It's been a month since my last post... I've been working on several businesses included a new rock music album (en Español por suspuesto), a new business that will sell Spanish Movies (more blogs to come on those), and of course, the Viper Languages business, which will specialize in language-learning materials. Speaking of that, many people ask me when they find out I can speak Spanish, what materials I used to learn...
I believe that to really become good and speaking and understanding any language, you will want to use more than just one source (most language-learning companies want you to believe that their product is the only thing you need to learn...). Even when I eventually complete the Viper Spanish language-learning program, I will recommend to those who purchase it to continue to use dictionaries, books, movies, and even other audio and computer-based materials that will all help the learner become more familiar with the language.
For the past several years, I've also studied Mandarin Chinese... here are the materials that are currently on my desk that I use to study:
- Book: Streetwise Mandarin Chinese
- Oxford Chinese/English Dictionary
- English Version Book: How to Stop Worrying by Dale Carnegie
- Chinese Version Book: How to Stop Worrying by Dale Carnegie
- Three different Chinese novels
- Lonely Planet Mandarin Audio Pack
- Several sets of self-created flashcards to learn individual characters
- Several binders of self-created papers to review learned words
- The New Testament Chinese Version
- The Holy Bible Chinese/English Dual Version
So, obviously there are several sources I am currently using to study Chinese. So, are there any I would recommend for Spanish? Well, today I'll just recommend one of the materials I used when I first started learning Spanish in 2005. The first thing I bought was a CD-set called Learn In Your Car
. At first, I didn't actually use it while driving (I lived in Korea and didn't have a car), but just at home - and it helped a lot with its constant repetition, clear pronunciation, and gradual introduction of new words and phrases.The entire set is a bit expensive, but you can also start with just Level One
, which is much more affordable.Click on the above links to read more about this product from Amazon.... I used these CD's for the first year I was learning, in addition to watching lots of Spanish movies, reading easy books (with the English version as well in case I was completely stuck and could not figure out what something meant), and talking to people whenever I could. I also attended the Spanish Institute of Puebla in Puebla, Mexico, which was obviously very helpful in becoming more fluent in the language. The Learn In Your Car CD's that I recommend might not work for every one - but keep trying different things. I know that the most famous and best marketed product (and also the most expensive) is Rosetta Stone. I tried their demo and was not a big fan of their methods, but it may work for others. So, try different things until you come up with a method that works for you. I also loved to use flashcards (mainly for vocabulary, but sometimes with entire sentences), but lots of people don't. So, unfortunately, no one can promise any one method will work for every one (even though Language Companies often do).
I hope to continue the language-learning blogs next Friday... and I'll continue to post blogs like these as well recommending different methods from Audio materials to movies and books... have a great day.
No comments:
Post a Comment