Easiest Way to Learn Conversational Spanish: with CDs

There are many reasons to want to learn a new language, such as Spanish, and therefore many different ways to do this. Maybe your work involves communicating with Spanish-speaking businesspeople, maybe you’re planning to take a vacation to Spain or Mexico, or maybe you’ve started to date a Spanish-speaker and want to immerse yourself in his or her culture. To learn Spanish you can enroll in classes, hire a tutor or travel to a Latino country to immerse yourself—but the easiest way to learn conversational Spanish is with CDs.

Handy and Inexpensive
Learning conversational Spanish with CDs is inexpensive—if you can’t afford to buy them, you can check them out from your local library or even download free mp3s from your library (for those libraries that offer it). This method of learning is extremely handy because you can listen to your CDs in the car, when you’re out for a walk, or in the comfort of your own home, and you can create your own schedule.

Repetition and Pronunciation
The audio method of learning Spanish is easy because it’s all about repetition and pronunciation. You listen to the words spoken slowly and clearly on the CD and then you repeat them. In this manner, you become used to hearing the Spanish language spoken as well as forming the words yourself. Learning a language this way primarily teaches you vocabulary, pronunciation and comprehension, with little emphasis on reading, writing or grammar rules. So if you are interested in a more complete immersion into Spanish, you’d best take a class or purchase software.

A quick search online can result in several reputable companies that offer CDs for learning conversation Spanish, such as Pimsleur Spanish, Michael Thomas Spanish or Learn Spanish Like Crazy. These three especially focus on conversational Spanish for the beginner.

Practice Every Single Day
But once you have your CDs, you must listen to them every day. Just purchasing them won’t make you fluent in Spanish! This may be the easiest method of learning a new language, but it is still work. You must be willing to stick with the program. Study a little bit every single day—30 minutes per day is recommended by experts—and try to immerse yourself in the language as much as possible, by reading Spanish-language magazines, going to authentic Latino restaurants, or watching Spanish-language television programs. Many DVDs have a Spanish-language audio option as well as an English subtitle option, so you can watch your favorite movie in Spanish with English subtitles to help you along.

If you listen to your CDs and practice every day for 30 minutes, you can expect to be speaking conversational Spanish in about three to six months. Buena suerte mis amigos!