If you’ve read my full Rosetta Stone Spanish review, you know I highly recommend it as one of the best Spanish learning programs around. There’s only one problem: the full program costs upwards of $500. Ignoring the fact that you’d probably spend at least that much or more on a series of inferior products spread out over several months or years, $500 is a lot of money, especially to pony up all at once.
Buy Used Rosetta Stone Spanish Online
The most obvious way around this initial cost hurdle, of course, is to search online for use Rosetta Stone Spanish software. Unfortunately, my efforts in this direction yielded mixed results. Probably the best and easiest place to buy used Rosetta Stone Spanish software is from the same place you’d buy it new: the Amazon store
Another option is trying your luck at eBay. I’m actually not a huge fan of eBay in general because it’s relatively easy to think you’re buying one thing but really end up getting another. For something as expensive as Rosetta Stone, I would personally be more comfortable sticking with a reputable retailer like Amazon. That said, you are much more likely to find a dirt-cheap deal on eBay than Amazon, but it’s buyer beware. A recent search of eBay didn’t turn up any screaming bargains but again, patience is likely to be a virtue.
For more on Rosetta Stone, check out my full product review or the Amazon user reviews
It’s frustrating: you spend hours and hours studying grammar rules, doing audio drills, and memorizing vocabulary words only to find out on your big trip overseas that not only do the natives speak perfect English, they actually prefer it than struggling through a conversation with you in their native language! Although I’ve personally found this happens more in Germany and Central Europe than in Spanish-speaking countries, it’s pretty much universal in large cities.
Understand Where They’re Coming From
In many cases, it’s understandable why they’re prefer to speak English with you. Perhaps you’re in a place of business and they’re busy and trying to help you as quickly as possible so that others won’t have to wait. Maybe they’ve had a bad day and aren’t in the mood to indulge you. Or maybe they’ve been working just as hard on their English as you have on your Spanish and jump at the chance to try it out on a North American. Whatever the case, understanding their motives can help ease your frustration. If this happens to you, follow these tips to maximize your Spanish practice.
- Respond in Spanish – If a native approaches you in English, responding in Spanish will generally get the conversation back on your terms. It could be they simply assumed you only speak English and were trying to make things easy for you. A Spanish reply is a strong hint that you’d prefer to speak in Spanish.
- Explain Your Preference – If they persist with English, politely explain that you appreciate their consideration, but that you traveled to their beautiful country to learn and practice Spanish. Be positive and play to their ego, asking them to correct your mistakes as you make them. Everybody likes to feel superior and feel like they have something of value to offer. Most Spanish speakers will jump at the opportunity to help you out if they aren’t in a hurry.
- Don’t Push The Issue – If your Spanish isn’t great, there’s a decent chance your partner will become frustrated and attempt to switch back to English in spite of your polite explanation. If this is the case, drop it and switch to English. It’s not worth being rude and causing a scene and besides, they may be in a hurry or just in a bad mood. Whatever you do, don’t take it personally.
The following is a guest post from a reader. If you are interested in writing a guest post on this blog, email me at kyle at [this domain] for more info.
Learning to speak Spanish, or any new language, can be a daunting task. Learning the nouns and basic conversation is hard enough for your average adult; conjugating verb tenses can be outright overwhelming. I took four years of high school Spanish and two years in college and my Spanish was no more than so-so until I took the plunge and immersed myself in the Spanish language and culture.
My sophomore year in college I took a six-week study abroad program in Granada, Spain. For that month and a half, I lived with a family that spoke no English, I shopped in stores where no English was spoken, and I went to a school where no English was spoken. This ‘sink or swim’ immersion seems frightening, but I truly believe that there is no better, certainly no faster, way to learn a new language. According to Plato, “Necessity is the mother of invention.” When it comes to learning a new language, necessity will lead you to communicate better than you imagined possible.
Immersion is not the method for everyone. For one thing, unless you already happen to find yourself in or near a Spanish-language culture, it is very expensive. The cost of providing travel, lodging, and food for a month or more may be a deterrent to the immersion method. But if these cost factors can be overcome, this method will offer more learning opportunities than years in a classroom as well as memories that will last a lifetime.
In addition to the considerable cost, jumping into a foreign culture without a safety net is a frightening proposition. Participating in a study-abroad or cultural exchange program allows a student to enter into the culture and learn Spanish quickly while still providing a life-line back to your native language and culture. In my case, lost as I was in the sea of Spanish language and customs, I had sixteen equally befuddled American students studying alongside me.
When I arrived in Granada at the beginning of my journey, I spoke Spanish haltingly, using only present-tense verbs. I fumbled for words and anyone speaking to me had to talk slowly and enunciate. On the day before I left, I had a conversation lasting just a minute or two in an elevator with a woman. At the end of our brief talk, I made a reference to being from America and she was genuinely surprised. That was the moment that I felt it.
Fifteen years later, I still remember the moment in an elevator that I realized that I had learned Spanish – really learned Spanish – and could communicate on a whole new level, far beyond the classroom version that I had been limited to until that time. Without that immersion experience, I may never have achieved that level of proficiency.
As we saw yesterday in our short lesson on forming past participles in Spanish, there are many instances in Spanish where you would want to use the present or past participle. The present participle in Spanish corresponds more or less with the -ing ending in English, although -ing is used much more liberally in English than its Spanish counterpart.
Forming The Present Participle In Spanish
The rules for forming the present participle are just as simple as those for forming the past participle.
- For -ar verbs you drop the -ar and add -ando to the end of the word. Thus, the present participle of pasar – “to happen,” is pasando – “happening”.
- For -er and -ir verbs you drop the -er or -ir and add -iendo to the end of the word. Thus, the present participle of comer – “to eat” is comiendo – “eating” and the past participle of vivir – “to live” is viviendo – “living”
Common Verbs With Irregular Present Participles
Just as with the past participle, there are some common Spanish verbs with an irregular present participle. Some of these are an attempt to avoid an awkward spelling.
- Leer (to read) -> leyendo
- Ir (to go) -> yendo
Most other verbs with an irregular present participle still take the -ando and -iendo endings like regular verbs, but the stem is changed instead.
- Venir (to come) -> viniendo
- Decir (to say) -> diciendo
- Incluir (to include) -> incluyendo
- Dormir (to sleep) -> durmiendo
In linguistics, a participle is defined as “a derivative of a non-finite verb.” What that means in plain English is that they are usually used in compound tenses to describe something that is either currently happening or happened in the past. A perfect example of a past participle in English is a word we just used: happened. It’s not happening now, it “happened” in the past. In English, the -ed ending is usually used to mark a past participle.
Forming The Past Participle In Spanish
Spanish has a similarly-simple system for marking past participles:
- For -ar verbs you drop the -ar and add -ado to the end of the word. Thus, the past participle of pasar – “to happen,” is pasado – “happened”.
- For -er and -ir verbs you drop the -er or -ir and add -ido to the end of the word. Thus, the past participle of comer – “to eat” is comido – “ate” and the past participle of vivir – “to live” is vivido – “lived”
Common Verbs With Irregular Past Participles
While most verbs adhere to the rules outlined above, some very common ones don’t. Here are a few you’ll probably run into.
- Abrir (to open) -> abierto
- Decir (to say) -> dicho
- Hacer (to do) -> hecho
- Poner (to put) -> puesto
- Ver (to see) -> visto
- Volver (to return) -> vuelto
I have the opportunity to spend a week or so traveling in the very near future, and I’m pondering where it is I should go. I haven’t been to a Spanish-speaking country in a while now, so a quick visit, even if it’s only for a few days, would be a great way to brush up on my Spanish skills. I have traveled to several Spanish-speaking countries in the past, but so far my favorite has been Spain. For my upcoming trip, I’d like to go someplace warm (I’m freezing the last few days) so I’ve narrowed it down to:
- Puerto Rico (okay technically a commonwealth, but still)
- Dominican Republic
- Costa Rica
- Mexico (on the beach somewhere)
Costa Rica would be my hands-down favorite but for the recent natural disaster there. Now may not be the best time to play tourist. Similarly, I don’t want to spend more than 5 hours or so on a plane (I live in Atlanta) so anything too deep into South America is probably not realistic for this particular trip. Does anybody have any other suggestions for Spanish-speaking locations they think I should visit within a 5 hour flight from Atlanta?
Okay, so “learn Spanish for free” may be a little ambitious. You’ll probably need at least a basic grammar workbook and vocabulary list, but you could get all you need for $20 or less (see my post: Learn Spanish For Under $50 for the essentials) assuming you’re willing to get creative and perhaps make your own vocabulary cards. Not everybody can afford to spend hundreds of dollars on a good Spanish audio program and supplementary Spanish grammar workbooks. These tools are great and will certainly help you learn more quickly, but they aren’t 100% necessary. Here are a few tips to help you learn as cheaply as possible, if not free.
Borrow Spanish Books And Movies From The Library
Most larger libraries will have a Spanish language section, and many of them will include movies. Just this afternoon, I saw two of my three favorite Spanish movies available to check out in my own local library. Watching Spanish movies is one of the best ways to practice your listening ability outside an actual conversation with native speakers. It goes without saying that reading Spanish literature with the help of a good Spanish dictionary is a great way to build your Spanish vocabulary. You can start in the children’s section and work your way up.
Best of all, borrowing from the library is free! You’d be crazy not to take advantage of this great learning resource.
NB: I found out earlier today that my library actually has a copy of Rosetta Stone Spanish you can use for free for as long as you want right in the library. That’s a $500 piece of software! If you’re lucky, your library might have something similar.
Practice Spanish For Free Online
In addition to the free Spanish tutorials I’ve posted on this site, there are a wealth of free online resources available. Perhaps one of the best places to start is at the BBC Spanish website. They have a variety of free lessons online ranging from beginner to upper-intermediate in difficulty. Once you get the hang of it, you might want to graduate to a Spanish-level chat room (chat.yahoo.com) to practice your Spanish in the real world.
Practice Speaking
The best way to practice your Spanish, of course, is to get out in the real world and have a conversation. Mexican restaurants, Latin American clubs, language exchanges, and even the local Hispanic district of your city are all great places to learn. Don’t be afraid: most Spanish speakers will be delighted to help you with your Spanish if you are friendly and outgoing.
The verb llevar has a multitude of uses in Spanish. Here are a few of the more common ones.
Llevar As “To Carry”
The most common definition of llevar is “to carry” as in “carry an object from here to somewhere else.” For example, say you need to drop a package off at John’s house. You would say:
Tengo que llevar el paquete a la casa de John -> I have to take the package to John’s house.
Llevar As “To Wear”
Llevar is also commonly used to express the notion of “to wear,” which can be applied to clothes or hair.
Llevo el pelo largo -> I have (wear) long hair
Llevo gafas negras -> I’m wearing black sunglasses
LLevar To Express Time
Llevar can also be used to express time. For example,
Llevo dos años aquí en Barcelona -> I’ve lived here in Barcelona for 2 years
Similarly, you can use llevar with yourself (me) as the indirect object to express how long it took you to accomplish something. In this case, llevarme will translate roughly as “it took me”
Me llevó más que cuatro horas preparar para la entrevista -> It took me more than four hours to prepare for the interview
Llevar To express Similarity/Dissimilarity
Llevar can also be used idiomatically to compare two different nouns.
España no lleva mucho a Argentina -> Spain and Argentina don’t have much in common (not true, but bear with me)
Practice makes perfect when it comes to learning a language. In addition to working through your various workbooks and audio programs, you should be reading the language at every opportunity. Sure, you could buy Harry Potter
Spanish News Online
Reading the news is an ideal way of basic and intermediate learners to practice reading Spanish because journalists tend to avoid using big words of complex grammatical expressions. Even beginners with just a month or so of study under their belt should have no trouble reading most news stories with the help of a good dictionary.
Two of my favorite Spanish news sources are:
and
Even just 10 or 15 minutes per day reading the news, dictionary in hand, will yield dramatic improvements in your Spanish reading comprehension. Once you’re comfortable reading the news without a dictionary, feel free to make the jump to literature. But I think the news offers a relatively straightforward and free way for most learners to get their start.
Marcial Prado’s grammar guide and workbook Advanced Spanish Grammar: A Self-Teaching Guide
Looking For Exhaustive Drills? Look Elsewhere
I am a big fan of drills and I must admit I’m not entirely satisfied by the quantity of material here. Sure, it covers all the important concepts but it doesn’t hit you with wave after wave of drill to really solidify the concepts in your mind like Dorothy Richmond’s two Practice Makes Perfect workbooks Spanish Verb Tenses
The Not-Quite-Advanced Advanced Spanish Workbook
Despite the word “Advanced” in the title, I found the concepts and exercises in this book to be more intermediate than advanced so don’t let that scare you away. The explanations, while written entirely in Spanish, don’t go out of their way to use obscure vocabulary and most of the more difficult words are included in the vocabulary section of every chapter with English translations. I don’t think anybody with a bit more than a basic understanding of the language would find anything here unreasonably difficult, although lower-intermediate learners will probably have to spend considerably more time trying to decipher what’s going on. But hey, there’s no substitute for just sitting down and struggling through your lessons so that not necessarily a bad thing.
A Solid, But Not Perfect, Course
Ideally, I would like to see Practice Makes Perfect’s grammatical rigor and Advanced Spanish Grammar’s Spanish-based instruction combined into a single, exhaustive resource. Still, the fact that all three of these workbooks can be had for under $30 on Amazon makes this sort of complaint a bit silly. Based on the benefits of the all-Spanish instruction alone, I can highly recommend this book for anybody at an intermediate level or above. That said, I don’t think this book alone would be sufficient to really solidify some of the more advanced concepts in your brain due to the relative lack of drilling. I used this book alongside both of Richmond’s Practice Makes Perfect workbooks and saw some pretty dramatic improvements in my reading, writing, and speaking skills in just a few months. Of course, none of these books will help you with your listening, but that’s what audio programs are for (Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone, while a bit expensive, are my picks for that).
Buy Marcial Prado’s Advanced Spanish Grammar: A Self-Teaching Guide
