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February 21, 2009

Carnival 2009 in Catalonia

Filed under: Spain General Information - 21 Feb 2009 from About.com Spain Travel
Carnival season is in full swing, with a number of excellent parades to see if you're in the area. The first parade to see is tonight (Saturday) in Barcelona. The procession...

February 20, 2009

Learn Spanish Fast Online-Is It Possible?

Filed under: Spain General Information - 20 Feb 2009 from author

You can learn Spanish fast online as long as you’re self disciplined and you make certain you get the fundamentals down before you move onto anything more advanced. You’ll want to find a web site you’re comfortable with. You’ll want one that’s easy to navigate, one that has some kind of lesson structure, one that will allow for you to learn basic Spanish online before moving to more advanced lessons and you’ll need one that allows you to physically hear how the words are spoken in order that you can learn the correct way. Once you find a web site you like, it is possible to learn Spanish fast online. How fast you learn, however, is completely up to you.

In order to learn Spanish fast online, you need to practice and you need to practice often. You cannot just learn a couple of vocabulary words one day and expect to be able to speak complex sentences and phrases the very next one. You need to learn the basics first. That means learning how to conjugate verbs, learning the vocabulary, learning how the words are expressed and how to listen to the language in order to have a conversation. When you have that down, then you can move onto more advanced lessons such as phrases and conversational Spanish. But you can not go too quickly or else you will be bound to get frustrated and quit. You want to work every lesson until you have it down pat and you want to practice as much and for as long as you’re able. That is the only way you’re going to be able to learn Spanish fast online and that is the only way you will ever become fluent in Spanish.

Find Spanish Speakers

To maximize the speed with which you become fluent, try to find some Spanish speakers that you can practice with. You can still learn Spanish fast online, but once you begin to talk with Spanish speakers, you’ll be able to pick it up a great deal quicker than you’d otherwise. Talking with Spanish speakers will make you less worried about speaking with anyone. Occasionally, when people are first beginning to learn Spanish, they are afraid to speak because they are afraid of making a mistake. This will not be the case when you are entirely comfortable speaking with others who actually speak the language and you’re doing it frequently.

If you implement all these tips, you’ll learn Spanish fast online and you will have fun doing it. Then, you’ll be able to visit any Spanish speaking country and you’ll be capable to hold your own in a conversation for certain.

You can quickly and easily learn Spanish for Free by visiting Learn Spanish Help

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Rocket Spanish Software - What’s Inside

Filed under: Spain General Information - 20 Feb 2009 from author

With the increase in foreign language training programs and online tutorials, learning a foreign language is becoming a casual part of one’s lifestyle compared to the complications it had few ages ago. Rocket Spanish is one of the well known software in the market that offers training in a wide range of arrays like ebooks, audio, video and interactive games that help the user to learn the language more effectively in a short period of time.

Self Confidence is a major barrier for most people who wish to learn a language in a matter of weeks or months. Rocket Spanish training has a twisted way of teaching the language.

Any foreign language learner should keep in mind the fact that a language approach does not mean only the conversational and grammar aspects, since culture has a most significant word to say in the very existence of a language.

Culture is a key component int the Rocket Spanish training program, and it’s very well embedded with the rest of the material. Thus, ensuring the fact that you will learn spanish very fast while overcoming problems that you might face on the way.

Rocket Spanish believes in making you learn to speak spanish like a native instead of making you a grammatical retard of the spanish language. Such an approach makes sure that you actually know what you learn, not just memorizing the content. By re-iterating what you listen in the training, you will find it easier to understand what you are actually saying.

Since we are talking about a program that aims at the rapid learning of a foreign language, one cannot expect from RocketSpanish to cover all the advanced and proficiency levels of understanding and communication. At the end of completing the course, and provided you have done your best to learn everything, you should be able to manage a conversation at an intermediate level. This will actually be quite a performance given the time interval in which you developed the skills.

Rocket Spanish is therefore a common and rapid solution for the acquisition of a foreign language. Personal learning efforts can be taken beyond the Rocket Spanish course as such; some students will surely want to take their studies further. For such cases, Rocket Spanish will provide a good solid basis of knowledge to built on.

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February 18, 2009

Spanish Courses For Children

Filed under: Spain General Information - 18 Feb 2009 from author

learn spanish fast

Spanish courses customized for kids teach kids Spanish in an interesting and easy way. It doesn’t go into grammar and syntax in a direct manner. Children, like a lot of adults, would be 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 are able to learn Spanish fast. The younger a child is when they are initially 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 six months. It depends too on their exposure. If they only hear Spanish in school, but not at home, they will take longer to pick it up.

Kids are able to learn Spanish quickly. Kids soon discover 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 half a dozen different ways, in Spanish the pronunciation is clear, straightforward and phonetic.

Generally, 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 example is the word for “plastic” that is spelt as “plástica.” Without the accented first “a” it would be pronounced as “plastEEca.”

Spanish for kids can fun. Remember, it won’t have been too long ago that they started to learn English. This is why kids they have the ability to adapt so rapidly; 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 have not learnt how to read yet, then you should make them involve all their senses, if possible, to learn the language. Computers are great for this in numerous ways as they can see diagrams and animations as well as hearing the language.

Employ your house pet as well. They will be amused to call the dog “un perro,” or the cat “un gato.” Needless to say, they will need to 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 are first exposed to Spanish, the faster they will be able to learn it. If the learning process is interesting, children will not see it as a boring task that they have to undertake. Also, teach them helpful phrases, such as, “may I have a glass of milk?” (¿Puede darme un vaso de leche?), and start using them in every day speech. They will take to it naturally. Spanish lessons for kids can be easy and fun too.

 

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Batman in Barcelona

Filed under: Spain General Information - 18 Feb 2009 from About.com Spain Travel
There was a time when every movie, video game or comic book was set in the United States. But not any more. The new star of the multimedia world is...

February 17, 2009

What is the Camino de Santiago?

Filed under: Spain General Information - 17 Feb 2009 from About.com Spain Travel
If you have been following my Twitter updates recently (my Twitter account is @gospain), you'll know that I'll soon be embarking on the Camino de Santiago. The Camino de Santiago is...
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