Starting Spanish, Slowly Improving French

[stwhite1988]

Hi All,

I have finally reached my target of B2 in French. Well I'm presuming that I passed the DELF exam last week but I will find out for sure in January.

I would like to start learning Spanish with a trip to Mexico next March in mind.
It has been so long since I started learning French so I'm kinda unsure how to start Spanish so any feedback would be appreciated.

From browsing through the forums I see these two resources mentioned a lot:
Assimil e-method
Gramatica de uso del espanol

If I can reach a B level by March I would be delighted. I could commit to 1 hour a day of 'at-my-desk' study, and potentially several hours a day of listening while at work.

Given my target, is there anything you would recommend in addition to my resources?
Also, is there any beginner listening podcasts that you would recommend?

I would also like to slowly improve my French during this period. My plan is to talk for one hour per week via Skype, and to continue to read and watch TV everyday in French.

Many thanks in advance,

Stephen

[Deinonysus]

Good luck on the test results!

If you use Assimil I would recommend their traditional book and audio courses. That's how they've been doing it for decades and decades. I haven't heard good things about the e-method.

One thing to keep in mind is that Assimil is a French company and their only full courses for Spanish teach European Spanish. They do have a shorter course (21 lessons) for Cuban Spanish. They also have pocket guides for Mexican and Argentine Spanish that are only available in French (but at B2 that should not be an issue for you).

If you mainly want conversational ability and you spend at least 30 minutes a day commuting alone, Pimsleur is your best bet. It's fairly expensive but you may be able to find it at your library. You could probably finish two levels in three months if you do one lesson every work day.

Duolingo teaches Latin American Spanish and is very good for writing practice. It's excellent in conjunction with other resources.

If you can fit it into your schedule I would strongly recommend Destinos, a telenovela designed for anglophone learners of Spanish in the early 90s. It's very dated but I think that's part of its charm. It's available for free online:
https://learner.org/series/destinos/

Reaching a B level in three months with one hour of active study a day plus some passive listening is probably not a reasonable goal, even considering that you already have a good knowledge of French. But I think you can certainly learn enough in that time to have rewarding experiences in Mexico such as exchanging basic pleasantries, ordering food, or asking for simple directions.

[brokenrecord]

I've used the Gramática de Uso books and like them a lot, but I don't think I'd recommend them to someone who's just starting Spanish; they're written entirely in Spanish, so if you've never done any Spanish before, they might be a bit difficult to understand at the beginning. I started off with Language Transfer's Complete Spanish audio course and would highly recommend it. It's completely free, so there's no reason not to give it a shot and see if you like it. I felt like it gave me a good intro to Spanish grammar, and I supplemented it with Duolingo exercises. I've never used Assimil before so I can't speak to it, but I know a lot of people here use it and seem to like it. Good luck!

[David1917]

I have finally reached my target of B2 in French. Well I'm presuming that I passed the DELF exam last week but I will find out for sure in January.

If I can reach a B level by March I would be delighted. I could commit to 1 hour a day of 'at-my-desk' study, and potentially several hours a day of listening while at work.

First of all, congrats on sitting a DELF exam. Since you're thus aware of what a true B2 feels like, you're aware of what is ahead of you. It is true, however, that Spanish will come at something of a time discount.

If you want to simultaneously improve your French while learning Spanish, I see no better option than the original Spanish "sans peine" course from Assimil. It is an old 1950's book, but the course more or less follows a man from France visiting Spain. Since it was written for French speakers, the dialogues don't even start in a very stilted manner. Here is the first one:

Alberto! Tu! Es posible?
Como va, Carlos? Y tu familia?
Todos perfectamente. Que sorpresa! Te creia en Paris!
Me marchare` la semana que viene. Mi director no me lo permite antes.
Vas por mucho tiempo?
No lo se, probablemente por tres semanas, y, si es posible, por un mes.

You start right off with a past imperfect (creia), future (marchare`), object pronouns (no me lo permite/no lo se). Because as a French speaker, you know this. You know je croyais, je marcherais, and ne le permet pas.

I would also include the freely available Cortina course. The first few lessons will be a breeze, so you should rapidly be able to tackle some of the middle-stage dialogues. Lessons 17-20 are very long and introduce aspects of Spanish and Latin American geography and culture. I think with these two, and an audio supplement whether it be Michel Thomas or Pimsleur (I prefer the former), or some other such podcast like SpanishPod101, then I think you will have a rewarding experience in Mexico in March.

For some perspective, I speak Spanish at a high level, and in advance of a trip to Paris earlier this year, I listened to the Michel Thomas course, began the French Without Toil Assimil course, and played around with the Rosetta Stone program available at my university. I won't say I was "great" by any means, but I was certainly able to order things, understand the metro signs, talk to baristas about travels or tattoos. I began in around August and also went in March. But the difference of a couple months, especially when you have more time to devote to Spanish (I was still in school at the time) should balance out.

Finally, for pursuing advanced French in general I would try to track down any of: Linguaphone's Expert French, Assimil's Using French, and Colloquial 2: The Next Stage French. See if you can check any of these out at a library or something to get a feel for which one might be the most challenging. What do you think your sticking points were on the exam?

[samfrances]

For me, the Michel Thomas courses were an amazing start to Spanish - probably the only thing that convinced me that I could learn to speak in a foreign language and construct sentences to express my thoughts in real-time. I would recommend them to anyone.

Pimsleur and Paul Noble courses are similar, and have the advantage of native-speaker audio, so they are definitely worth a look.

The MT courses don't get you all the way to C2 (or even really B1), but they do give you a pretty automatic grasp of things like the basic verb conjugations.

[Jaleel10]

The Gramatica de uso del espanol has been translated to English in late 2014, it's called Beginning Spanish Grammar: A Practical Guide to 100+ Essential Skills

The book doesn't really hold your hand in anyway, especially if you're not familiar with certain grammar terms. I'd recommend it after you've finished half of Assimil or completed the Language Transfer audio course.

Some great grammar books for beginners I can recommend are:
* Basic Spanish: A Grammar and Workbook, Irene Wilkie
* Easy Spanish Step-By-Step, Barbara Bregstein (Or Complete Spanish Step-By-Step)

Both books try to build up your understanding of Spanish grammar slowly, gradually introduce new vocabulary and both provide a reading comprehension exercise at the end of each unit to further test your understanding. I highly recommend either of them.

[stwhite1988]

Thank you very much for your comments!

There is a lot of high quality resources mentioned in this forum. A high quality grammar book in conjunction with an audio course seems to be a good starting point.

Duolingo is something I tried before but the android app didn't provide any explication for some grammar points which I believe are available on the website.

[Cavesa]

Years ago, I wrote a very similar post on the original HTLAL forum. My goal was to continue my French, having passed DELF B2, and to learn Spanish.

I wish you the best!

As far as Spanish resources go: Gramatica de Uso is awesome, Assimil is very useful, I would also recommend workbooks by Anaya (Vocabulario, Gramatica, Fonetica). You might profit from a normal monolingual classroom aimed coursebook, I like Metodo for example. Those tend to give more reading and listening material and more guidance on writing and in general on the expectations at each level.

[t123]

For me, the Michel Thomas courses were an amazing start to Spanish - probably the only thing that convinced me that I could learn to speak in a foreign language and construct sentences to express my thoughts in real-time. I would recommend them to anyone.

Pimsleur and Paul Noble courses are similar, and have the advantage of native-speaker audio, so they are definitely worth a look.

The MT courses don't get you all the way to C2 (or even really B1), but they do give you a pretty automatic grasp of things like the basic verb conjugations.

Language Transfer is similar (to Michel Thomas/Paul Noble) but free.
Nevermind, already mention above.