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If you're in a hurry, before talking about the different ways to tackle learning Spanish, here's a beginning selection of books for both kids and adults. You'll have to forgive me because the search brings up kids' books first. Scroll through it and you'll find entry level resources for adults also. enter here

Different people learn beginning Spanish in different ways.

Some people may have studied a foreign language (including Spanish) many years ago. Some people are cerebral; they like to learn a language's structure and categories.

Other people are just good mimics. They have no problem launching out to speak a foreign language after just a few weeks of study. They don't worry about the errors they make.

On the other hand others are paralyzed and afraid to speak.

Some say, "I studied Spanish but they talk too fast".

There are also people that have to learn in an interpersonal context; books are not their thing - conversation is.

There is another way of learning language that is useful to some people, that of acting out the new vocabulary that they come across.

Many people find it helpful to concentrate on certain "sub-programs", the solutions to certain conversational needs that that they come across, such as expressing "what if" situations.

Finally, some folks knew a little from their childhood in a Hispanic environment. These people have to build on what they may remember, even subconsciously.

All these people have different strengths and weaknesses in their learning of Spanish.

Let's call these people:

• the language non-virgins
  
• the brains
  
• the motor mouths
  
• the people people
  
• the learn-while-doing people
  
• the word collectors
  
• the divide and conquer people
  
• the lost latinos

All of these people should tackle Spanish according to their own personal bent. In this site you will be able to read reviews of the books and learning aids that will suit your learning style.

To learn more of the learning styles for Beginners in Spanish it will be useful to review the characteristics of these approaches to Spanish

What works for EVERYONE...

Although there are real differences among learners, there are two activities that will help everyone, no matter what their learning style.

1. Passive Listening. Everyone should keep the Spanish radio on as much as possible. Keep the radio or TV on while you doing other things. It has to be the sea of sound that you swim in while you are beginning your study of Spanish. You don't have to concentrate on it; you are not listening to try to understand. After a while you won't hear it but it will be affecting you. Little by little you will begin to anticipate the rhythm of the language, even before you understand everything. You will also begin to recognize certain words. You will begin to hear "beyond" the differences in pronunciation of different people and recognize the underlying word. Once you clearly hear a word or phrase, you can look it up and progressively expand your vocabulary.

2. Pattern Response Drills. You have to run through all the permutations of the new expressions that you learn. For example, suppose you just learned to say. "Pedro tiene cuatro años" rather than translating from the English incorrectly, "Pedro es cuatro". Now to make this new element of the language stick with you, you should go on substituting different ages and the names of different people. You have to be able to say comfortably, "María tiene cuatro años." "Juan tiene ocho años." "Yo tengo treinta años." "¿Cuántos años tienes tú?" "Nosotros tenemos cuarenta años." This type of drill is necessary for all the different learning styles.