Sorry guys, I initially posted this as a reply to Rob's post. Hello Everyone, My name is H.F. I live in Mississippi, and I am a general surgeon. I am 47. After a trip to Argentina in 2013, I decided to learn Spanish. I had taken 2 years of Spanish in high school many years ago. I started studying seriously this past January. I started with Pimsleur, moved on to Assimil, which I have not completed, and am currently about half way through Teach Yourself. Mixed in with this, I have had a few lessons via Skype through NuLengua and italki. I am currently watching Destinos, as well as videos on Yabla. I am slowly working through Practice Makes Perfect Spanish Verb Tenses. I have even made some flash cards on Anki. Currently I think I could honestly say that my Spanish would be a solid A2 or maybe even alittle better. I ultimately would like to be at least a B2. As you can see, I have bounced all over the place with my learning resources. The main reason I wanted to join this forum was to get some ideas about how to take my Spanish learning to the next level, using a consistent method. I look forward to meeting you all. H.F.
Good to have you here -- I hope you find the answers you're looking for. My first piece of advice: consistency is a bit overrated. The optimal course hasn't been written yet, so being consistent means always being subject to the weakness(es) of your chosen methodology, and that leaves holes in your ability. Besides, your needs as a learner change as you progress, so your techniques have to change too. Another thing I'd say is that it's good you're using Destinos and Yabla, as getting your head out of the books is a great thing. However, learner videos can be a bit artificial, so aim to start using native materials as soon as possible. Computers can slow down audio and video files now without distorting the sound, so you can start to deal with some of the characteristics of natural speech without having to go full speed immediately. I used the Practice Makes Perfect tenses book too, and I found it very useful. One word of caution, though: I noticed that I was making errors and correcting them, and that I was consistently following the same order, so the act of correction was a fixed step in my "grammar", which was obviously a bad thing. I made a policy of forcing myself to produce the sentence in the correct order -- I would say it out loud or under my breath, and I would not write down the answer until I had said the sentence completely, start-to-finish, without errors. That way I trained my brain to deal with the proper production order, rather than something that was simply good enough to get the answer down on the page.
Welcome! You're using some of the same resources that I used when I first started learning Spanish. I loved Destinos, and I found the Practice Makes Perfect verb tense book very good - although I had to find a way to review, since there's no built-in review. I ended up making an anki deck using selected sentences from PMP. Running through that deck isn't the most fun I've ever had, but it works! I agree with Cainntear about native materials. I found that the intermediate and advanced podcasts on Notes in Spanish were a happy medium! They're created for learners, so the hosts speak clearly, but they also use very natural, conversational Spanish. The intermediate podcasts are a bit slower than full speed, but still faster than a lot of learner resources. The advanced podcasts are a very good bridge between resources for learners and native materials. Buena suerte!
Welcome to the forum, H.F. I've found that the key to learning a language, what's more important than any course or method, is consistency and persistence. Being Persistent will keep you in the game until you can be consistent. Being consistent will eventually win the game, so to speak. Destinos, combined with a good course and small steps into native material is what I would recommend. Be consistent with that approach- say "course" in the morning, Destinos in the evening and at random points in the day some authentic comprehensible native material- that would be a good approach. Native material can be songs or perhaps the authentic graded videos from UT Austin: http://www.laits.utexas.edu/spe/ These have transcripts in both English and Spanish and levels from Beginner to Superior. It's just native speakers talking about their lives. Don't be afraid to speak when you can. It can help to develop some "islands" of conversation- brief memorized passages about yourself, why you are learning Spanish, your family, etc.
Welcome to the forum. Many of us learn Spanish, it's a great language, but I wish that it were more slowly spoken!!! Argentinian spanish is the nicest, in my opinion.