Thursday, February 5, 2009

Learn Spanish CD - Audio Spanish Is The Best Way To Learn Spanish

By Adrian Fletcher

It is estimated that Spanish is spoken as a first language by around 400 million people. This doesn't count the people that speak it at home or with their family, as is the case with many bilingual Spanish speakers in the United States.

Audio courses are a good way to learn Spanish. They can come on CD or Mp3 format. This article will cover why audio course are a good way to learn to speak Spanish.

If you are looking for the right type of course to learn Spanish, I would say that it should have an audio part to it.

When it comes down to the nitty-gritty, you learn a language to talk to people. Whether this is via a business or social interaction, you use language to receive and give views on a particular topic. People like to talk.

The other aspects of learning a language, like reading and writing are important aspects of any language of course, but I would suggest they are not as important as being able to talk. This point is proved by when you learned your mother tongue. You learned to speak before the other parts of the language.

So talking is the most important skill to have. Ironically, it is also the hardest part of learning a language because you have to perfect a number of skills.

You have to be able to pronounce a word or sentence and you also have to be able to understand what is being said to you. You have to combine these skills with a recall of vocabulary rapidly if you want a conversation to not be stilted.

A Spanish audio course allows you to learn and practice these skills without having to converse with another person. They slow down the process until you are comfortable and you can use them anywhere you like.

For instance, listening to an audio course in the car is a potentially great use of dead time. Rather do something constructive with your time than sitting in grid lock every day.

Whilst this makes sense, it is not clear whether you can really concentrate on the course when you are driving. It takes a bit of concentration to get the best out of the course but this should and will be devoted to driving.

An audio course will typically be a series of around 30 lessons. Each course format may vary but ultimately they all boil down to : you listen and then repeat. There will also be some instruction or explanation in between. Depending on the level of the course, it should take you from beginner through to advanced Spanish, with each lesson lasting from 20-30 minutes.

Advanced level pretty much means being able to ask basic questions, understand the repsonse and then say something in response. It doesn't mean fluent Spanish. This requires far more practice, including learning more grammar, turns of phrase and speaking to native speakers.

In my view, being confident about talking to people is as important as the language skills you have. Once you get to this stage your Spanish language skills will really take off. However, a good Spanish audio course is the first step in this process.

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