I'm trying to learn Spanish as an adult learner and am struggling to find and use a credible portfolio of learning approaches. I'm hoping to get enough of a base with this that I can go do immersion in some Spanish-speaking place. Here's what I envisage. Maybe you can help me refine this? Maybe you can learn from my efforts. I am a total beginner in Spanish with a current working vocabulary of less than a hundred words.
- A teacher. This was easy. Googled, went to superprof, found a nice retired lady happy to meet me at the local Panera bread for $20 an hour. She seems to know what she's doing. I also found an online instructor who is particularly fantastic. They're good but they do require planning for scheduling which I'm a little too disorganized for.
- A Group. I'd like a live or online group of other beginners to try to chat with. I imagine this too should be easy but I haven't found one. My local community center has both a novice and beginner conversational group but for French and nothing for Spanish. #annoying
- A Hands Free Audio program for when I'm driving or walking by myself. This should not require me to look at the screen. The key point is that it is Hands-Free. Pimleur is heavily marketed here but I use "Behind the Wheel" which was free with my Audible credits.
- A program to use when I can look at the screen on my phone. This one is easy and has become my major tool. I have Duolingo, Rosetta Stone, Babel, and Mondly on my phone now and am trying to figure out the benefits and problems of each. Actually, Duolingo hooked me.
- A television-like program to watch which has both entertainment and educational value in terms of learning Spanish. Lingopie is the heavily marketed one. Here's Youtube videos that I'm watching. Fun because I can change the playback speed.
- Some super easy books in Spanish to read.
- Maybe a textbook to follow that will explain some of the grammar stuff. I bought Spanish for Dummies which seems to do the trick.
- Some interactive app to use on my Alexas. Haven't found this...
- Translate: Google translate app on my phone and website on my computer. I also ask Alexa how to say things.
- Mi esposa esposa también. Ella es la razón por la que intento aprender español, pero resulta que en realidad no es el tipo de profesora.
Does this seem like a reasonable mix? Each one of these could fit into my day conveniently for some amount of time.
It seems like this sort of portfolio approach provides the best mix of approaches and use of time enabling some real progress.
