going to take years to get anywhere, but I am picking up vocabulary and some grammar. Remembering which bebe, bebes, bebo to use for a given sentence is killing me though.
 

Deleted member 3208

Oct 25, 2017
11,934
Fhtagn said:
I've been learning Spanish with Duolingo and I think at the pace I'm going it's going to take years to get anywhere, but I am picking up vocabulary and some grammar. Remembering which bebe, bebes, bebo to use for a given sentence is killing me though.
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This is the verb Beber.
Yo bebo
Tú bebes.
Él/Ella bebe.
Nosotros bebemos.
Ustedes beben.
Vosotros bebéis.

Vosotros appears in dictionaries, but in the case of Latin America, I hardly have seen it. I had a Guatematelcan classmate that uses vos, though. Dunno if in Spain vos is also used.

Sometimes, when I'm confused, I use WordReference to guide me. They also have a table how each verb is conjugated in different times.

Also, be careful with bebe. Spanish uses tildes, and in the case of bebe, there is also another word which is almost the same. Bebé. But this bebé means baby, not drink.
 
CarpeDeezNutz

CarpeDeezNutz

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
2,732
All I could speak was Spanish when I was a kid, my mom said I complained as a kid when we moved to Texas from Mexico I could not make friends coz they didn't understand me. Now I speak broken ass Spanish.
 
Tenck

Tenck

Member
Oct 27, 2017
612
I've been doing pimsleur and I have to say that's been the best app I've ever used for learning another language. I supplement it with Duolingo on the side, but only because I had a streak going on before I purchased pimsleur course. Didn't want to lose it, as weird as that sounds.
 
Keym

Keym

The Fallen
Oct 26, 2017
9,197
Una cerveza por favor

Also I wouldn't rely on an app to learn a language. You should take classes instead.
 
Toño

Toño

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 26, 2017
2,041
Spain
As a native speaker, I recommend you start learning spanish only from a single country or culture. The main reasons are:
1- You'll avoid the confusion of mixing expresions and language differences between countries. The spanish is a rich language with a lot of differences between countries.
2- Even with these differences, once you learn spanish from one country or culture (for example Mexico), you will be able to communicate with any spanish speaker from the rest of the world without problems.
3- When you can speak more or less fluently, you'll be able to learn about these differences very quickly.
 

Deleted member 3208

Oct 25, 2017
11,934
Toño said:
As a native speaker, I recommend you start learning spanish only from a single country or culture. The main reasons are:
1- You'll avoid the confusion of mixing expresions and language differences between countries. The spanish is a rich language with a lot of differences between countries.
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Agree with the first point. In the Pokemon LatAM dub, since it was dubbed in Mexico, James loves to use Mexican terms An example is Moltres el Guajolote Macías. I had to search in a dictionary to find guajolote means pavo, or turkey in English.
 
werezompire

werezompire

Zeboyd Games
Verified
Oct 26, 2017
11,372
This is the best system I've found: https://www.theulat.com/

The first 15 lessons are freely available on the site so you can check it out without signing up for anything.

Only downsides are that the only languages taught are Spanish, French, and English & it's mostly just done by 1 guy so the presentation is low budget. But it's the most effective way of learning a language online I've found outside of hiring a tutor to converse with you.
 

AzVal

Member
May 7, 2018
1,874
please take your time to learn the gender differences, the most grating part of foreigner speaking spanish is mixing feminine articles with masculine adjectives and viceversa, e. g.: "la caballo" "el perra", etc
Fhtagn said:
I've been learning Spanish with Duolingo and I think at the pace I'm going it's going to take years to get anywhere, but I am picking up vocabulary and some grammar. Remembering which bebe, bebes, bebo to use for a given sentence is killing me though.
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and you haven't reached the funny conjugations yet, bebiera, bebiese, bebierase, bebase, beba
 
Qwark

Qwark

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,030
I like Duolingo a lot, but imo you don't really know a language until you can play through a game in it. Some games I've found useful for that, Pokemon, Final Fantasy (really depends on the translation quality of the specific game though, 9 has some weird accents built in that can make it tough), Animal Crossing Pocket Camp, Skyrim.
 
Regulus Tera

Regulus Tera

Member
Oct 25, 2017
19,458
Duolingo is good for discovering vocabulary, but I suggest you try to get into a more focused study method so that you know how sentence structure works.
 
Regulus Tera

Regulus Tera

Member
Oct 25, 2017
19,458
REMINDER:

á = Alt +160
é = Alt +130
í = Alt + 161
ó = Alt + 162
ú = Alt + 163
ñ = Alt + 164
Ñ = Alt + 165
ü = Alt + 129
Ü = Alt + 154
¿ = Alt + 168
¡ = Alt + 173
 
FernandoRocker

FernandoRocker

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
7,987
México
Regulus Tera said:
REMINDER:

á = Alt +160
é = Alt +130
í = Alt + 161
ó = Alt + 162
ú = Alt + 163
ñ = Alt + 164
Ñ = Alt + 165
ü = Alt + 129
Ü = Alt + 154
¿ = Alt + 168
¡ = Alt + 173
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Are we in 1995?

Every Spanish speaker using a US keyboard should switch the language settings in the OS settings to US - International. That way, you can press the apostrophe key once and then the vowel to add a tilde. With that keyboard layout, you can also press ALT (right) + N to write Ñ. Same with ¿ and ¡... you just press ALT (right) + ? or ! to write ¿ and !

EJgftVA.png


en.wikipedia.org

QWERTY - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
Regulus Tera

Regulus Tera

Member
Oct 25, 2017
19,458
FernandoRocker said:
Are we in 1995?

Every Spanish speaker using a US keyboard should switch the language settings in the OS settings to US - International. That way, you can press the apostrophe key once and then the vowel to add a tilde. With that keyboard layout, you can also press ALT (right) + N to write Ñ. Same with ¿ and ¡... you just press ALT (right) + ? or ! to write ¿ and !
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I wouldn't recommend people who are just getting into learning Spanish to start by switching their keyboards.

(to be fair, this was more directed to the Spanish speakers who keep making spelling errors in every single one of these threads)
 
FernandoRocker

FernandoRocker

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
7,987
México
Regulus Tera said:
I wouldn't recommend people who are just getting into learning Spanish to start by switching their keyboards.
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It's the same.

It only changes the right Alt key as an AltGr key to support many additional characters directly as an additional shift key. This layout also uses keys ', `, ", ^ and ~ as dead keys to generate characters with diacritics by pressing the appropriate key, then the letter on the keyboard.

But this tip is mostly for bilingual (Spanish and English) members of Era reading this thread using a US keyboard. Most people do not know about US-International.
 
MegaRockEXE

MegaRockEXE

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 29, 2017
3,950
The important part to learning any language is using it day to day. If it weren't for the lockdowns, you could more easily go to a primarily Spanish-speaking grocery store and get by on your learned skills there.
 
Acidote

Acidote

Member
Oct 26, 2017
4,974
Linkark07 said:
This is the verb Beber.
Yo bebo
Tú bebes.
Él/Ella bebe.
Nosotros bebemos.
Ustedes beben.
Vosotros bebéis.

Vosotros appears in dictionaries, but in the case of Latin America, I hardly have seen it. I had a Guatematelcan classmate that uses vos, though. Dunno if in Spain vos is also used.

Sometimes, when I'm confused, I use WordReference to guide me. They also have a table how each verb is conjugated in different times.

Also, be careful with bebe. Spanish uses tildes, and in the case of bebe, there is also another word which is almost the same. Bebé. But this bebé means baby, not drink.
Click to expand...
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In Spain it would be:
Yo bebo
Tú bebes.
Él/Ella bebe.
Nosotros bebemos.
Vosotros bebéis.
Ustedes beben.

"Usted" is pretty much not used coloquially save for two tiny areas. It's used in the most formal ocassions, like talking to a higher ranking work colleage and until the formalities are dropped.
 
OP
OP
HotAndTender

HotAndTender

Member
Dec 6, 2017
856
I've got Duolingo and flying through the first few sections, i know the very very basics but i understand the gender differences will be a bit hard at first.

Changed my iPhone to spanish also
 
GYODX

GYODX

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,243
AgentOtaku said:
Always curious about this as well as I'm a Puerto Rican who can't speak a lick of it either :(
I did have mild success with Duolingo tho
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As a Puerto Rican, I think our Spanish would be really hard for non-native speakers to learn.

The only non-native I've met who could speak Puerto Rican Spanish *really* well was this young Ukrainian guy I had as my multivariate calculus professor a couple of years ago. But that dude was a literal genius.
 
FernandoRocker

FernandoRocker

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
7,987
México
HotAndTender said:
I've got Duolingo and flying through the first few sections, i know the very very basics but i understand the gender differences will be a bit hard at first.

Changed my iPhone to spanish also
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One tip. Most words that their last vowel ends in A are feminine, and words that their last vowel ends in O are masculine.

  • Silla = Feminine
  • Sillón = Masculine
  • Carro = Masculine
  • Sandía = Feminine
  • Melón = Masculine
  • Bicicleta = Feminine

So now you can add El/La depending on the genre:

El = Masculine
La = Feminine
  • La silla
  • El sillón
  • El carro
  • La sandía
  • El melón
  • La bicicleta

And for plural:

Los = Masculine plural
Las = Feminine plural

  • Las sillas
  • Los sillones
  • Los carros
  • Las sandías
  • Los melones
  • Las bicicletas
 
OP
OP
HotAndTender

HotAndTender

Member
Dec 6, 2017
856
FernandoRocker said:
One tip. Most words that their last vowel ends in A are feminine, and words that their last vowel ends in O are masculine.

  • Silla = Feminine
  • Sillón = Masculine
  • Carro = Masculine
  • Sandía = Feminine
  • Melón = Masculine
  • Bicicleta = Feminine

So now you can add El/La depending on the genre:

El = Masculine
La = Feminine
  • La silla
  • El sillón
  • El carro
  • La sandía
  • El melón
  • La bicicleta

And for plural:

Los = Masculine plural
Las = Feminine plural

  • Las sillas
  • Los sillones
  • Los carros
  • Las sandías
  • Los melones
  • Las bicicletas
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Amazing, thank you very much.

I'll have to start writing everything down to learn that way as well
 
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