The secret is you have to pay to get good at any language.

These materials gets you talking to the 5th grade level, at most. After that, you would need a maestro to refine your speech, which involves technical grammar lessons and pronunciation.

Having a good vocabulary helps.

I learned to speak fluent Spanish (I can speak it on the phone) in two years and I used a system almost identical to Roosh’s. His advice is golden. 90 mins a day is key.

Have you guys heard of the Michel Thomas method? He works with commonalities, focuses only on conversational language and doesn’t allow studying or memorization. There are full courses available for anything from french to Arabic and for free depending on your internet morality. Here are the rapidshare links for Spanish and Portugese that I found with a quick google search:

http://rapidog.com/michel-thomas-portuguese-rapidshare.html

http://avaxhome.ws/ebooks/audio_cd_spanish_with_michel_thomas.html

I recommend finding a song that you have heard a few times, loading it up on youtube, and bringing up the lyrics. This helps a lot, will teach you some past and future tenses, and will probably have lots of colloquial verbiage as well. We did this a lot in my formal spanish classes, also with movies.

Simon’s last blog post: Carnaval in Brazil. What was it like?.

I wish I knew this when I was taking German last semester.

FAZ’s last blog post: On some days, the fish just don’t bite..

Just like Danny K said, watching foreign language movies and listening to music has also helped me a lot. Soap operas too. Don’t worry, pick the right one and the beautiful women will help you live through the cheesiness. You’ll also get good lines for fighting, loving, etc.

One other tip I can give is to buy gossip mags, fashion mags or Maxim-esque men’s magazines and to read the interviews in them since they all use the common spoken language. Even better is if you can read these out loud to a girlfriend who can quickly define any words you don’t know or correct your pronunciation as she’ll probably be happy to help you communicate better with her.

Jason Argall’s last blog post: Ogilvy: Amex Helps Travelers Get Lei’d.

I have tried to get something similar on my iphone but I couldn’t find anything good.
I recently bought the MS dict Spanish-English dictionary (Oxford) which is a great dictionary but it does not have a good flashcards game unfortunately.

Good post Roosh, interesting system. I speak 5 languages and have never really had a system myself but I’ve always tried to immerse myself in the language. Great idea with the notecards, I can’t emphasise enough how important it is to write down words you think of and need.

My ways of learning that have always helped me:

- Watch foreign language films (or target language) in that language and also with subtitles in that language , or watch a series you like if it’s in English and download Spanish subtitles for it.
- Listening to music in that language – when I was learning Spanish, I used to listen to Juanes a lot, especially good as his accent was clear and helped with my pronunciation – find a style you like and listen to it.
- Stick it notes everywhere with words
- Set your homepage to a Spanish page for example mine’s http://www.marca.com because I love sport
- Put your mobile in Spanish or whatever
- Put facebook in Spanish

Just immerse yourself, and soon you will pick up words without trying because you are constantly using the language. You’ll be surprised. But there’s no substitute for practice and living in the country, practice makes perfect.

Flash cards do help commit words to the memory, but you did not mention accent and pronunciation which are CRITICAL for communication…especially when you are not a native speaker. From my own experience finding some local girls who want to practice english and then going back and forth with them in their native language for you and enhlish for their sake will achieve optimal results much faster.

In my own experience, when I read a word in english and the equivalent word in the language I was studying, I would then pronounce the word with a built in english pronunciation. Accent is tough to get rid of, if even possible, but it is easier to learn the right way the first time than to break a bad habit.

Young human beings do not learn a language by reading it. They hear words and then attempt to mimic them…

If you are in a decent-sized town there is likely to be a univeristy nearby, and if there is there will definitely be girls who are studying english…

It’s based on this Czech scientist’s studies into how the brain converts short-term memory to long-term, and basically automatically stores and schedules your flashcards to maximize your learning. Helps me a lot.

The only absolutely essential thing is consistency; study for more than an hour every single day. Never skip.

excellent advice

http://www.thestandard.com/news/2009/08/06/iflash-touch-iphone

Are you smoking heavy amounts of chronic?

- MPM

The G Manifesto’s last blog post: Mardi Gras: The G Manifesto Way.

Hi Roosh, can you please post an entry about jealousy. I keep comparing myself to this guy, that maybe my girl would go for him instead of me and its driving me crazy. It’s not healthy and I keep comparing. I’m trying to not care but I can’t, I keep comparing myself to him.

I’ve been studying a little Portuguese lately. But it’s now screwing with my head when I read Spanish. When I see a Spanish word like “felicidades”. My instinct is to pronounce the last “de” the Portuguese way. It’s like I have turn on a switch in my head to make me forget about Portuguese pronunciations. I bet it will be a mess if I was in a situation where I was having a conversation with a Spanish speaker and a Portuguese speaker at the same time.

Omega Man’s last blog post: I’ve Seen Things You People Wouldn’t Believe…….

And of course it’s best to practice on the local girls. Women love a foreigner who seems so cute trying to speak the language.

Riff Dog’s last blog post: So Who Are You Going to Listen to?.