I was conversationally fluent in Spanish after traveling in Spanish-speaking countries for six months, despite studying the grammar for only a week and spending most of my time speaking English. I can only imagine how fluent I’d be if I had actually devoted myself to learning instead of, well, doing what I like to call “stupid things in dangerous places”. (In all fairness, Spanish is pretty easy to learn from an English base, especially if you’ve studied Latin. I imagine Chinese or Swahili would be a lot harder.)
Ah, of course. No, English was my only language at the time. I studied French in grade school but have no more than a few words of it left—that said, the underlying grammar, which is similar to Spanish, probably didn’t just disappear. I also took a couple Latin courses in high school, but never became very proficient and again, only retained a few words and a rough understanding of structure. When I began learning Spanish it was all very new and quite difficult at first. I do think my strategy was a good one, though. The week I spent taking private lessons was devoted to grammar and grammar alone, on my insistence, and it paid off. En mis viajes fue muy útil.
Have you actually tried this?
If I did, it wouldn’t be a particularly useful piece of info (anecdote). I didn’t, and I read about such programs.
I was conversationally fluent in Spanish after traveling in Spanish-speaking countries for six months, despite studying the grammar for only a week and spending most of my time speaking English. I can only imagine how fluent I’d be if I had actually devoted myself to learning instead of, well, doing what I like to call “stupid things in dangerous places”. (In all fairness, Spanish is pretty easy to learn from an English base, especially if you’ve studied Latin. I imagine Chinese or Swahili would be a lot harder.)
It would be nice to know, eirenicon, whether you had any competency in any other languages besides English before you learn Spanish.
Ah, of course. No, English was my only language at the time. I studied French in grade school but have no more than a few words of it left—that said, the underlying grammar, which is similar to Spanish, probably didn’t just disappear. I also took a couple Latin courses in high school, but never became very proficient and again, only retained a few words and a rough understanding of structure. When I began learning Spanish it was all very new and quite difficult at first. I do think my strategy was a good one, though. The week I spent taking private lessons was devoted to grammar and grammar alone, on my insistence, and it paid off. En mis viajes fue muy útil.