I didn't know this thread was here, this is fun. I've been working on learning Spanish for a year (had the super-basics beforehand from childhood, but that's about it). I attend a formal class for 75 minutes each week with a really good teacher who is very good at both English and Spanish grammar. I am on/off about Duolingo, but have been better since they updated the app with more modules and levels, which is way better than it was before. I also am glad they removed the fluency "percentage," which was so obviously bogus to anybody who knows what the word "fluent" means. I try to go to a weekly conversation meetup in my area, which includes a couple of native speakers and a Spanish teacher who can accurately correct me. I feel like after a year, I am ready to call myself "conversational" -- depending on the topic :)
Some podcasts I like:
- Doorway to Mexico (really great if you are good at the school-version of Spanish but don't follow things like regional slang and colloquialisms. There are a lot of good usage tips and explanations.
- Radio ambulante (played at 3/4 speed)
- Spanish audiobooks of children's novels I know well (like the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe)
I've also been watching a lot of Spanish-language TV on Netflix (with Spanish captions on - English subtitles won't get me anywhere). La Casa de Papel, La Casa de Las Flores, Elite, Las Chicas de Cable, etc. Once I'm caught up on them I'll start one of the related shows, like the Grand Hotel.
I'm going to Mexico on vacation in a couple of months, and while there will spend 3 hours each morning at a local Spanish language school.
Hey check this out.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jul/27/english-language-global-dominance
Long and interesting article.
"Following these are the 12 “supercentral languages”: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Hindi, Japanese, Malay, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swahili – each of which (except for Swahili) boast 100 million speakers or more. These are languages you can travel with. They connect people across nations. They are commonly spoken as second languages, often (but not exclusively) as a result of their parent nation’s colonial past."
I have English, One more of the above, and I'm working on a third not on the list.
I've always wanted to learn Spanish and German.
It would be great to speak a handful of those. Who here speaks the most?
That is really interesting. However, I always cringe when people tell me they want to learn Chinese or Spanish because, "then I can speak to more people". I know this is not a popular opinion and I am sure to get some disagreement (especially in this thread)... But nowadays we have the internet, so you can speak to almost anyone in any language, at any time. There's even fake languages like Esperanto. I live in Texas, so, sure you could indeed utilize Spanish somewhat frequently, but I don't know a single person who set out to learn Spanish who actually utilizes it to network and speak to Spanish speakers locally.
After studying various languages for the last 13 years, I never fully grasped this concept until a few years ago. My current view on this is... make sure you're learning a language due to 1. short or long term travel to that country (which in this case, you only need to prepare for a few months before hand, max, at a high intensity), and 2. you have a very, very strong draw to that culture. Perhaps it is part of your heritage or you plan to be a life long student of that culture, or maybe you feel "drawn" to it. These mostly ensure that you're not wasting your time into a huge sunk cost.
I would never recommend anyone learn a language based off of how many other speakers there are. It's a pretty useless statistic that gets thrown around a lot because it's easy to write articles about. When people tell me my Norwegian is useless, I shrug it off and remind them that 1. I had originally planned to move to Norway for 2 years so I learned it intensely for a while, and 2. I am very, very interested in the culture. Now I can speak it with my son, people online, and utilize it when I travel there. The time I spend each day "learning" is minimal, for the return I get by knowing more about the culture and being able to speak a second language to my son.
Also, don't discount the ability to better yourself at your native language, including English! Just my $0.02. Learn with intention.
With all due respect, it sounds like your social circle of Texans could stand to incorporate a little diversity. In LA, the people I know who speak Spanish use it all the time, because they're willing to get out into communities other than theirs. In certain parts of the city, you need to order food in Spanish, not English (especially for street vendors). 80% of the job postings I look at in my area list Spanish proficiency as either required or strongly preferred. A large number of the service workers one comes into contact with here (cleaning people, uber drivers, what have you) are more comfortable chatting in Spanish than English.
I'd also argue that in places like Southern California and Texas, you are
already engaged in long-term travel to a location where a lot of the population speaks Spanish and comes from a that culture. You're living parallel to it, and just have to engage. You'll have a richer knowledge of your city and your neighbors if you do.