The number of homes that speak a foreign language in the United States, and in particular Spanish, has risen by 8 million since the year 2000, according to the United States Census Office.

Today, 19.7% of the US population above 5 years old speaks a foreign language, compared with 17.9% in the year 2000.

According to demographic experts, this rise is mainly due to the growth in Latin American immigration in the last few years.

Demographic expert, William Frey, from the Brookings Institution, explained that, “the population has increased in non-traditional areas, such as Delaware, Nevada, Utah and even in Southern Dakota…and this is a tendency that will continue”.

Hispanic people form the largest minority group in the US - 43 million out of a total population of 300 million. An estimated 12 million are illegal immigrants, mostly from Mexico.

Many don’t speak English and have more than one job, working long hours in order to stay in the country and to send money to their families. This makes it difficult for them to learn English.

Conservative groups see the growing popularity of the Spanish language as a threat to the United States’ traditional values and culture.

Yet the number of books, CD’s and all types of products aimed at the Hispanic market is on the rise in the US.

Spanish translations are also a common sight on signposts at airports, government offices and all kinds of shops.

“Being able to speak another language isn’t necessarily a step backwards; becoming bilingual is widely seen as advantageous for a person or country”, said Jeanne Batalova, immigration expert at the Migration Policy Institute (MPI).

The MPI claims that if the US Government were to spend 200 million dollars per year on classes for the next 6 years, it would be able to teach English to all legal immigrants.

“And if it were to spend another 2900 million on teaching illegal immigrants, it would secure the integration of all immigrants into the American way of life”, said Batalova.

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As the article states, nowadays it’s becoming more and more important to learn spanish and other foreign languages. Alan La Rue is the director of WebSpanish, an online school that provides online spanish lessons to students from all over the world.

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So, you are thinking of learning a foreign language, but you heard all of that stuff from everyone that as an adult it is a totally impossible thing to do. If you did not learn as a kid, forget it.

First, ask yourself why you want to study a foreign language. This step is far more important than it might initially sound, but your motives for learning a language, or anything, in fact, play a major role in your ultimate success. So, that’s the first step: note down the exact reasons why you want to learn a foreign language, focusing on the benefits the skill will give you.

Are you studying for reasons dealing with your profession such as career improvement, or how about a desire to travel to a foreign country. Maybe you met somebody, or want to meet somebody who may not speak English as their native language and you would like to learn theirs. By the way, this is probably the best method of learning a new language as far as motivation goes.

Secondly, you need to decide whether you are going to take a class, or opt for self-study. Classroom study is not as efficient as hiring a personal tutor, but hiring a tutor is going to cost you a lot. Moreover, don’t make the mistake of believing that a tutor is going to do all the work for you. You still need to put in a great deal of study at home, if you are going to get the best from your classes, and make the experience financially worthwhile.

Hiring a tutor, however, is not the only way to learn a language effectively. Once we accept that the language learning process is going to take a lot of personal study anyway, regardless of whether we have a tutor or not, it may be just as efficient, and certainly more cost effective, to opt for a self-study method. One of the major disadvantages involved in choosing this option is the fact that you are going to have to motivate yourself to put in the study hours. This is where your definite motivations in the first step come in. You need a reason to refer to in order to keep up your motivation.

Thirdly, start slowly when you begin to learn, and don’t try to bite off more than you can chew. One of the major reasons people give up on learning language lies in the fact that they have false expectations of being able to learn languages quickly. They believe, because the results are not always as forthcoming as they like, they are incapable of succeeding. This simply isn’t
true. But the hype and questionable claims made by language method creators to sell their products are at fault here.

Do not start too quickly, and just remember to stick with it. Learning a foreign language really is the door and key to learning about another culture, and it is a door worth opening.

Does learn Spanish software really do a decent job of teaching Spanish? Online and off you can find many options. If you go into Bestbuy or another large electronic store, you can find various brands. If they are selling them, probably people are buying them.

I think the reason they are so popular, is that they actually do work as long as the student is motivated. Some of the options out there are:

Rocket Spanish

Rosetta Stone Spanish

Tell Me More Spanish

Learning Spanish Like Crazy

Visual Link Spanish

Transparent Languages

Prices can vary from about $99 all the way up to $499 for a large very complete package with all levels represented. All of these programs use a total immersion, user interactive method for teaching Spanish. No more old school grammar study and vocabulary lists. Too boring. Just remember to try and include other types of activities in your study program.

     

I think that this is a very valid question and unfortunately one that is very difficult to answer. One of the most important things you can do when you learn Spanish, or any other language is not just studying. It’s having FUN, and lots of it.

The worst thing you can do is to get stuck with a program that feels like watching grass grow would be more exciting. I mean really, sitting there repeating one boring exercize after another can make you want to … well you know. Don’t let this happen. A Spanish learning program can be the greatest program out there, but if you are not enjoying your study time, then it is worthless.

What are decent programs? Rocket Spanish is great, as well as Tell Me More Spanish. If you hae a program and are getting bored, the problem may not be the program. Many times we tend to think that the software, or Spanish teacher is responsible for everything. It just isn’t so. You may be bored because you need to augment your studying with other fun activities.

Use your imagination and try something new.

More on that tomarrow!

Everyone has been asking me lately if it is really possible to learn to speak Spanish online. I always say the same thing. Yes it actually is, if, and this is a big “if” you add additional activities to your learning. All or pretty much alll of the main Spanish learning programs available today work wonders, but there is only so much they can do.

You must add stuff. Like what? Well, go and buy some magazines in Spanish and sit down and just read. By the way when you do this, don’t have a dictionary there so you can look up all of the words you don’t know. This will not help, and in fact it can hurt your progress.

Rent a dvd that has spanish audio as an option. Watch the movie and try to understand the main points. Again, you do not have to understand every word. Use your imagination and practice as much as you can what these spanish programs are trying to teach you. Anything extra that you can add will help.

So what’s the best way to learn Spanish? Well it depends on what type of person you are and how you like to study. Me, I opted for the total immersion osmosis method. I came down to Mexico to work in a classical orchestra and quickly had to adapt.

Now if that is not a situation which presents itself to you, there are many decent options for learning Spanish. Attending a language school is one option, but this means a time commitment that may not be convenient for everyone. Studying on your own presents many advantages and challenges. If an online Spanish option is a possibility, several decent programs are Rocket Spanish, Learning Spanish Like Crazy, or Rosetta Stone. All of them work.

There are also other techniques that will help you learn Spanish quickly. Sign up for our 5 day free email course on Language Learning Strategies to find out.

For this post I want to share with you an interesting experience myself and my friends had this past month watching how people where learning Spanish and English. For the past two months, the orchestra in which I play in went on a 47 concert concert tour around the USA. If you didn’t know, I am a classical musician.

The part that was interesting was watching my colleagues’ progress with their English. some of them had some rudimentary skills, but many didn’t speak a word. Over the past two months the people who didn’t rely on any of us native English speakers slowly improved their English.

The basic thing they did was to learn little phrases such as “how much”, “I want”, “beer” and “where is the bathroom”, or sometimes it was just “toilet?” By the end of the tour, they were able to string sentences along and actually did quite well.

What’s the lesson for the rest of us? When learning Spanish, especially if you are on a trip to a Spanish speaking country, take it slowly and learn small phrases at a time. Concentrate only on what you need to get accomplished at the moment, and pretty soon your Spanish will improve very quickly.

You know there are many types of mistakes that one makes while learning Spanish or any other language, that are actually a result of the teaching methods and materials that you may be using. These “teacher induced errors” are technically called “transfer of training” and are a very common problem.

One example of this is looking at how some students learn their second language. For example, some of my friends, including me, have learned Spanish while being totally immersed in the language by living in Mexico and not necessarilly learning at a proper school. We would get help from friends. In my case, a good friend explained to me that in general, nouns that end in “a” are feminine and ones that end in “o” are masculine. Ok, sounds easy enough.

The problem arrives with all of the “exceptions to the rule” that all foreign languages always have. Some of my typical errors are “la agua.” The correct way is “el agua.” Another one is “la problema.” It should be “el problema.” One last one is “Me gusto (instead of ‘gusta’ because ‘he’ is masculine) la manzana.

Did you know that when you are learning a new language such as Spanish, you actually begin to create your own system for understanding and using this second language? Linguistic professors call this “interlanguage.”

A scary fact is that only 5 percent of foreign language students completely learn their second language, while the other 95 percent accomplish various levels of proficiency. There are also 5 things that you wind up doing when learning Spanish without even knowing you are doing them.

The first thing is that you project features of your first language onto your second language. Mistakes with word order are an example of this. In English we obviously say “crazy musicians.” In Spanish it would be “musicos locos.” When I speak Spanish, sometimes I make this mistake and say “locos musicos.” Oh by the way, my wife is a linguistic expert and she did a study of how I learned Spanish while living in Mexico the past 18 years. A bit embarrassing for me, but I think it could help you understand the process of learning a second language.

In the next blog posting we can talk about some of the other 4 things that go on while you study.

Since this is the first posting on this blog, I thought I would talk a bit about what is really going on when you decide to learn Spanish or any other second language. For instance did you know that linguists have two ways of looking at learning a language? They call them “learning” and “acquisition.”

Language “acuisition” is the way in which you aquire your second language, in this case Spanish, in a natural, intuitive and unconscious way without worying about linguistic forms such as learning grammar rules. Sounds good to me, I hate studying grammar. Too boring.

Language “learning” on the other hand is a conscious process of learning the language, such as yes, you guessed it, pulling out a book and memorizing grammar rules. 

The perfect example of this in the real world is to look at the difference between a child learning his first language and let’s say an adult learning his or her second one. A child learns by getting a feel for what is right and what isn’t. They are totally unaware of what a grammar rule is and learn entirely subconsciously. Since they don’t have a concept that it is difficult, it isn’t.

Not so easy for an adult. The first thing we do is realize that it is difficult and start thinking about having a dictionary handy so we can translate a new word so we can understand it. Then we think about how to say something in past tense or some other grammatical concept. Not so easy anymore.

This is something that you should think about and try to apply when you are learning Spanish. It might help the process go quicker and more easily.