Spanish Lessons For Kids
Spanish courses designed for kids teach children Spanish in an interesting and easy way. It doesn’t teach grammar and syntax in a direct manner. Kids, like most adults, would become bored very quickly if they had to tediously conjugate regular and irregular Spanish verbs. Spanish for kids avoids all that, but still manages to teach children the basics too.
Children have the ability to learn Spanish fast. The younger a child is when they are first exposed to another language, the sooner they can learn it. A five-year-old could learn fairly good Spanish in a matter of a couple of months, while a twelve-year-old might take more than half a year. It is also dependent on their exposure. If they are only exposed to Spanish in school, but not at home, they will take longer to learn.
Kids can learn Spanish quickly. They very quickly learn that Spanish for kids shows them Español es un lenguaje fonético y la pronunciación es muy clara. Unlike English where the ending, “ough” for example, can be pronounced at least six different ways, in Spanish the pronunciation is clear, straightforward and phonetic.
In general, the second to last syllable is where the emphasis goes, unless the word has a letter with an accent on it. The word, “farmacia” has the emphasis on the second “a” as there is no accented letter. The word, “problema” has its emphasis on the letter “e.”
But when there is an accented letter, it becomes even easier. You simply place the emphasis of the word on that letter. For example, “fútbol” is that ever-popular ball game, or soccer, as it is known in the USA. The emphasis is naturally on the emphasized letter “u,” and sounds more or less the same as the word in English. Another instance is the word for “plastic” that is spelt as “plástica.” Without the accented first “a” it would be pronounced as “plastEEca.”
Learning Spanish for kids can fun. Remember, it shouldn’t have been too long ago that they started to learn English. This is why kids they are able to adapt so fast; they are still learning so much every day that another language is something they take in their stride without batting an eyelid.
If you are teaching a child who cannot read yet, then you should make them engage all their senses, as much as possible, to learn the language. Computers are good for this in many ways as they will be able to look at diagrams and animations besides hearing the language.
Employ your house pet too. They will find it funny to call the dog “un perro,” or the cat “un gato.” Of course, they must get the genders right too! If the dog and cat are female, then they will become “una perra” and “una gata” respectively.
Normally, the younger the child is when they taught Spanish, the quicker they will be able to master it. If the learning process is interesting, they would not see it as a tedious chore that they have to undertake. Also, teach them practical phrases, such as, “may I have a glass of milk?” (¿Puede darme un vaso de leche?), and begin using them in your daily conversations. They soak it up naturally. Spanish lessons for kids can be easy and fun too.
December 30, 2008
Learning To Speak Spanish Greetings
When you initially begin to pick up Spanish, Spanish greetings are usually the first things that you pick up. What do you know if you don’t know how to say “hello?” Learning Spanish greetings will help you to learn Spanish quick in its simplest form because you don’t need to juggle with all the verb agreements or word orders. Spanish greetings are taught in simple phrases. No complex words need to be looked up or added. As I mentioned before, as you learn Spanish, the first phrase you should know is “hello.” When you say that in Spanish, you would say, “Hola.”
“Hola” can be used either formally or casually to say hello to anyone you may meet. If you want to say hello on the phone, you might use “bueno” or “diga.”
If you want to say “goodbye” in Spanish, you would say, “Adiós.”
If you want to say, “How are you?” you would say, “Cómo estás?” If you want to say, “Good afternoon.” you would say, ” Buenas tardes.”. If you want to say, “Good morning” or “Good day,” you would say, “Buenos días.” “Good night” in Spanish is buenos noches, and to ask for somebody’s name, you would say, “Cómo te llamas?”
Once you get these down, you will find that it’s a breeze to learn the language, but you are in for some more complex terms a bit later on down the road. Other fundamentals that you can start learning are numbers, the alphabet, telling time, asking directions, gender, color, body parts, and family.
Picking up these kinds of common terms will help you learn Spanish quickly as you will able to practice these words daily. It is normal to hello and good night all of the time so you will be comfortable practicing your Spanish often.
Later on, you can learn to form more sophisticated greetings such as, “Hello, how are you are you doing?” or “Hi, the weather is pleasant today, isn’t it?”
You can start to get a little more advanced by asking “What’s up?” or “What’s new?” To say that in Spanish, you would say “Qué hay?” If you would like to say, “How’s it going?” you would say, “Qué pasa?” If you wantto say “nice to meet you” you would say “Mucho gusto.”
These are just a couple of the more intermediate level greetings that can help you to learn Spanish while getting to meet many different people.
In Spain, it’s often a common thing for people to kiss each other on both cheeks when they meet. However, men will normally just give each other a hand shake. Even though people kiss each other often when they meet, they don’t do it all of the time. For instance, in during a business meeting, you would not catch people giving each other kisses on the cheeks.
If you are in America, you may not want to try kissing anyone as you learn Spanish, even if it’s another Spanish person. Most Spanish people in the States have gotten used to the American culture, and Americans don’t usually kiss each other when they first meet. Nevertheless, if you visit Spain, you may want to try it. It will add to the fun as you learn Spanish.
December 29, 2008
Spanish For Dummies- It Is Not That Hard To Learn Spanish Easily
Spanish For Dummies is one of the books in the successful “For Dummies…” series. It obviously targets the Spanish language and aims to help you learn Spanish quick in a simple and interesting.
Spanish For Dummies is written by those who know the language best at the Berlitz language school. The book features common expressions and phrases that you may find useful while you are on holiday, and aims to get you familar with the language.
The Spanish For Dummies book describes itself as being, “…the ultimate guide for speaking Spanish quick and easy.” The book is is packaged together with a CD-ROM, allowing you to listen Spanish spoken by native speakers.
In a way, you could describe any starter Spanish learning course as being Spanish for dummies generally. The concept is that it can take someone who has no idea of Spanish, from knowing nothing at all to at least speaking a few useful expressions of Spanish.
There are plenty of courses like that you’ll be pleased to hear. Nowadays, language courses have started concentrating on the fun element of language learning, paying less attention to the need for grammar, syntax and cultural nuance, and replacing them with shortcuts, tricks and tips to actually speaking the language with other native speakers.
Grammar does have its place. Spanish grammar is significantly different from English grammar. That’s why they will describe a new car as “un coche nuevo,” literally, “a car new.” There’s not much you can do about that other than just learning it.
Translating literally from English to Spanish is a very bad thing to do. That would come out as, in our example, “un nuevo coche,” and would sound just as bad to a Spanish person as “a car new” sounds to you! As a general rule of thumb, put the adjective, the describing word, after the noun, the thing being described. This is the reverse of the normal rules in English.
The Spanish for dummies type of courses tend rather to concentrate on the easier side of things. There are many Spanish words, for instance, that are very similar to their English equivalents. Usually, they change only with the endings. Words in English ending in “ant” often get translated to words ending in “ante” in Spanish. Por ejemple (that’s Spanish and I’m sure you can guess what it is in English), “important” becomes “importante.”
But that’s not all…
A fair number of the “ent” ending English words become “ente” in Spanish, such as “evidente.” A good number of the “ible” and “able” ending words stay the same in both languages: comparable, combustible. A number of Spanish words simply drop English endings, such as the “ate” ending words where “participate” becomes “participa” and “terminate” becomes “termina.”
How many English words can you think of that suffix in “ary”? There are tons and you’ve just learned as whole lot more Spanish words, because you can adapt the English to Spanish by changing the “ary” ending to an “ario” ending.
Spanish for dummies can be the title of a best selling language book, or it can simply be a way to describe a good Spanish course designed to help you learn Spanish fast without the hassle of learning complex Spanish grammar.
December 28, 2008
Learning Spanish Phrases - They key to Speaking Conversational Spanish Fast
Making the decision to learn another language like Spanish can be a fun and challenging process, especially if you’re doing it for the purpose of a vacation or business trip.The methods used by some Spanish courses and programs are not always equal, often times the best methods are not used at all.
When you start learning another language there are a couple of different methods you can use.
The first method is straight memorization. This is where you build a big vocabulary of Spanish words based on associating them with the English equivalent of the words.
This method is the one mainly used in school second language courses. The draw back here is that most students build a big vocabulary but rarely learn to piece those words together to make sentences. This doesn’t help the students become good communicators in Spanish.
The second method of learning Spanish that is used by most audio and software Spanish programs is instructing students to learn Spanish phrases.
For example, if you learn how to say “I need to go to”in Spanish then you’re able to make a variety of sentences simply by appending several words to the end of the sentence.
So an easy example is you learn how to say “I need to go to the Air port” how ever if you also learn how to say the grocery store and the movies you can exchange either of those phrases for the air port and have totally different sentences.With this type of learning it becomes much easier to speak conversational Spanish and communicate with others in a native speaking Spanish country.
A great program to teach using this format is Tell Me More Spanish. It’s a high end learn Spanish software package that uses speech recognition to perfect pronunciation and teach phrases, sentences, and conversational skills.
There are Spanish learning courses which are cheaper how ever this course is probably the best available. You can learn more about it in this unbiased Tell Me More Spanish review.
If you choose to learn Spanish phrases rather then going the memorization route you’ll find yourself conversational much faster and learning the basics in less time. Why spend your time filling your head with hundreds of words in Spanish that you would rarely use in every day context?Doesn’t make good sense, or use of time.
December 27, 2008
What are the most optimal methods of learning Spanish?
If you want to pick up Spanish as a second language, it’s a good choice - Spanish is probably the most frequently-spoken foreign languages in the States and other Latin countries, such as Mexico and South American countries.
Because of the immigration population to the United States, there are a lot of people in the States who do not have a lot of knowledge of Spanish, and immigrants may not have a fluent command of English either. This makes communication a big challenge. So what’s the best way to learn Spanish fast? You can pick up Spanish a number of different ways, even beyond what you were probably taught in school.
Many people want to learn Spanish in the same way they were taught during school - textbooks and group conversations. This, in real life, doesn’t always work out, because textbooks can be costly, and they’re not the best way to learn Spanish quickly because what you learn is the the formal way that Spanish is spoken.
Native Spanish speakers usually include the lingual dialect into their conversation, which is not mentioned in every Spanish textbook, so you may be lost as you try to understand them. Group conversation, however, does have its benefits. You get to interact in conversation and work with students who are learning Spanish just like you.
The drawback is that the group moves in a certain pace, and you have to keep up with the group, or else you will lag behind. If you can work well in a group dynamic, attending Spanish classes are one of the best methods to learn Spanish.
You can also do online courses; there are sites that offer free Spanish lessons online, or they provide a full step by step course. These are one of the most optimal ways to learn Spanish, especially if they come with audio tapes. Audio tapes let you hear how Spanish is supposed to be spoken, and the text element of online courses make it the most effective way to pick up Spanish as you are able to simultanenously hear and see the words whenever you want.
One of the most optimal Spanish courses online that I’ve come across is Rocket Spanish - it has a full complement of all parts of the Spanish language that you’ll need for engaging in normal conversations, and in addtion, you can learn at completely your own pace when using online courses.
The drawback here is that there’s no one to actually hold a conversation with. Learning a language in theory is important, but to really make it stick, it helps to have someone to talk to you in Spanish, as you would have to think fast about as the conversation is going on. Nonetheless, online courses are still one of the most optimal methods to pick up Spanish.
These are just several of the best ways to learn Spanish quick. Probably the most effective way to learn Spanish would be to combine all these ways into a single program for yourself by setting up a learning schedule according to your learning needs and the time you have available. Ideally, one of the best ways to pick up Spanish is to set apart half an hour every day. If you have audio tapes, you can listen to them in the car on the way to running errands.
December 26, 2008
Learn How To Speak Spanish
Learning Spanish Made Easy for Beginners
You should know that learning to speak Spanish is a lot tougher than you may have expected, and is in fact, one of the most difficult of all European languages to learn to speak. Learning a foreign language is bound to be difficult in any case, most people may fear that to really become skillful in a foreign language, requires too much of perseverance as well as dedication. Some people may tell you that you may also need to travel overseas to a foreign country to learn how to speak Spanish properly, which is far from being true.
Helpful and Sensible Ways to Learn Spanish
It is not necessary however, to have to travel overseas to a foreign country in order to learn how to speak the Spanish language, because there are plenty of effective alternative methods that can be found locally that will teach you how to speak Spanish adequately. All that is required, however, is that you are dedicated, have a passion for the language and will put in all the necessary effort in order to succeed in your efforts to learn the Spanish language.
You could join a lecture class to learn how to speak Spanish, which is a very common method for beginners wanting to learn the language and it has the advantage of communicating with a teacher, who is fluent in Spanish and will teach you the right way to speak the language. Another helpful tool in learning how to speak Spanish are some of the great books you can find on conversational Spanish, they are a valuable resource in teaching you some of the common phrases that people use.
Still by far for many people, the best method of learning how to speak Spanish is to purchase a teaching kit that has both audio and book materials, which will give you the opportunity to rewind as needed, because of this, these training materials are very successful. This will give you the advantage of learning at your own pace while also providing you with the materials needed to learn proper grammar, pronunciation, as well as, how to create proper sentence structures, all of which is vital to properly mastering this new language.
You can find a lot of popular Spanish teaching courses available on the internet such as ’Rocket Spanish’, these great resources help beginners to learn the language rather quickly. With internet resources available, like ’Rocket Spanish’ and many others, you will find that you can easily learn how to speak Spanish in a short span of time and with a good amount of success as well.