New Alternatives to Language Learning

Another alternative is quite expensive. There are many Spanish books and computer programs designed to teach the language. Many of them are very useful. The major drawback with these products is the price. They are great if you can afford it, but don't think that you can't learn a language if these products are out of your reach. After some time, you will probably find a few books that will enhance your learning, but you don't necessarily have to spend a fortune.

Even though grammar is boring, it is necessary to build a strong foundation for language learning. Fortunately, Spanish grammar has fewer rules and fewer exceptions to those rules. Verb conjugation has few irregulars and even the irregulars follow set patterns. Dr. Rix Spanish Trix at "http://www.muw.edu/~rmccalli/SpGram101.i..." is one of the most interesting grammar explanations I have ever seen. Even advanced Spanish students would be interested in this site. (Not to mention the section of the Spanish version of Pig Latin!) Another site that has good grammar explanations is "http://www.umr.edu/~amigos/Virtual".

If you are learning on your own, one of the best things to do is incorporate the language into some of your favorite activities. For example, one of the ways that I greatly enhanced my Spanish skills was by listening to popular Spanish music. My friend gave me a tape and I listened to it over and over again. Later, I wrote down what I thought the lyrics said and looked the words up in a dictionary to translate the songs into English. I did not know what half of the words were, but I would write what the word sounded like and look in the dictionary to see if there was something similar. If I couldn't find a word in the dictionary, I would use clues in the context to guess at a meaning or I would ask someone (usually my teacher or my friend). I loved it when the tape actually had the lyrics printed in the inside cover - that made it much easier to find out what the singer was saying. Now, there are several archives of Spanish song lyrics available on the Internet. I have a small (but growing) collection in the Spanish section of my home page "http://members.xoom.com/Godinez", and there is also a good collection at "http://www.geociites.com/Paris/2809".

There are also on-line resources for Spanish Comics "http://atc.ugr.es/~jbernier/comic" and many Spanish magazines and newspapers can be found on

Go To Page: 1 2 3