How To Learn Spanish
Have you been thinking about learning Spanish–a language that has about the same number of speakers as English does? Maybe you studied it in high school or college, but feel that you never really learned to speak. But now perhaps you have a renewed interest in learning the language–you need it for business or to speak with clients or employees; you plan to travel or you are involved in the arts; or you live in a bilingual community and just want to participate more fully.
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Modern research has clarified some important factors in language learning. The human brain is uniquely adapted to learn language that it hears. People who are motivated to listen and to use language to get things done, acquire it naturally. Desire and opportunity are hugely important in language learning.
Even though it is natural for humans to learn languages, the modern scientific study of language has provided hints about how to facilitate this process. Theoretically, you could put together an action program for yourself, but not everyone has access to native speakers of the target language, and availability of radio, television and movies with native speakers may be limited. In any case, good, structured teaching materials provide a patient model for pronunciation, show you how words are used, and organize content into progressively ordered chunks that are interesting and relevant, and help you to keep track of your progress.
What characteristics will you look for in a Spanish learning program? You will want a program that provides clear models of pronunciation by native speakers, and clarifying tips on producing and hearing the sounds that make up the sound system of the language. If you have little or no experience with learning a foreign language, Spanish is a good choice to begin, because the relationship between the sound system and the spelling is transparent. After a few lessons you will be able to read aloud any text with passable pronunciation.
The lessons should have a structured introduction to the words of the language and the modifications that they undergo in phrasal combinations. It is not necessary to belabor your learning with pages of tables and paradigms and complicated grammatical terms (maybe you remember AMO, AMAS, AMAT, maybe not). The words and phrases should be presented naturally, in the environment of major sentence types that are related to contexts and social functions. The universal language learner in your brain will make sense of the WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN and WHY issues of grammar.
A program such as Visual Link Spanish (TM), created by David Clark manages to simulate the natural way we learn languages–using vision AND hearing AND active participation. A unique feature of the program is that the visual aspect contains not only the conventional literacy aspects–the written language–but also a graphic representation of the functional groupings in the sentences. These graphical representations assist the brain in sense-making and memory, and make for an effective, efficient and entertaining way to learn the language of Cervantes, of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and of millions.
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