How to make learning Spanish fun?

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redbetta

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I am going to be an AP Spanish student starting this fall. I used to love Spanish, but my teacher junior year who I dislike has done a pretty good job at killing whatever desire I had to learn and now Spanish is becoming a pain to learn. But, I am stuck with her this year since she is the only AP Spanish teacher we have.

She told us that we have to immerse ourselves in culture and different accents this summer, so she told us to download the Tunein Radio app and listen to talk radio in other countries. Well, it is not that fun since I do not even listen to radio in English and I try to listen on a walk and I can rarely get a signal and, when I do, it starts buffering every minute or so so that it takes one hour to listen to fifteen minutes of radio. My dad told me to watch TV in Spanish, but I really hate the TV, I cannot sit still for hours on end and there is nothing to watch even in English.

So, any good movie recommendations made in Spanish-speaking countries? And I am 17, they have to be appropriate and I would not benefit much from just watching a movie I know, but set the language on Spanish. Or any good audio books that are relatively inexpensive, do not take up too much storage space, and available on ITunes?

Thanks for any recommendations, anything helps.
 
Hmm, what about using the Bible app’s built in audiobook? It’s free.
 
redbetta said:
I am going to be an AP Spanish student starting this fall. I used to love Spanish, but my teacher junior year who I dislike has done a pretty good job at killing whatever desire I had to learn and now Spanish is becoming a pain to learn. But, I am stuck with her this year since she is the only AP Spanish teacher we have.

She told us that we have to immerse ourselves in culture and different accents this summer, so she told us to download the Tunein Radio app and listen to talk radio in other countries. Well, it is not that fun since I do not even listen to radio in English and I try to listen on a walk and I can rarely get a signal and, when I do, it starts buffering every minute or so so that it takes one hour to listen to fifteen minutes of radio. My dad told me to watch TV in Spanish, but I really hate the TV, I cannot sit still for hours on end and there is nothing to watch even in English.

So, any good movie recommendations made in Spanish-speaking countries? And I am 17, they have to be appropriate and I would not benefit much from just watching a movie I know, but set the language on Spanish. Or any good audio books that are relatively inexpensive, do not take up too much storage space, and available on ITunes?

Thanks for any recommendations, anything helps.
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Please note that I take AP German class as my foreign languge and not Spanish, but the methods that I do still work, regardless of language.

One of the things I would to improve my German was reading books (childrens books such as Der Bruders Grimm or *Der Strewwelpeter *are good starters in my case) and reading news articles written in German; specifically, in the case of the latter, reading articles that were from news sites situated in either Germany or Austria (an example would be Der Spiegel). What I would do is try to translate them to English, and then reread the articles in German, now knowing what the article is talking about.

If I were you, I would start reading news articles and books that are written entirely in Spanish. In the case of the former, I suggest googling or binging a news site from Spain or other spanishing speaking country.

Another method would be to listen to music that is sung in Spanish; for me, I listen to music sung in German. And no, it doesn’t always have be on the radio airwaves. It can bought from ITunes or from a CD album.
 
I was in Spanish IV and we were combined with the AP Spanish class.

Now I’m taking Spanish 102 in college and Spanish 201 spring semester.

The best thing to do is watch movies and have Hispanic friends. For example I was at one of my Mexican friends house and we tried to cook food. I learned more Spanish than I would in a classroom. Try watching Spanish tv shows like Caso Cerrado. Or soccer games on Spanish channels.
 
Thanks for the general directions, but I was more looking for the titles of movies and books if anyone has some, instead of a general idea. I already know to listen and watch Spanish media, I just want to narrow down the search.
 
I have had no formal training in Spanish. What little I know I learned simply by attending Spanish Masses. I have also had exposure to much Latin so that helps a little as well.
 
I’ve been trying to learn Spanish for a while. Besides working with the Pimsleur lessons on Latin American Spanish which I find very good and in which the Spanish is spoken by Spanish speakers (You can borrow them from the library), I also sometimes listen to a Catholic Spanish radio station. It’s called En Familia. I don’t know if you would be able to hear it where you live or not. See if there is a Catholic Spanish radio station you can listen to. You will be learning more about your faith while you learn the language. If you know a priest who is bilingual he might be able to direct you to such a station. Also, one of the local parishes here prints some of their Church bulletins in Spanish. And our diocesan newspaper has a couple of articles in Spanish. I like especially to read the articles by our bishop because if I get stuck reading it in Spanish I can flip to the English version for help.

I also take out one book at a time from the small Spanish area in our library. I have borrowed the Catechism of the Catholic Church in Spanish. This last time I borrowed “Madre Teresa: Sus oraciones preferidas” by Eileen Egan. Other times I borrowed children’s books such as picture dictionaries in Spanish.

I hope you find something that works for you.
 
¡Si no le resulta divertido hablar español, no lo estas haciendo correctamente!

ICXC NIKA.
 
You might try listening to the Spanish track of English movies you already know (and like :)). And as for the radio app, if you can make it work pretty consistently in, say, your kitchen, you could listen to it as background while you do things like wash dishes (which would probably thrill your parents ;)), or if you can knit or crochet, while you do that. What will happen is that your brain will work on the sounds it is hearing while your attention is on something you don’t need a lot of bra(name removed by moderator)ower to do.

Listening to the Bible in Spanish would also be good–just be aware that most Spanish translations are still under copyright and the one which isn’t (Reina Valera or something like that, iirc) is a Protestant translation. OTOH, there are apps, some free :), which have very simplified versions (they are used for Protestant evangelization :().

Librivox has quite a few books read aloud in Spanish–the quality of the accents of teh readers will vary. Librivox also now has apps, at least some of which allow reviews.

Reading will not accomplish what your teacher wants you to learn. She wants you to be able to hear and understand through listening. She wants you to do some training of your ears so that you will be able to take in information through your ears and understand it.

However, you can support that–help the process, not accomplish it–by reading aloud to yourself, but most of all by thinking to yourself in Spanish. Try to make Spanish your own language rather than a sort of code into and out of which you are working in English. When you read something, do not translate it in your mind, just take the information into your mind and leave it in Spanish in your mind. A good goal would be to be anle to watch a fairly easy Spanish movie and when you try to describe to someone in English, you have to remember it in Spanish and translate your Spanish memory into Enlgish 🙂

Good luck 🙂
 
Oh, and try listening to different versions of the Rosary in Spanish–that’s how we learned to pronounce Latin :). Try to find the ones with just one voice at a time, otherwise it’s too fuzzy to be helpful.
 
redbetta said:
Thanks for the general directions, but I was more looking for the titles of movies and books if anyone has some, instead of a general idea. I already know to listen and watch Spanish media, I just want to narrow down the search.
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How about going to Spanish Mass.

For movie titles.

“El Orfanato” comes to mind.
 
redbetta said:
She told us that we have to immerse ourselves in culture and different accents this summer, so she told us to download the Tunein Radio app and listen to talk radio in other countries. Well, it is not that fun since I do not even listen to radio in English and I try to listen on a walk and I can rarely get a signal and, when I do, it starts buffering every minute or so so that it takes one hour to listen to fifteen minutes of radio.
Click to expand...
Is it possible to listen to a podcast? Radio Ambulante might be worth considering. You will hear reports from around Latin America, on variety of topics.

Here is an English language website about it:
radioambulante.org/en/

And here is the podcast webpage:
itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/radio-ambulante/id527614348
 
adawgj said:
How about going to Spanish Mass.

For movie titles.

“El Orfanato” comes to mind.
Click to expand...
I already seen “El Orfanato.” We watch it every year for Halloween. I live next door to a shrine to our Lady of Guadalupe, but I am afraid of going to mass there. I have a lot of social anxiety and I am afraid of being the only non-Mexican there and people looking at me like I must be lost and somehow wandered in there. Please do not call me racist, I have a lot of anxiety in any unfamiliar social situation.
 
redbetta said:
Thanks for the general directions, but I was more looking for the titles of movies and books if anyone has some, instead of a general idea. I already know to listen and watch Spanish media, I just want to narrow down the search.
Click to expand...
Have you read Don Quixote, or at least seen the movies?
 
redbetta said:
I am going to be an AP Spanish student starting this fall. I used to love Spanish, but my teacher junior year who I dislike has done a pretty good job at killing whatever desire I had to learn and now Spanish is becoming a pain to learn. But, I am stuck with her this year since she is the only AP Spanish teacher we have.

She told us that we have to immerse ourselves in culture and different accents this summer, so she told us to download the Tunein Radio app and listen to talk radio in other countries. Well, it is not that fun since I do not even listen to radio in English and I try to listen on a walk and I can rarely get a signal and, when I do, it starts buffering every minute or so so that it takes one hour to listen to fifteen minutes of radio. My dad told me to watch TV in Spanish, but I really hate the TV, I cannot sit still for hours on end and there is nothing to watch even in English.

So, any good movie recommendations made in Spanish-speaking countries? And I am 17, they have to be appropriate and I would not benefit much from just watching a movie I know, but set the language on Spanish. Or any good audio books that are relatively inexpensive, do not take up too much storage space, and available on ITunes?

Thanks for any recommendations, anything helps.
Click to expand...
Hi,
A recommendation I would have for you would be to download an audio Bible app on your phone. The only one I know of that has audio within the app in Spanish is Biblia.is (Bible.is English version also has a Spanish option). The Spanish app only has audio for the New Testament and It is a protestant version but I still believe its a pretty good resource for audio bible on the go. You can download audio when in wifi and always have it available on the go wherever you go. Also, an app called “Audiobooks” has a Spanish section for free audio books, one I’ve started listening to is “Libro de la Vida” by St. Therese of Avila.

As for movies, some I can think of with clean content would mostly be black and white movies. Mexico used to have much better cinema many years ago than they do in recent times. “Cantiflas” and “Pedro Infante” are two great legends in Mexican cinema. You can look up these artists in youtube along with the word “pelicula” and you should get full movies(quality in youtube is poor but it should work). Actually, “Eugenio Derbez” has made a few recent comedies like “No se Aceptan Devoluciones” which made it to US cinemas as “Instructions Not Included”.

Also, I would suggest doing a search on youtube with “pelicula san” or “pelicula santa” and you will find movies in Spanish for various saints.

Espero esto te ayude y que Dios todopoderoso te bendiga hoy y siempre!
 
Watch el chavo del ocho. It’s clean and a classic show that almost all latin american countries have seen and still make reference to.
There’s full episodes on youtube. Almost all latin kids grew up on this show
youtube.com/watch?v=Zkh_UjVLQKY
 
redbetta said:
I already seen “El Orfanato.” We watch it every year for Halloween. I live next door to a shrine to our Lady of Guadalupe, but I am afraid of going to mass there. I have a lot of social anxiety and I am afraid of being the only non-Mexican there and people looking at me like I must be lost and somehow wandered in there. Please do not call me racist, I have a lot of anxiety in any unfamiliar social situation.
Click to expand...
Sometimes I go to the Spanish Mass at the Cathedral and they have been nothing but very welcoming and by the way I have about 1/4 spanish blood in me and I just happen to have blonde hair and blue eyes.
 
redbetta said:
I already seen “El Orfanato.” We watch it every year for Halloween. I live next door to a shrine to our Lady of Guadalupe, but I am afraid of going to mass there. I have a lot of social anxiety and I am afraid of being the only non-Mexican there and people looking at me like I must be lost and somehow wandered in there. Please do not call me racist, I have a lot of anxiety in any unfamiliar social situation.
Click to expand...
They would probably be more than glad to welcome you and to help you with learning your spanish better
 
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