.

The best way to learn a language would be through immersion, visiting these countries. Learning a language will require some time. In addition to software, you can have books which are useful as well. Audio CDs like Pimsleur for instance might help you out but you cannot get any feedback on your pronunciation so I did not like it so much.

I can recommend you a book called Spanish in 1500 Words vocabulary builder. You will have to make some memorization (it’s absolutely necesary to learn a language), but it’s the most efective way to build an effective Spanish vocabulary with minimum effort.

They have analyzed hundreds of texts and thousands of hours of conversation and the conclusion was awesome: 90% of day-to-day Spanish uses only 1500 words. This book has them all and it’s specifically designed for english speakers studying spanish.

You can find more information here:

Good luck!

Head out to your public library, and get a card if you don’t have one. Borrow all the DVDs you want, making sure that they have Spanish dubbing. While you’re at it, get a few Spanish-language audiobooks if you want. Go home, and watch/listen to what you got over, and over, and over again, with English subtitles, until you’ve got every single line down PAT. With meanings. Done? Congratulations. You’ve now expanded your language store by about 200%.

Additional advice - Buy Spanish-language translations of books you love or read a lot. For some people, that might be the Holy Bible. For others, it’s an entertaining novel. Most importantly, you must recognize your learning experience as a COMMITMENT. That’s right. No slacking for you. Put aside a little time everyday devoted to learning Spanish. 10 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour - it doesn’ t matter, so long as you get a constant dose of the language you’re learning. Subscribe to a Spanish publication or newspaper, or just get onto some Spanish websites (BUT they must be proper Spanish websites, not poopsie ones put up by people with no better knowledge of the language than you). Try El Pais ( ) or El Mundo ( ) for Spanish news. I’m sure you or your boyfriend have heard of them. BBC has a nice little Spanish section ( ) I’ve got a whole list of Spanish-language-learning resources, come to think of it. Here’s a short sampling. Good luck.

StudySpanish
About.com’s Spanish pages
WebEspanol
A Compendium of Online Resources
Spanish @ LearningLanguages.net–BrowseResources.php?ParentId=181

You can also try browsing through Spanish Internet radio sites. Here’s a podcasting site for Spanish-learners that I found - downloads free at

And, of course, there’s nothing like a good ol’ Berlitz language class to get you going.