Spanish is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, and knowing it is a great added bonus when you are, say, traveling in Europe or maybe Latin America. Even if you live in a city which has a large Spanish population and Spanish neighborhoods, restaurants and stores, like Chicago, you might feel impaired at one of these places if you don’t know the language.
You may be gesticulating frantically, but your wild efforts at getting your point across will fall flat. If you have some time left to yourself after work or school, enrolling at a Spanish class is a really good way of spending time. You get to learn something new and interesting, and you equip yourself as a multilingual individual. Remember one thing at the very outset. Translation is a bad method of learning any foreign language, and Spanish isn’t an exception. Don’t think in English and translate to Spanish in your mind. Rather, when you have a small stock of words, enough to make sentences with, start thinking in Spanish. Of course, you have to have some knowledge of how words are grouped in Spanish to form phrases first, and then sentences. You have to have a good sense of grammar to be able to learn fast. The nuances of the language are important too, but you can pick those up only after you have devoted a significant amount of time to the language, have practiced religiously and have given it more than just a passing thought when you are out of class.
If you don’t know any Spanish speaking people, you probably have to use a textbook to get started. But it is always a better idea to learn any foreign language interactively. Don’t get a tutor who is going to teach you alone. Enroll at a class where there are others like you. A good instructor is going to teach you Spanish with an eye towards situations you might find yourself in in a Spanish speaking environment. Knowing how to say “The Lord is my shepherd” isn’t going to help you in Spain. You should be able to say “How much should I pay for that bar of soap?” or “Can you tell me the way to the bazaar?” the idea is to educate yourself in conversational Spanish. When you have a hang of the language, and have grasped things beyond the basics, you can focus on building a more erudite vocabulary and think about reading literature in Spanish.
Look at patterns of similarity between English and Spanish. Some are obvious even to the not so discerning observer. For instance, a lot of English words ending with –ic translate to an –ico ending in Spanish. With time and practice, you should be able to note more patterns like this. Comparison is going to make the learning process simpler for you.
Read, speak, listen and write whenever you get a chance. Invest in books and magazines and CDS and make friends who are native Spanish speakers. Involve yourself with Spanish, and watch yourself move ahead in huge leaps.
