Starting Spanish with a Rusty B1-ish Italian base

[zKing]

So I haven't had much time to play with languages in the last couple of months, but the wife and I are thinking of taking a trip to Mexico in the fall. I'd always thought I'd learn some Spanish someday, but I never put it very high in the priority list. I thought this might be a good opportunity to kick it off, because heck, if I don't have time to learn two languages, why not add a third? Am I right? Anyhow, my abilities in Italian are rusty but I suppose they'll help a bit (as well as cause some interference... but I'm not all that concerned about the interference bit.)

While my general advice to someone in my shoes would be to start by cramming the first 1-2k words in Anki, skim a grammar primer and do something like Assimil... I'm feeling lazy and bit over-worked from other obligations and would like this project to be a bit more of a casual/enjoyable ride (even if progress may be significantly less efficient). This will be an on-the-side fun thing that hopefully will relieve stress rather than add to it.

So I'm think I might play with Duolingo a little (until I tire of it, which is usually fairly quickly), maybe LingQ and I'll just find some entertaining YouTube videos jump in head first and see where it gets me. After pushing through with Cantonese, I have a very high tolerance for the barely comprehensible, but somewhat entertaining.

Anyone have suggestions non-hardcore-study materials they find (mostly) entertaining for Spanish?

Isn't there an immersion program for Spanish similar to French In Action?

[StringerBell]

Since you might have a need for touristy-type stuff, what about something like Pimsleur (assuming that your local library has it available)? That's a pretty easy thing to listen/repeat in the car or doing dishes, etc... The free Language Transfer courses are also kind of interesting; I recently listened to some of the LT Italian course just to see what it was like, and it was really different from what I was expecting. I have lately also been having some fun with Memrise; I don't know what the Spanish courses are like, but they have this new format with clips of various native speakers saying phrases that I think is pretty awesome.

[lavengro]

....

Isn't there an immersion program for Spanish similar to French In Action?

Destinos - https://learner.org/series/destinos/

[garyb]

Even as a chronic overthinker myself, I find that people often overthink things when it comes to learning a related language. I'm happy to see that you don't seem to be falling into the trap and above all you're not panicking about interference or trying to devise strategies to avoid it, which is already a massive step ahead!

Pimsleur might be good but you might find it a bit slow. Personally I find its method too slow for more transparent languages yet too difficult to follow for less transparent ones, but some swear by it. Cramming Anki as a beginner sounds painful, and I love Assimil but see it more as a foundation for someone in it for the long run than for preparing for a trip. Overall I think your approach sounds good and as usual there are many ways to skin the cat. You might as well dive in, and that will probably give you a better idea of what to focus on and which gaps to fill in.

[eido]

@Jaleel10 has posted some good resources in my old log and in the Spanish group (as well as elsewhere on the forum) for Spanish. There is this one channel that focuses on Mexican Spanish, which does so in the typical YouTube style, but is very entertaining.

YouTube has a wealth of content by Spanish speakers, and even if you can't understand it, I'm sure it'd be fun to watch.

I personally like Jaime Altozano and his buddy, Alvinsch. (There are more in their circle, like Ter and QuantumFracture, but I haven't explored them in totality yet.) They're from Spain and Colombia, respectively, but I love the way they deconstruct music. If you want something interesting to watch, there are likely people doing it in Spanish, you just have to do some exploring and use some keywords.

[zKing]

I've been low on free time, but I wanted to write a quick "Thank you!" for everyone's suggestions.

@eido: I've subscribed to those YouTube channels, they seem like exactly what I'm looking for! YouTube is definitely my favorite language learning tool. And I've skimmed through the stuff in the resources thread, but honestly I've probably got too much already so I'd better hold off as I'm prone to wasting time hording resources.

@StringerBell and @Morgana: I've requested Pimsluer from the library, but I must say, Language Transfer is AWESOME. I really got along with Michel Thomas for Italian, and LT seems like basically the same thing, but somehow slightly more organized and FREE. (Sorry, Mr. Thomas.) Even in the LT introduction, the cadence of the way the host says "It is very important..." seems like a spot on copy of MT. Plus I like that LT's editing of the 'sample student' removes a lot of the mistakes/dead-time-stammering that MT left in (at least so far?)... this seems a lot more efficient. I have a feeling I won't be using Pimsluer as I'll likely stick with LT and I'll be mostly past the Pimsluer stage after it.

@lavengro: Yes, Destinos, Thank you! I haven't had a chance to dig into it yet, but I'll get there. I'm VERY curious to give it a try as I've heard such good things about it.

@garyb: Thank you for the vote of confidence. I'm definitely a card holding member of the over-thinking club. Thankfully reading HTLAL and LLORG for so many years has hammered into my thick skull that the methods don't matter so much; the only thing that really matters is persistent contact with/usage of (at least semi-)comprehensible TL. To learn to understand: keep trying to understand. To learn to speak: keep trying to speak. Rinse, Repeat... many, many, many times. Persistence is king. Which means I need to do whatever will enable me to continue to put one foot in front of the other. All the rest is just details.

Side note: I'm actually enjoying Duolingo Spanish. It seems ridiculously easy (which helps that persistence thing) and feels much better constructed than when I tried Duolingo Italian a while back. It's more fun than Anki, at least for now...