iguanamon, I hope you have been well! I have hardly been active on here the last year and a half. A combination of career and personal life challenges, including an awful bout with covid and a couple job changes, and I have not done anything with any language since a little more thant a year ago!
I was curious for your opinion on something. I hope messaging in your log like this is not inappropriate, and I can definitely just make a new thread if you prefer.
That said, here goes:
For background since I don't imagine anyone to remember such an infrequent poster, I have gotten to what I'd guess was a solid A2 in Brazilian Portuguese, maybe an A1 or so in French, and somewhere between those two in Italian. I have not kept up with any of them as they served my purposes and then I moved on with other interests.
But now I am starting a new job this Monday with an NGO that focuses on Central American issues, and a lot of coworkers who are either heritage speakers of Spanish, or who have learned it to a high level. Though the org will eventually enroll me in classes as they have solid financial funding to do that, I wanted to get a jump on things on my own. I will also have the opportunity to travel to the region semi-regularly.
I notice most things I read online, and on this site, say to not worry about the difference in Peninsular Spanish courses and "Latin American" courses since the latter are quite varied anyway. It isn't like someone will mistake me for a Spaniard even if I used vosotros exclusively, etc...haha.
However, since my workplace is basically all people who are either from, or raised by, Central Americans and Mexican/Mexican-Americans or people who learned Spanish to a high-level in college in the US and via study abroad in Latin America, I thought it might be sort of weird to use resources that feature the accent of Spain. This seems a correctable "issue" even if all I did was use Peninsular Spanish resources until I was intermediate, but.....maybe it can be avoided to begin with? Especially since both work itself and travel will be so focused.
I have had solid luck with Assimil, but studying daily with Spanish With Ease and its Peninsular pronunciation also seems like I'd be working cross wise to my goal. Plus, there is no such thing as a magic bullet. So I am a keen on exploring other ways to pick up a language (I did have solid luck with Italian and Linguaphone, but the Latin American Spanish Linguaphone costs a pretty penny, haha) if for no other reason than to show folks it is doable. Even though I have only had very achievable and modest goals compared to most here.
I was thinking to just try to do the following as a multi-track approach:
Global Voices parallel texts
Working through McGraw-Hill Education Beginning Spanish Grammar (which is just the English translation of Gramática de uso del Español A1/A2 from what I understand)
Michel Thomas' Spanish course.
I noticed that both NHK and RFI Spanish news have a Peninsular pronunciation. Do you know of any news sites that have a "Latin American" approach to news with audio? I definitely like the idea of listening from the beginning in an intensive way. Maybe it is not a bad thing to have exposure to NHK/RFI, but I figured it did not hurt to ask if you knew of another place to try out since the other resources I listed are not aural.
So, yeah...what do you think? Am I going too far in the other direction from "don't have too many courses"? haha. I'd eventually move to the Intermediate Spanish Grammar Book, and following the Michel Thomas course, I could just start reading books with a dictionary since my public library has a huge selection of Spanish books from children's to young adults and up.
Or would you suggest I still do a proper course beyond just Michel Thomas and that grammar book? There are a few Latin American courses like Oxford Take Off in Latin American Spanish and Living Language Ultimate: Beginner-Intermediate. My library has both, and audio, so it would not be a big deal to use either. They seem a bit more boring and like a grind compared to what my experiences with Assimil have been, but I don't mind if you think I probably need something a bit more than what I have listed above.
Thanks for any suggestions or thoughts, and again I apologize if it was holy inappropriate to post this novel in your log!