Trying to learn Spanish

[MorphiGalaxi]

I know this seems like a weird thread but hear me out.
I've been trying to learn Spanish, and I just can't manage too. For some reason I find it to hard to understand all the different grammer and I can't absorb it all, it feels like too much.
Before this I tried learning Japanese and that was even more difficult, so at first I thought this was super easy, until I got so confused about it in general I just don't know anymore what to do.

I have trouble motivating myself to learn it, I even switched my Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate game to Spanish (90% of the time no idea what theyre saying) and I really only learnt a bunch of random words like cazador and caliente to get by in the game, and never picked up on most of the conversations (somwhat, but mostly not). I know that's still helpful but it isn't enough to help me start speaking it basically so I can improve.

Anyone here know spanish? First language, learnt it years ago, trying to learn it?

 

[nintendofan85]

I've been taking classes for it since I started my freshman year of high school in 2014.

 

[Soigne]

Taking it as my foreign language requirement for college! I start classes next semester, so I'm going to start trying to learn a bit on my own over the summer. Have you tried using Duolingo? It's not like...an exact replacement to learning the language in a classroom or from someone you know who speaks it, but it's still a pretty helpful resource.

 

[nintendofan85]

Taking it as my foreign language requirement for college! I start classes next semester, so I'm going to start trying to learn a bit on my own over the summer. Have you tried using Duolingo? It's not like...an exact replacement to learning the language in a classroom or from someone you know who speaks it, but it's still a pretty helpful resource.

Yeah, we use Duolingo in my Spanish class. It's really helpful.

 

[Bunnilla]

I was born speaking Spanish. I had to learn English but I see English as my first language now since I understand it wayyyy more lol
I'm not really sure how you would learn Spanish easily, but a tip is that if a word ends in a it usually refers to female and if it ends in o then usually refers to male. For example, friend is genderless in English. But if you want to say friend in Spanish you either say amiga or amigo. Amiga being a friend who's a girl and amigo being a friend who's a boy.

 

[Mu~]

It's my first language, and my advice is keep going, it's spoken in a lot of countries so it'll be useful.

 

[Chicha]

I recommend to keep going with it. Spanish is an incredibly useful language. It sounds like you're learning it on your own which can feel a little overwhelming if you haven't learned another language yet. Spanish is one of the easier languages to pick up because everything is pronounced exactly how it's spelled. The difficult part in my opinion are the many, many dialects and difference of vocabulary. Some countries use completely different words & you must be aware of cultural differences. A word can be considered to be offensive in one country but can have an entirely different meaning in another country.

I recommend watching your favorite shows or movies in Spanish. I highly recommend listening to music like ballads/slow songs so you can get a good indicator of how to pronounce words. Reading children's books in Spanish may be helpful as well. there should be plenty in your local library. Picking up some visual dictionaries may be helpful. If you're in the beginning stages, I recommend picking up an introductory Spanish workbook.

?Buena suerte!

 

[Damniel]

I can understand most Spanish, but cannot speak/write it.

This is really strange since both my parents are South American immigrants, and I live in a predominately Hispanic town. They never really sat down and taught me Spanish. They both speak perfect English, so there was never a language issue in our home. But for my extended family, it's hard to communicate with them.

I plan on becoming completely fluent it in just for the sake of my heritage

 

[MorphiGalaxi]

Wow this thread got more replies then I expected I need to reply to you all

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Issi!
My name is Michael and I started learning Spanish last year. Learning Spanish is easy... kinda. The hardest part is learning to understand spoken Spanish. Learning to understand what people are saying and to register it in your brain quickly. I learned thousands of words in Spanish the first 2 months of learning . But, unfortunately I did not emphasize on practicing "hearing". I found this program called Learning Spanish like Crazy". It taught me how to understand spoken Spanish that is spoken fast. Once you master that, you will learn to speak more fluently. I highly recommend this products and its also very cheap. Check it out! Ill link it below so you can try it out I highly recommend it.

Keep on learning,
Michael

http://bit.ly/LearningSpanishLikeCrazy-DIS

Thank you for the info, I'm trying to not spend money on learning courses/programs atm but if I get one someday Ill look into it.

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I've been taking classes for it since I started my freshman year of high school in 2014.

That's neat! How much do you know?

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Taking it as my foreign language requirement for college! I start classes next semester, so I'm going to start trying to learn a bit on my own over the summer. Have you tried using Duolingo? It's not like...an exact replacement to learning the language in a classroom or from someone you know who speaks it, but it's still a pretty helpful resource.

Yes, I actually got Duolingo since it's free, It's actually pretty good! And I actually do know someone who speaks it, but I can't pick on the basics enough yet to understand much XD

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I was born speaking Spanish. I had to learn English but I see English as my first language now since I understand it wayyyy more lol
I'm not really sure how you would learn Spanish easily, but a tip is that if a word ends in a it usually refers to female and if it ends in o then usually refers to male. For example, friend is genderless in English. But if you want to say friend in Spanish you either say amiga or amigo. Amiga being a friend who's a girl and amigo being a friend who's a boy.

That's one of the only things I've managed to understand XD

*Certainly isn't because the Pokemon Latias and Latios*

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It's my first language, and my advice is keep going, it's spoken in a lot of countries so it'll be useful.

Yeah, I don't intend on giving up anytime soon ^-^

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I recommend to keep going with it. Spanish is an incredibly useful language. It sounds like you're learning it on your own which can feel a little overwhelming if you haven't learned another language yet. Spanish is one of the easier languages to pick up because everything is pronounced exactly how it's spelled. The difficult part in my opinion are the many, many dialects and difference of vocabulary. Some countries use completely different words & you must be aware of cultural differences. A word can be considered to be offensive in one country but can have an entirely different meaning in another country.

I recommend watching your favorite shows or movies in Spanish. I highly recommend listening to music like ballads/slow songs so you can get a good indicator of how to pronounce words. Reading children's books in Spanish may be helpful as well. there should be plenty in your local library. Picking up some visual dictionaries may be helpful. If you're in the beginning stages, I recommend picking up an introductory Spanish workbook.

?Buena suerte!

Thank you! ^_^ I was thinking of doing that soon, pretty sure Star Trek blurays are even dubbed in spanish (that'll be interesting XD), so I might watch those. And yeah, I heard of that, it confused me a fair bit. I guess I'll just pick up those things as I go along. I'm having the most trouble with the different conjugations of verbs....? And then the past and future tense I just don't know at all.

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I can understand most Spanish, but cannot speak/write it.

This is really strange since both my parents are South American immigrants, and I live in a predominately Hispanic town. They never really sat down and taught me Spanish. They both speak perfect English, so there was never a language issue in our home. But for my extended family, it's hard to communicate with them.

I plan on becoming completely fluent it in just for the sake of my heritage

That's a good idea. I can see what you mean, I can actually write things no problem (the few things I know how to say) but speaking it is sorta hard, understanding it is the most difficult for me XD Everyone talks so fast!

 

[Bunnilla]

Oh another thing. My parents always correct me on this lol In English you would say the big house. But In Spanish you say it opposite. Casa = house grande = big
La casa es grande. Not, La grande casa. Also if you were to say the entire week it's technically "week entire". Entera = entire semana = week
La entera semana. (Wrong)
La semana entera. (Right)
I know it's weird xD

 

[MorphiGalaxi]

Oh another thing. My parents always correct me on this lol In English you would say the big house. But In Spanish you say it opposite. Casa = house grande = big
La casa es grande. Not, La grande casa. Also if you were to say the entire week it's technically "week entire". Entera = entire semana = week
La entera semana. (Wrong)
La semana entera. (Right)
I know it's weird xD

Yeeaah xD I'm having a little trouble with that, like, I remember and know that yet I still froget ._.

 

[Romaki]

I tried to teach it to myself for a while, but it's hard staying motivated without a school system.

 

[Akira-chan]

Kinda a weird spot for me, you see i learned both english and Spanish at a young age, and i'm both terrible at them. I a lot better at english tho. I can't read nor write Spanish either ahaha... I'd say keep working on it, i'm not much help but it'd be useful to learn since a ton of people speak spanish. By the way, which type of spanish are you learniing?

 

[uyumin]

I used to go to school with Spanish speakers and I learnt a bit of Spanish from them

 

[King Dorado]

you left out all the medium range options, like:

--I learned some Spanish from watching Sabado Gigante
--I learned Spanish so i could join a Pedro almodovar film discussion group
--I learned some Spanish to impress a chick (or dude) from Colombia by pretending I read all of El Amor en los Tiempos del Colera.
--i learned some Spanish so I could curse more effectiveley during my soccer matches

 

[Emizel]

I don't learn Spanish
Personally I don't like it at all

 

[Soraru]

i don't know spanish and don't plan on learning it, since i don't have a reason or use for it.
and i know pretty well that even if i try, i cannot under any circumstance, roll my r's LOL

 

[Mu~]

Oh another thing. My parents always correct me on this lol In English you would say the big house. But In Spanish you say it opposite. Casa = house grande = big
La casa es grande. Not, La grande casa. Also if you were to say the entire week it's technically "week entire". Entera = entire semana = week
La entera semana. (Wrong)
La semana entera. (Right)
I know it's weird xD

But gran casa is also correctly spelled,

 

[mermaidshelf]

I learned it in school but I never felt like I reached fluency. Even when I was getting good grades, I felt it was because I was able to stay ahead of my classmates, not because I could speak it well. Interestingly enough, I recently went to a restaurant where no one spoke English (I live in South Korea now). One of the servers asked if I spoke Spanish and we spoke Spanish the whole time! I'm really rusty but I'm surprised how much I remembered and how quickly it came back. Now I frequent that restaurant and I became friends with the server.

 

[Alienfish]

I was born speaking Spanish. I had to learn English but I see English as my first language now since I understand it wayyyy more lol
I'm not really sure how you would learn Spanish easily, but a tip is that if a word ends in a it usually refers to female and if it ends in o then usually refers to male. For example, friend is genderless in English. But if you want to say friend in Spanish you either say amiga or amigo. Amiga being a friend who's a girl and amigo being a friend who's a boy.

Yea, pretty much the same in Portuguese.

As above, hearing people speaking it as their first language (and some people speaking it, very, fast) and actually understanding everything is probably one of the more hardest things to learn.