Communicating Effectively in Spanish

Communicating Effectively in SpanishYou have indicated that your goal is to communicate effectively in Spanish, and we will now outline just exactly how you can reach that goal. Remember that achieving this high goal will take considerable effort on your part. We can show you the path, but it is up to you to actually take the steps that will ultimately lead to your success.You will need to study nearly every day, although you need not study for long periods of time. A half hour is usually sufficient. If you can devote at least a half hour nearly every day, you can achieve your goal. Expect it to take about 4-6 months to reach a level where you feel that you can communicate effectively, able to understand native speakers and make yourself understood, as well.

Combined ApproachWe highly recommend that you purchase our complete audio course, Camino del xito ("path of success"). This course will guide you as you simultaneously work on four distinct areas of study: grammar, vocabulary, oral confidence, and immersion.

GrammarWe have over 90 separate grammar topics on our website, and you are welcome to study them all for free. For each topic, there is a short discussion followed by three activities: Quiz, Oral Exercise, and Test, also free. Because you have a very high goal, to achieve it you will need to practice as much as possible. By purchasing our audio course, you will also get 12 months premium access to this website. That means that you will have access to literally hundreds more activities than free members.

VocabularyThe vocabulary in Camino del xito is purposefully kept small. Using an approach known as "guided imitation," you will learn a relatively small body of material so well that it will become easy for you to reproduce it. This is known as "overlearning." The idea is that if you learn how to express the idea, "I'm going to the store," it then becomes relatively easy for you to expand that concept and say "She's going to the laundry."

As you master concepts, you will want to extend your vocabulary. A powerful tool for learning vocabulary is the simple flashcard -- 3 X 5 cards with Spanish on one side and English on the other. You should always have two separate stacks: new words and words you have already learned. Every once in awhile, go through the stack that you have already learned, just for review. This should go very quickly. If you find that you have forgotten a word, move it back to the other stack for more intensive study. You can always move it back to the "learned" stack later.

VERY IMPORTANT: ALWAYS CARRY SOME FLASHCARDS WITH YOU! This will allow you to study them at times when you normally would be doing nothing -- standing in line, riding the bus, waiting for class to start, etc. You can turn "wasted" time into productive study time. The key is that you have your flashcards with you. Even one or two minutes is long enough to study 5-10 cards. Do this, and you will find your vocabulary expanding more quickly than you ever thought possible. And don't forget to study the flashcards "both ways," that is, sometimes use them with "English up," and sometimes use them with "Spanish up."

We also have a vocabulary section on this website. A prerequisite of effective communication is having the vocabulary necessary to discuss a topic. Currently, the vocabulary section on our website has over 50 topics. Each topic has a number of exercises designed to help you learn the words. With the purchase of Camino del xito you will have access to all of the "premium areas" -- twice as many words as free members.

Oral ConfidenceThe single most important component of foreign language learning is "student attitude." A good attitude is essential, and the basis for a good attitude is feeling successful. With our course, you will feel successful from the very outset.

We know that there is only one way to develop a real sense of success: you must practice speaking the language! This means out loud and at normal conversational volume! It is normal to be a little inhibited at first, but you must overcome this inhibition, the sooner the better, and the best way to overcome this natural inhibition is by quickly developing confidence that you have good pronunciation skills.

You will approach this from two separate directions: you will begin working on the free pronunciation tutorial on this website and you will find that the first two discs of Camino del xito are largely devoted to developing excellent pronunciation skills. When combined, these two tools allow anyone to develop a strong sense of oral confidence, which is essential to overall success.

ImmersionSomething magical happens when you are immersed in a foreign language. A change takes place in your brain and a heightened awareness occurs that is highly conducive to language learning. This "immersion experience" need not take place in another country; it can occur in your own home. You don't need to be exposed to the target language 24 hours a day in order to experience these "immersion benefits," -- in fact you can experience them in as little as a half hour session.

Camino del xito is specifically designed to provide this immersion experience, which is why there is very little English on any of the 15 audio CDs. Many people want a course that continuously provides them with alternating English and Spanish, but such courses are largely ineffectual because they deprive the student of the immersion experience.

The only way to experience the benefits of immersion is to largely or completely eliminate English from large blocks of instruction. This is precisely what our audio course does. Don't worry, the entire transcript, English and Spanish, is provided on the special companion website -- caminodelexito.com -- so you will never feel "lost." In fact, each disc is designed to be used alternately with and then without the transcript.

You can do it! Just follow the three simple steps for learning a language:

1. Practice2. Practice3. Practice

Buena suerte!