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How to best teach yourself Spanish?

I want to use the summer to teach myself at least some basic spanish. I can speak Italian and French so maybe this will help. I learnt Italian because I lived there when I was my early teens and I learnt French through school and also living there for 1 year. I am not fluent in either anymore but I have a good grasp on grammar and still very conversational. However, I have no idea where to begin teaching myself spanish?

Is getting a grammar book a good idea? I want to be able to do it from anywhere. I don't want to fork out loads on Rosetta stone or anything like this. I have never learnt any spanish though have found I can understand small amounts.
I would start with Duolingo as it's free and quite effective. Then once you're at an okay level, work out what you enjoy most. If you feel pretty confident buy some books and start reading, or if you're enjoying the grammar then buy a grammar book. Having French and Italian already will help massively however - depending on how good your Italian and French is you could even probably pick up a Spanish book now and start working stuff out with a bit of brain power. I speak Spanish and can read Italian pretty well through deduction, though that doesn't mean I could actually speak any Italian back at people! It depends why you're learning and what you want to get out of it.
There are many free resources on the net, depending on what kind of learner you are I'm sure you'll be able to find something that suits. Duolingo is good, as mentioned above, Spanishdict is good for asking questions and has many free video lessons and perhaps some of the free resources here on Learn English Spanish Online will be helpful.
As the previous people said, Duolingo is good, however if you're willing to spend a bit, I would wholeheartedly recommend the Michel Thomas Spanish course. I don't think it's too costly and for me, his teaching method was very effective. I did his beginner's French and Spanish courses and I love them to bits! He had a very interesting life, and learned a lot of languages whilst he was in concentration camps, as far as I'm aware. His teaching style is wonderful.

You can find some Spanish vloggers on youtube, and some Spanish podcasts on iTunes. I don't recommend the free podcasts that claim to be "teaching Spanish" - they are generally made by non-natives with questionable accents. Better to find out how to search for a particular criterium in Spanish, for instance "películas" and maybe find a film review podcast made by Spaniards. Watching the news in Spanish is also a good idea.
Original post by Moura
I want to use the summer to teach myself at least some basic spanish. I can speak Italian and French so maybe this will help. I learnt Italian because I lived there when I was my early teens and I learnt French through school and also living there for 1 year. I am not fluent in either anymore but I have a good grasp on grammar and still very conversational. However, I have no idea where to begin teaching myself spanish?

Is getting a grammar book a good idea? I want to be able to do it from anywhere. I don't want to fork out loads on Rosetta stone or anything like this. I have never learnt any spanish though have found I can understand small amounts.


I agree with Moutonfou - it depends what you are learning it for and what you want to get out of it. If you are learning for conversational use then listen to Spanish TV/Radio - anything/anywhere - and read Spanish in whatever form (just immerse yourself in the language). If you already speak French and Italian you should be able to understand what your hear/read through a process of deduction (at least you will pick up the meaning). For more technical/business uses of Spanish you will need to do grammar but again, understanding French/Italian grammar will help with this. It's also not a bad idea to understand English grammar (if you are a native English speaker) - I see for example that you have a split infinitive in the title of your thread - it should be 'how best to teach' not 'how to best teach'.....These points are all v.important when trying to understand/learn foreign langauges for any formal purpose (such as exams)

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