Child Learn Spanish

Does this headline surprise you? It should. Television watching in the US is most often associated with relaxing and enjoyment, and not usually with education (with exceptions like Discovery Channel, The History Channel, etc.).  However, when you are on the path to wanting to learn a language, television is actually a great tool to use!

Why? First of all, just immersing yourself in a language and culture fully will rapidly cut the time it takes to learn. Second, hearing the language spoken colloquially (as opposed to formally in a classroom) will help you when you actually want to make conversation with someone else. Similar to English, most Spanish speakers do not use formal phrases such as Mr. and Mrs. when addressing their friends. They use colloquial phrases! You need to hear native speakers conversing casually to learn such phrases.

So, what shows are good to watch? The short answer: all of them! The long answer: anything that you can sit and enjoy for a short period of time. While some shows like soap operas are just as boring in Spanish as they are in English, game shows or sports can be much easier to watch. The key is to simply watch something that you would enjoy watching already. If you are a fan of The Simpsons, Spanish language networks often play this at similar times as the English version on Fox.

We hope this tip was helpful! If you are serious about learning Spanish in a short amount of time, we recommend you check out some of the great programs out there. In the meantime, keep on practicing!

Hey Readers! We wanted to let you know about a cool program that might be interesting to you called Jetset Spanish. Jetset Spanish is a new product that was released this year by the team at Rocket Languages (responsible for Rocket Spanish). This time around, however, they take a different approach to the language learning problem by focusing on a video based learning style. In each lesson (15 total), the conversation can take multiple directions depending on what you answer. You get better by improving situational Spanish, rather than rote memorization of conjugations and vocabulary (who remembers high school Spanish anyway?).

For example, depending on if you want to order coffee (cafe) instead of tea (te) at the coffeeshop, then your conversation might be different. The hostess might ask you what your favorite type of coffee or conversely what your favorite place to grab tea is around here. They also might give you recommendations. The same applies for any of the other lessons you take. There are multiple paths that the discussion can go, so you will end up doing each lesson more than once.

Out of the the 15 total lessons, some of the locations where you gain practical experience are the money exchange (cambio), airport, coffeeshop, and in the kitchen. All of them are areas where you likely go fairly regularly, if not weekly.

And best of all, the content is new! Unlike a lot of older Spanish learning programs, the website and interface for Jetset Spanish is new and quite high tech.

Check out the product for yourself: www.jetsetspanish.com

Or, if you want to read more of what we thought about the program, be sure to check out our sister site at www.jetsetspanishreview.net!

Hey everyone,

We have a page posted over here that talks about some of our favorite programs to learn Spanish, but just to give a quick summary, here are the ones we like.

Barron’s Mastering Spanish

Rocket Spanish

Learn Spanish like Crazy

Learn Spanish with Maria Fernandez

Clicking on any of them will take you to their site where you can learn more about the programs, and in many cases try them out for free.  If you have any suggestions, we’d love to hear them below in the comments. We really value our reader’s input, and it obviously helps us find new tools that we might have missed!

Thanks.

Apart from meeting for one on one bilingual conversations, books are one of the best ways to learn or teach Spanish. Whether you are a parent looking for the best ways to teach your child Spanish, or you yourself are trying to learn or improve your Spanish abilities, the following books will help out significantly.

To Learn Spanish Yourself:

Mastering Spanish, Level 1 (with Audio CDs)

Mastering Spanish Level Two: Audio CD Package

Madrigal’s Magic Key to Spanish: A Creative and Proven Approach

Spanish For Dummies

Learn Spanish the Fast and Fun Way

Teach Yourself Spanish Verbs

Spanish I – 2nd Rev. Ed.: Learn to Speak and Understand Spanish with Pimsleur Language Programs

Pimsleur Spanish II, 3rd Edition

Spanish III, Comprehensive: Learn to Speak and Understand Latin American Spanish with Pimsleur

Teach Yourself Spanish Complete Course (Book + 2CD’s)

To Teach Spanish to Someone Else:

Getting Started with Spanish: Beginning Spanish for Homeschoolers and Self-Taught Students of Any Age

Teach Them Spanish!, Grade 1

Teach Me Everyday Spanish

Teach Me Spanish & More Spanish

Spanish Children’s Books

Feliz Navidad: Learning Songs and Traditions in Spanish

¿Eres Mi Mama?

Buenas noches a todos / The Going to Bed Book

Opuestos (Opposites)

Quien Me Arropara Esta Noche?/ Who Will Tuck Me In Tonight? (A Cheshire Studio Book) (Spanish Edition)

Curious George at the Aquarium/Jorge el curioso visita el acuario

Un Pez, Dos Peces, Pez Rojo, Pez Azul/One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish (Spanish Edition)

Buenas noches, luna (Good Night, Moon)

Perritos: Un libro para contar y ladrar (Doggies: A book to count and bark)

Let’s Eat / Vamos A Comer

Reference Guides:

How To Learn Any Language: Quickly, Easily, Inexpensively, Enjoyably and on Your Own

501 Spanish Verbs 5th Edition

A New Reference Grammar of Modern Spanish

1001 Most Useful Spanish Words (Beginners’ Guides)

Easy Spanish Phrase Book: Over 770 Basic Phrases for Everyday Use

Practice Makes Perfect: Complete Spanish Grammar

This is an interesting topic. People always want to know what the best way of teaching their toddler or young child Spanish if they are not a native speaker. Because of this, we’ve put together a comprehensive list of things to do in order to teach the little ones Spanish. Some are small things that you can do in a matter of seconds, but in all cases these will be helpful if you use them consistently. As with anything in our adult lives, habits are best learned with constant practice.

Here are some of the best ways to teach your child Spanish:

• Buy a few children’s books in Spanish (see our huge page of book recommendations here!) and read them as bedtime stories.
• Find a list of household items on the internet for free, and say these to your child when teaching them words. For instance, if they have already begun picking up basic words after “Momma” or “Dadda,” teach them “la mesa” (table), “el gato” (cat), or “la silla” (chair).
• Let them watch cartoons, but find them in Spanish. If you don’t have any quality Spanish-language channels in your area, Dora the Explorer is always a good bet.
• If you hire a maid or housekeeper that speaks Spanish, encourage him or her to speak to your child in Spanish. We knew a few friends growing up that picked up the language this way.
• Read them anything in Spanish. Literally, anything that will train their ears to recognize sounds and syllabic patterns will do. Try using a newspaper, or search Spanish language newspapers on Google News.
• Teach them the spanish ABCs. Have them watch this short video!
• Play them lullabies in Spanish at night! Language studies have shown some indication that nighttime listening can help improve retention as well as general intelligence.

In general, the best way to help your child learn spanish is the method that is repeated. Any child has the ability to do so, but you as the parent or caretaker need to make it a habit to consistently teach them. It may seem like a thankless job at first, but you know that the ultimate goal is worth it!

–The CLS Team

Here is a great beginner video for your child to learn the ABCs. As you know, the ABCs are a fundamental component of learning the language, and it is the way that we learned English when we were growing up.  Be on the look out for more videos in the future, but for now, enjoy this!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IT8vfTWmWUw[/youtube]

One of the best ways to learn Spanish is to practice reading a newspaper. There are many popular ones online, but a great resource is to use Google News in Spanish and click on a story or two. Then, simply read it aloud, and move at the fastest pace which is comfortable for you. Comprehension is not the most important thing here; you really want to go for speed.

Why should you read quickly? Two things. One, it helps with your pronunciation in context as you are reading everything as it appears in written discourse. Two, it helps put you in a mindset of Spanish, rather than saying a single word or a phrase at one time, then reverting back to English. Even if you don’t understand anything of what you’re reading, it will help you learn much more quickly than reading a sentence at a time and trying to translate that to English as you go.

Hope this tip was helpful!

Welcome to ChildLearnSpanish.net! This site is your resource to help children learn spanish. Whether you are a native speaker in an English-speaking country, or you want to teach your child to grow up bilingual, this is the place to be! More resources will be added to the site, as it is still in development phase, but bookmark us or subscribe to the our RSS feed to ensure you get notified when there are any updates!

If you are on the hunt for a great program to learn Spanish, check out our list of recommended programs!

Thanks.

-The CLS Team