The 10 steps to learning the most Spanish on holiday
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by: david field
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Learning a foreign language is bay far easy, and takes a lot of effort, but hopefully this article will help you make the most of those yearly holidays in Spain and giving time you could even have the acquired knowledge to have a conversation with a native Spanish speaker.
The most important factor to learn Spanish or any new language is to immerse yourself in the culture, try to avoid areas where the main people you see are English speakers. There are key locations around Spain
1. where you will find it easier to be submerged by Spaniards, but the easiest option would be to avoid the coastal areas in the south. If you find yourself in a part of Spain where you cannot use your Spanish, you will in general be forced to use the Spanish you know, however broken it may be.
2. Many people believe translating is the key to understanding a new language, now I am not saying this is a bad method but another method where you think like a “baby” tends to work better. Thinking like a baby by repeating words and sounds and use whatever pronunciation you can.
3. The best phrase to know in my opinion is “how do you say that?” or “What is that?” (como se dice eso) & (Que es esto). Some language schools will teach you phrase after phrase of which you will use around 10% of them, with these to phrases you will have the opportunity to increase your vocabulary the entire time on your holiday.
4. Note book. By carrying a note book you will be able to write things down that you didn’t quite understand or phrases you didn’t know to later look them up. This will increase your learning given the visual and audio you have of the phrase.
5. Some times “spanglish” works so if you don’t know the exact word, give it an attempt, words like information and información, however this doesn’t work for all words for example embarrass in not emarazada (pregnant)!
6. We all know hotels in Spain normally have SkyNews or other English speaking channels, try to avoid listening to these on a morning and alternatively try listening to the Spanish news or and Spanish channel. This will prepare you to how Spanish people speak to each other. Watching movies you have already seen in English will also help as it will give you an idea as to what they are saying.
7. Body Language. People say body language represents 50 percent of a conversation, so whilst on your holiday try observing the way the Spanish for example walk, and also their other body language whilst talking.
8. Pronunciation. When trying out all the different phrases you have learned, remember to try and include when necessary all the relevant tones. By this I mean you should remember to pronounce the words correctly Años rather than anos, which are two different words, anos being very similar to the English word!
9. Friend or no friend? Going on holiday with a friend to a foreign country can be very beneficial, each of you can learn from each other’s mistakes. On the other hand going solo can sometimes be the best option.
10. Practice. With everything you learn a language takes practice, take advantage of every opportunity you have before traveling to your destination. Try to join some Spanish forums so you can pick up some local dialect before traveling.
About the Author
Other Option You could all ways use Rosetta Stone to learn Spanish I have never used it personally but many people swear, or any other language learning software .
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