Learn Enough Spanish to "Get Along" - Fast and Cheap

Going to be in a place where people speak Spanish? Don't have much time to prepare? Here's how to learn basic Spanish rapidly and cheaply.

Planning a vacation in Mexico? Going to drive down the Baja Peninsula? Or perhaps you have a new Mexican gardener who barely speaks English and you want to tell him what you need done...

There are many situations in which you might need to learn some Spanish to make things easier, but are not yet ready to commit to actually learning the language.

As they say in Spanish, "¡Bueno! ¡No problema!"  (Bwain-o! No prob-LEM-ah!) Spanish learning courses come in all sizes with varying scopes. A "second tier" learning course could be just what you need.

The best way to learn Spanish today is through an interactive audio learning course. Good first tier learning courses, fairly complete, for mastering conversational Spanish, are available for download on the Internet for $100 to $200. Pay now, be listening to lessons in 10 minutes time!

But if your interest is less on fully learning the language and more on just learning enough to get by, perhaps you need something smaller, faster and cheaper. Maybe you need a second tier learning course like Synergy Spanish or SureFire Spanish, for example.

Learning programs such as these can be downloaded for $40 or so, complete with flash cards, learning games and, of course, the all important audio learning exercises.

The better courses teach in the natural way (the same way you learned English) with a few words and basic ideas, used in conversation. You practice these and then expand gradually to more and more complex thoughts to express.

You hear it said and repeat it, or you are asked a question in Spanish and you are given time to say the correct answer before the instructor does. In whichever case, you learn conversational Spanish by talking and conversing.

Basically it's "See Spot. See Spot run!" in Spanish, and you build up from there.

You can finish such a course rapidly and learn enough to get by when you need to communicate in Spanish. Maybe that will be enough for what you need. If not, you can always add a full course later and go through that to expand what you already know.

In either case, second tier, intermediate level learning courses can be a very useful and economical alternative to starting out with the full language-learning course. And just knowing a little Spanish is infinitely better than not knowing any!