help! con espanol por favor!

Hey basically my text book in school is crap can anyone suggest a better one than "hola amigos" I do IB spanish ab inito. and can anyoen suggest any good spanish films and books and stuff?!
I you can it would be Ace thanks!

Reply 1

Milady de Winter

I used the Pasos 1 textbook for my open access Spanish course at university - it's about GCSE standard, so try Pasos 2 if you're doing IB.

As for films - try anything by Pedro Almodovar, especially Matador, Todo Sobre mi Madre, and Volver. Jamon Jamon is another good Spanish film, as is The Sea Inside. Amores Perros is excellent, but it uses LatAm Spanish, which is slightly different from 'Castilian' (traditional) Spanish.

As for books - anything by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, especially Love in the Time of Cholera. Also take a look at Mario Vargas Llosa, and Jorge Luis Borges (esp. Labyrinths)

Reply 2

mire

I am sorry I disagree with the opinion above, but don't read LatAm literature if you are going to learn Spanish Spanish. I myself had great difficulties in understanding One Hundred Years of Solitude, because Colombian Spanish is so different to mine.

If you want to read newspapers, try www.elpais.com.

As for books, try Manolito Gafotas or El Pirata Garrapata, they are child literature - easy and fun.

And if you need further help and you want to PM me, no problem :smile:

Reply 3

dannywales

1

Really? Gutted, I have to read Cien años de soledad in my final year, lol.

I agree though, I prefer sticking to the Spanish of Spain. El País is a good start, I read it almost every day now.

Reply 4

mire

dannywales

Really? Gutted, I have to read Cien años de soledad in my final year, lol.

I agree though, I prefer sticking to the Spanish of Spain. El País is a good start, I read it almost every day now.

oh girl good luck with García Márquez... we complained to our teacher about vocabulary, it was hard following the speech when you didn't know that 'pileta' means 'piscina'!!

El País is gooooood.

Reply 5

CatatonicStupor

15

Here's everything I can suggest to you to do with Spanish:

Reading

Try lots of newspapers. Look into more than just El País as they all have different styles of writing, and different opinions. Try out La Razon, ABC, El Mundo and La Vanguardia too. You can read the same story, and find one paper will say Zapatero is amazing, and the other will call him a fool, for example.

Viewing
Take out some films by Almodovar and Buñol to start yourself off on Spanish. Use the subtitles to watch them through a few times, then try it without them, and see if you still understand what's said. If you just want to pick up basics, then try Y Tu Mama Tambien. It's a Mexican film, and the two main characters speak a lot of LatAm slang, but the girl in it is meant to be from Madrid, so she speaks proper Spanish (and the Madrileño accent is really easy to follow because it's slow, and there is no loss of letters, like an Andaluz accent.)

Listening

You can pick up stuff just by listening to bands. Try La Casa Azul, which is more pop-orientated. Gloria Estefan is a good one too, cause she's more "Big band" and sings rather slowly. Even Gipsy Kings is worth a look; they throw in a lot of Gitana slang, but when they sing in Spanish it shows a bit of regional variation away from the Madrileño accent. Manu Chao would be another one to pick up random vocab and slang from. And if you want to show-off, pick up some Ojos de Brujo - that stuff won't exactly challenge you vocab-wise, but it'll challenge you to understand accents. (If I could remember a few more, I'd start recommending Andalucian Hip-Hop, which is like listening to someone speaking light-speed Spanish, dropping esses and lots of strange pronunciation).

And if you wanna be a nerd, and take Spanish far too seriously, then invest some hard-earned cash in 501 Spanish Verbs. That'll blow all of your school grammar books out of the water, since you only really need to know how to conjugate, and then what vocab to use, to get by in any language. [And this actually got me to learn the perfect tense, even though my teachers had spent weeks on it...the explanations used in it are a bit confusing though, so I suppose you need a foundation from teachers to build upon).

Buena suerte.

Reply 6

mire

Don't try La Razón or El Mundo, for your mental health. If you want right-wing newspapers, try La Vanguardia (Barcelona-based) or ABC (Madrid-based).

Reply 7

mire

CatatonicStupor

Here's everything I can suggest to you to do with Spanish:

Viewing
Take out some films by Almodovar and Buñol.

Obvioiusly you mean Buñuel :P Buñol is a town near my city!

Reply 8

CatatonicStupor

15

mire

Obvioiusly you mean Buñuel :P Buñol is a town near my city!

Quite right. Luis Buñuel. Thanks for the correction :yep:

I'll change my suggestion of Buñol to say "Go to this town and participate in the tomatina. I plan to, one day. I'm sure being surrounded by a lot of Spanish people will improve your language skills. :p:

"

Reply 9

mire

CatatonicStupor

Quite right. Luis Buñuel. Thanks for the correction :yep:

I'll change my suggestion of Buñol to say "Go to this town and participate in the tomatina. I plan to, one day. I'm sure being surrounded by a lot of Spanish people will improve your language skills. :p:

"

if only they didn't all speak Catalan lol

Reply 10

chicaaaa

hable con ella- agreed, i loved that film.
pans labyrinth
Diarios de Motocicletas
like water for chocolate- havent watched it yet but its supposed to be good.

i suppose that "the orphanage" should be accessible seeing as it was at the cinemas not long back, i thought it was quite good.

listen to david bisbal- pure cheese, love it.

This is great.

If you're looking for music, I really like El Canto Del Loco. I'd never listen to their style in English, but somehow in Spanish it's good.

Juanes is also amazing.

Reply 13

Ari_ben_ami

OP

juanes is amazing, so is lengua secreta but no-one seems to have heard of them they are that secret! i think R.b.D is veyr very very veyr very Kitschy but very easily accessible!

Reply 14

Ari_ben_ami

OP

dannywales

I I really like El Canto Del Loco. I'd never listen to their style in English, but somehow in Spanish it's good.

Oh i know what you mean they are good! lol but only in spanishhhh

Reply 15

dannywales

1

There seem to be a lot of Welsh Spanish speakers here, ¿que bien no? :smile:

Reply 16

mire

El Canto Del Loco = mierda. El Canto Del Loco = mierda. El Canto Del Loco = mierda.

Oh, if only you knew this is a reference to a TV program in Spain. But anyway my statement is true. It's so mainstream D:
Try Triángulo de Amor Bizarro or Love of Lesbian (yes, they sing in Spanish).

Reply 17

chicaaaa

just bought 501 spanish verbs <3 love it.

i watched loads of kids programmes when i started out, they tend to speak slow.

x

Reply 18

mire

why don't you guys watch The Simpsons in Spanish? You can find them in youtube. The dubbing is awesome, and so is the translation!

Reply 19

Hanoi

15

dannywales

If you're looking for music, I really like El Canto Del Loco. I'd never listen to their style in English, but somehow in Spanish it's good.

Juanes is also amazing.

loool I know what you mean...ECDL is my guilty pleasure :ninja:

help! con espanol por favor!

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