Thursday, January 8, 2009

Learning Spanish Audio - Key To Fluent Spanish Speaking

By Adrian Fletcher

The figures suggest that around 400 million people see Spanish as their first language throughout the world. This doesn't count the people that count themselves as bilingual Spanish speakers as is the case with many people in the United states. Indeed, Spanish is effectively the second language of the United States and in some states it is used as frequently as English.

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 a course to help you study Spanish, I would suggest that the most important part of the course is the audio component.

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.

By comparison to reading, writing and grammar, I would suggest that speaking is far more important. True these other skills are vital to developing your Spanish language skills but the number one priority is speaking. This is illustrated by how you learned your first language. You spoke it long before you considered learning grammar or writing.

So talking is the first skill to have if you want to learn Spanish. Oddly enough it is also the hardest becuase it combines many skills to get it right.

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.

Spanish audio CDs or Mp3's give you the opportunity to learn and practice these core skills without the pressure of talking to another person. You can use many of these courses wherever you want.

A popular way to use an audio Spanish course is to listen to it in the car. This is a great way to utilize a large amount of your time that is lost to traffic jams and grid lock.

This is a good idea to get the most out of your day, but many course suggest you can't really concentrate on the course if you are driving attentively. I tend to agree with this but if you have listened to the course many times beforehand it is possible to listen while 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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