There are several ways:

I gather you are past the period of time (childhood) when most people pick up languages readily. You should have moved years ago. Bad planning,

on-line methods, Babbel, Rosetta Stone, etc.
Take a class
Self-instruction

What will work best for you depends on your personal 'learning style'. IF you prefer an organized approach, where you are led through the process, then on-line or live classroom experiences will do well.

If you are reasonably well disciplined, self instruction can work well. Remember, there are three forms for language: Spoken, written, and thought. Hearing and speaking the language is first. It's important to pay attention to how the language sounds. In my self-learning French project, I have found Rosetta Stone and popular french songs helpful for "hearing" the language--distinguishing the sounds which compose a language. Next, of course, is speaking; then reading (like signs, newspapers), and writing. Being able to think in a foreign language will happen at some unknown point.

Spanish has a more direct relationship between spelling and sound than French and English, which is a good thing.

Since you are living in a country where your native language isn't primary, you will get lots of practice listening to the native speakers. Some people will happily help you informally, so try to find a few of those. It will help if you have a real interest in the language.

Unless your native language is Mandarin or something like that, Spanish grammar isn't all that complicated; spelling is quite consistent. Idioms are always going to be tricky, in any language.

Try doing both informal language pick up and some more formal study. It will help if you know something about how verbs are conjugated. That alone won't help you order lunch, of course, but it might help you piece things together.

Keep a notebook handy to record what you learn, and review it regularly. Eventually, one day, you will realize you are going through the day's activities in Spanish, without too much difficulty.

Good luck.

What are the benefits of speaking another language (other than ease of communication)? — JJJJS

Well, "ease of communication" is a very big deal. But once you are adept in the language, you can expand your cultural repertoire to include the arts and sciences practiced in Spanish speaking countries, as well as grasping more about the way the people in xyz country live.

Don't rely on text-translation apps. It's important to build and maintain the language in your head, where it is most readily available. It like people who use GPS all the time eventually get to the point where they can't find their way around the block without a GPS telling them when to turn.

Thank you for all your advice.

Please accept the comment that answers your question. — JJJJS

Why did someone add this to my post?

It looks like an automated glitch. When you post a new discussion, there is a little box for "question" and "poll". It might be the case that the "question" box is checked by default.

Heads will roll. Or as Google translates that into Spanish, rodarán cabezas -- they will roll heads.
That idiom problem.

So, what Spanish speaking country are you in, how long have you been there, how is language acquisition going so far, and what method are you using to learn the language?

Yo hablaría español, pero soy demasiado estúpido para hacerlo. I suspect hablaría is subjunctive. (Oh, it's conditional.) Get acquainted with the subjunctive tense.

Present Imperfect Imperfect 2 Future
yo hable hablara hablase hablare

This won't help much with speaking, but is great for growing your vocabulary:

Get an ebook such as a kindle or kobo, find some simple books in your chosen language, load the <other language>->English dictionary onto the device if it doesn't already have one, then start trying to read books in that language on the device. When you encounter a word you don't know, hold your finger down on the word for a second or so and a translaton will pop up.

A bit of effort is needed to locate learner-level texts in your chosen language, but they're easy to find in most common languages.

This technique got me from schoolboy to fluent in French and from almost nothing to schoolboy in German.

Music. It helped fast-track my understanding of a new language by learning the lyrics to songs. That's right. Swirl those hips with Enrique Iglesias.

I've just moved to a Spanish speaking country and I need to learn Spanish.

What are the best methods to learn a second language? Spanish or otherwise

What are the benefits of speaking another language (other than ease of communication)? — JJJJS

French is my mother-tongue.
Me, and almost everyone I know who speaks English learned through a combination of listening to music, watching television and surfing the Internet. School courses are useful to kickstart your oral understanding of the language, but I find that unless you are learning in context, your capacity to apply your knowledge is incredibly limited. French-canadians, especially those from my birthplace, who did not immerse themselves for a long time tend to have a very pronounced accent.

One obvious benefit, in regards to where we are posting, is that knowing other languages allow you to read philosophical works in their mother tongue. I can read Descartes in the original, you cannot. A German speaker can read Brentano in the orinigal, and I cannot. It opens access to domains of interpretation that you could otherwise miss. Hoffmann mentionned something to the effect that Nietzsche in the anglophone world had been misrepresented throughout the last century because the anglophone reading was based on the French translations of the works, and not the originals. When I read French authors on Wittgenstein, they seem to be speaking about a completely different individual then when I'm reading American authors. So on and so on.

Music — TimeLine

Right. My self-frenchification program isn't making a whole lot of progress, but one of the best parts of what French I have learned has been by listening to "older" french songs, like 1930s - 1950s. The styles of singing are straight forward and enunciation is pretty good. Plus, I like the music, and it's all new to me. It's suave, romantic -- well some of it. The French are as capable of corny pop music as every other culture. One particularly good song is a bitter complaint about being a ticket puncher at a Paris subway station. Le Poinçonneur Des Lilas by Serge Gainsbourg.

Je suis le poinçonneur des Lilas
Le gars qu'on croise et qu'on n' regarde pas
Y a pas de soleil sous la terre
Drôle de croisière
Pour tuer l'ennui j'ai dans ma veste
Les extraits du Reader Digest
Et dans ce bouquin y a écrit
Que des gars se la coulent douce à Miami
Pendant ce temps que je fais le zouave
Au fond de la cave
Paraît que y a pas de sot métier
Moi je fais des trous dans des billets



I’m the ticket puncher at Lilas.
To me the passengers pay no regard.
There is no sunshine in this Metro station.
Strange vacation.
To kill the boredom, in my vest,
I have extracts from Readers Digest,
And this book says to me,
That life is just a ball in Miami,
All the while I’m working like a slave,
Down in this cave,
They say work’s better than the dole
But all day long I just make holes
I punch holes, little holes and more little holes
Little holes, little holes, always little holes
I make second class holes
And punch first class holes
I punch holes, little holes and more little holes
Little holes, little holes, always little holes
Little holes, little holes
Little holes, little holes.

Ohhhhh >:) so you finally decided to emerge from the basement? O:) X-)

Right. My self-frenchification program isn't making a whole lot of progress, but one of the best parts of what French I have learned has been by listening to "older" french songs, like 1930s - 1950s. — Bitter Crank

A bit newer, but I've always loved Monsieur de Thomas Fersen



Les passants sur son chemin
Soulèvent leurs galures,
Le chien lui lèche les mains
Sa présence rassure.
Voyer cet enfant qui beugle,
Par lui secouru,
Et comme il aide l'aveugle
A traverser la rue.
Dans la paix de son jardin
Il cultive ses roses;
Monsieurs est un assassin
Quand il est morose.

Il étrangle son semblable
Dans le bois d'Meudon
Quand il est inconsolable,
Quand il a l'bourdon.
A la barbe des voisins
Qui le trouve sympathique,
Monsieur est un assassin,
Je suis son domestique,
Et je classe ce dossier
Sous les églantines,
Je suis un peu jardinier
Je fais la cuisine.

Il étrangle son prochain
Quand il a le cafard,
Allez hop! Dans le bassin
Sous les nénuphars.
Et je donne un coup de balai
Sur les lieux du crime
Où il ne revient jamais,
Même pas pour la frime.
Sans éveiller les soupçons,
Aux petites heures
Nous rentrons à la maison.
(Je suis son chauffeur).

Car sous son air anodin,
C'est un lunatique,
Monsieur est un assassin,
Chez lui c'est chronique.
Il étrangle son semblable
Lorsque minuit sonne,
Et moi je pousse le diable,
Dans le bois d'boulogne.
Le client dans une valise
Avec son chapeau,
Prendra le train pour Venise
Et un peu de repos.

Il étrangle son semblable
Dans le bois d'Meudon
Quand il est inconsolable
Quand il a le bourdon.
A la barbe des voisins
Qui le trouve sympathique,
Monsieur est un assassin.
Je suis son domestique.

Vous allez pendre monsieur,
Je vais perdre ma place,
Vous allez pendre monsieur,
Hélas! Trois fois Hélas!
Mais il fallait s'y attendre
Et je prie Votre Honneur,
Humblement, de me reprendre
Comme serviteur,
Et je classerais ce dossier
Sous les églantines,
Je suis un peu jardinier
Et je fais la cuisine.

Get an ebook such as a kindle or kobo, find some simple books in your chosen language, load the <other language>->English dictionary onto the device if it doesn't already have one, then start trying to read books in that language on the device. When you encounter a word you don't know, hold your finger down on the word for a second or so and a translaton will pop up.

A bit of effort is needed to locate learner-level texts in your chosen language, but they're easy to find in most common languages. — andrewk

I second this except don't use an ebook but write it in the margins of a real book yourself. It will stick much better. The rest is immersion.

I've just moved to a Spanish speaking country and I need to learn Spanish.

What are the best methods to learn a second language? Spanish or otherwise

What are the benefits of speaking another language (other than ease of communication)? — JJJJS

I just want to say, don't be like me. I moved to Spain last year and haven't made much progress. It's partly because of the nature of my work (web development), and because all my friends here are English-speakers. But those are excuses. Duolingo says I'm 45% fluent, but if you saw me trying to hold a conversation you'd see that isn't true. Duolingo is pretty good, but it doesn't work on its own. It's not focused on everyday conversation. A typical example sentence is "the elephant walked near the strawberries". Useful for learning grammar but not very useful when talking to your neighbours.

I do have one piece of advice, for what it's worth. If there are lots of English-speakers around they may, sometimes out of impatience, reject your attempts to speak Spanish and just let you use English instead (they will know you are a native English-speaker). What you should do in those situations is insist on using Spanish.

Swirl those hips with Enrique Iglesias. — TimeLine

My spring and summer were plagued with "Súbeme la Radio" and "Despacito", playing constantly at the restaurant next door to my apartment, and I can't say the immersion helped at all.

I think music is supposed to make learning a new language enjoyable and like what Benkei mentioned about writing words to make it stick, music and the melody does the same. You weren't allowed to be selective to when and what to listen to, which would make it more of an ordeal especially if the songs all contain the same pop reggaeton beat making them sound almost identical. I learnt a number of songs and did covers on them and it helped me understand informal language and pronunciation, but they were the songs and artists that I liked.

Yeah, that makes sense. When everything is reggaeton, it's too easy to just turn off one's ears.

1. Take a Spanish lover. The best place to learn a language is in bed.

2. Read translations of badly written English novels. Agatha Christie is ideal. Her prose is so cliche ridden that you only need to understand one word in five, and the other four become obvious.

Take a Spanish lover. The best place to learn a language is in bed. — unenlightened

This is a good tip. I know a Spanish woman who got her then-boyfriend, a Scotsman, from zero up to fluent in one month, as she didn't speak English. I met her myself hoping I could fast-track my way to fluency in the same way, but we didn't hit it off.

Ah, un beat me to the lover bit. But I'll put it in context. Put yourself in situations where getting it right is a big carrot and getting it wrong is a big stick. So, presuming you want to speak it, get out there and embarrass the crap out of yourself by getting it wrong until you improve, and have fun in the process. For listening skills, research suggests listening to something just above your level is best, so do that gradually. Don't jump into movies or music and expect that to work very well for a beginner, or if you do, at least scaffold with subtitles - first in your own language and then in the target one. For reading, read a lot - graded readers on a subject you're interested in would be best. Again, don't punch too far above your weight and do make your material something engaging. For writing, if you want to be really good, get a teacher one-on-one. You can't really wing that or you're likely to fossilize errors (you'll keep making the same mistakes over and over that will make you look bad if you need to write something important, especially in a work context.) And do other stuff like learning a set number of new words a day and doing online grammar and vocab tests etc. But don't expect that to work well as using it functionally in real life situations where you repeatedly fall on your public face but then get up again bloody but unbowed.

(Btw, the question thing is because I moved it to questions as it's not a Phil of Lang issue.)

Thank you all.

Today I learnt to say 'send message afternoon' (= 'enviar mesaje tarde') in a conversation while pointing at my Whatsapp app.

With this kind of progress, I'll be fluent in no time!

You could have said enviaré to mean "I will send". I do like Spanish.

Do they not have pronouns in Spanish then?

Yeah but you can drop them, or rather, they're often implicit.

I see...

I have a pdf of this and will print out and use when I have time: https://www.mhprofessional.com/9780071463386-usa-easy-spanish-step-by-step-group

Use the Pimsleur approach - spanish for english speakers. You can pirate it away on piratebay. I know portuguese, english and russian.

I would do but I often don't know how to set up pirated software on my laptop once I've downloaded it

Since it hasn't been said directly, I'd say that it's good to pick a book on the basics and stick to it -- a good one, preferably. As far as the formal study goes, which is, for me at least, effective in the beginning, the good books are designed by professionals that have put much thought in the organisation of the material. No need to reinvent the wheel.

But then the grammar is just rules, and it's difficult to get it to stick in your head for a long time, so plenty of listening to the language is beneficial in order get yourself an intuitive feel for the language. But I think as you keep listening and going forward with the textbook you start to notice more of the patterns in the language you hear, so the formal and the intuitive part of learning start to back each other up. The environment will no doubt help a lot, but I'd listen to music in Spanish too, as it tends to be more catchy and emotional.

Also, a flashcard program doesn't seem to have been mentioned yet, but I think it could do good in the beginning. I use Anki, by copying just about every example sentence into it (as long as I understand the structure of the sentence clearly and it's easy enough to understand--difficult ones get really annoying with repetition). When beginning a new language I use it for single words too, but each time less (now maybe up to about 2000 words), since it often seems like a waste of time after a while. Most of the words will come quite naturally in due time through listening and reading. For Spanish you might be able to find some list of, say, 10 000 sentences with audio on the Anki website; for me it's boring, but it might work for you (but don't force yourself to do something boring).

In short, the way I've gone about it, with at least some success I think, is: 1. start listening to the music 2. start to go through a good textbook, creating flashcards of the vocabulary (important ones from both languages, others only from the target language to english) and sentences (only from the target language); and obviously keep listening and check out translations of the songs you like. 3. listen and read interesting content with google translate completely ready to go (e.g. comics, cartoons and easy books--maybe a Harry Potter book with the audio or something, or maybe online manga, just don't try to translate, but only understand most of it) with very, very selective use of Anki and maybe a second textbook if necessary, or another round of the old one...

After that, it's not difficult to figure out how you'll be able to communicate, but I wouldn't rush into talking if you don't want/need to; more passive learning will get you quite far (obviously you'll have some basic ability to form sentences though, especially since you need some anyway). If all this sounds too obvious, good; after you're organised with the learning it's just a matter of throwing time at it. Some 800 hours and you'll be very good. Just don't underestimate a textbook, I think people are way too quick to go with the more "natural" way of learning a language. I never found much success with Pimsleur or Rosetta Stone for example, mostly because I was bored out of my mind with them.

And don't worry about not understanding all points about grammar, you'll be back at that point in some way soon enough, and you might need some more familiarity with the language before understanding it; as long as you just understand the examples, keep going forward, don't stagnate. And keep exposing yourself to the language in new interesting contexts; the textbook and repetition of the essentials should provide enough of a direction to let you do just what you want the rest of the time.

You don't need to know any langauge other than English when traveling to other countries. Just speak really loud and slow and point a lot and speak in their accent.

You don't need to know any langauge other than English when traveling to other countries. Just speak really loud and slow and point a lot and speak in their accent. — Hanover

Exactly. Here in Arizona we use a lot of sign language and motions along with a great deal of Spanglish. Between knowing a few verbs, tenses and nouns, you could get yourself a beer and know where the bathroom is without too much trouble.

@Sir2u
I am wondering what language is used in Honduras and how you learned the language.