Spanish is a beautiful language and easy to learn, too. Considering that it is the second most-spoken language in the world (after Mandarin Chinese), it makes sense to learn it at least on a conversational level. For those people who are self-starters or simply don’t have the time for regular classes, it is absolutely feasible to teach yourself Spanish.
Different Ways To Teach Yourself Spanish:
1. Books – these beginner-friendly handy-dandy books make learning fun. They can be divided into specific categories such as Basic Greetings, Money & Numbers, Ordering at Restaurants and Dating, Travel and include phonetic pronunciation keys for every word and phrase.
2. Watch movies – DVDs allow you to watch most popular movies using the Spanish language audio track option. If you’ve already seen a movie and are familiar with the story, it makes it easy to then rewatch it in Spanish. Plus it’s always fun to see the translation of common English titles, like ”If You Leave Me, I Delete You” (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), ”Urban Neurotic” (Annie Hall) and ”His Great Device Makes Him Famous” (Boogie Nights).
3. Listen to music – listening to Spanish-language music is a fun way to teach yourself the language if you enjoy the music. Find the lyrics online and read along, and soon you’ll be belting out Ricky Martin, Gloria Estefan or Luis Miguel tunes like a native Hispanic!
4. Children’s books – get children’s picture books from the library or bookstore and learn the basics. As a beginner, you will need to start at the most elementary level, and what better way to do this than learn common nouns and verbs accompanied by colorful pictures. Research shows that the best way to retain information is via pictures.
If you find these methods useful and effective, be on the lookout for more interesting ways to teach yourself Spanish in my next post.