by Andrew | Jul 6, 2020 | Articles/Posts (go here to start learning Spanish!), General Language-Learning, Learn Spanish from Spain
I get the appeal: sounds like fun, makes sense on the surface, get a little cultured, get a little drunk, catch of a bit of clap, come back home fluent in Spanish. However, it usually doesn’t work like that (fun-drinking-STDs yes, fluent in Spanish, no). I say...
by Andrew | May 13, 2020 | Articles/Posts (go here to start learning Spanish!), General Language-Learning, Telenovela Method
What this means is: You need to learn those aspects of the language (words, expressions, grammar, syntax) that are in current use by native speakers. You need to learn them in order of frequency of use, meaning that the most commonly used words are the most important...
by Andrew | Feb 7, 2020 | Articles/Posts (go here to start learning Spanish!), General Language-Learning, Reviews of Free Websites and Tools
Go to Forvo.com, instructions on how to use it follow Ok, so that’s the site you want (image on the left links to it or just click here) and here I’ll briefly show you how you can download the audio files and then use them to make electronic flashcards...
by Andrew | Feb 5, 2020 | Articles/Posts (go here to start learning Spanish!), General Language-Learning
Don’t do this: it’s unnecessary, unpleasant, and not even the best way Shortly after beginning to learn a language for the first time (few weeks, couple of months, something like that), you’ll figure out which of the activites you’ve been doing...
by Andrew | Feb 1, 2020 | Articles/Posts (go here to start learning Spanish!), General Language-Learning
This is a series of posts I decided to do explaining my reasons for so heavily emphasizing the use of popular media such as movies, series, songs, books, etc. in order to learn a language. I want to say from the outset that I believe the single most efficient...
by Andrew | Jan 29, 2020 | Articles/Posts (go here to start learning Spanish!), General Language-Learning
Introduction I’m going to teach you the method I use to memorize vocabulary nearly in real time as I hear or read it. That means you memorize, briefly (we’ll come back to this), new words you encounter while you’re watching video content or reading...
by Andrew | Apr 27, 2019 | Articles/Posts (go here to start learning Spanish!), General Language-Learning
This is what I consider to be the single most important concept you must apply when learning a language, or any complex subject. You have to be persistently consistent. What does that mean?MemoryIn order to learn something, you must be exposed to it repeatedly. ...
by Andrew | Jun 12, 2017 | General Language-Learning
So I just started watching Ocho Apellidos Catalanes and I’m immediately running into words and phrases I don’t know. I’ve been learning Spanish for something like 9 years now. “What, don’t you speak Spanish yet?” No one ever really...
by Andrew | Apr 20, 2017 | General Language-Learning, Spanish, Telenovela Method
This is a simple technique I developed on my own as part of the Telenovela Method years ago and I’ve just never gotten around to writing about it because it never occurred to me how much trouble most people have learning Spanish pronunciation (note: this...
by Andrew | Apr 19, 2017 | General Language-Learning, Spain, Spanish
Ask a local. No, not for a language exchange. Ask a local for a place to post a request for one. You want a bulletin-board/classifieds type setup run by either the city or a local university. In particular, look for where local university students (and just people...
by Andrew | Aug 29, 2016 | General Language-Learning
Who am I interested in? Which culture, which people do I want to learn about? That’s it, simple, done. Yes, there are exceptions, people for whom it’s not that simple – I’ll get to that below – but that’s what they are: exceptions....
by Andrew | Aug 19, 2016 | General Language-Learning, Reviews of Free Websites and Tools
Anki vs Memrise As many of you know – and many of you are as well – I’m a big fan of Anki. People have bugged me about Memrise for years now and, although I’ve used it a fair bit, I’d never gotten around to writing a proper review of it,...
