IF you really want to learn how to speak Spanish, you will achieve better and faster results if you immerse yourself in the language.

Here are some tips to help you get a great started.

Check out your local community college for a Spanish language course. Often, there are courses offered after hours at local schools and also at community centers.

Buy flash cards in Spanish or make some yourself using small index cards. These are a great way to reinforce everything from words, phrases, sentences, verb conjugations and more.

Watch Spanish television programs, Spanish movies, even the news in Spanish. This helps to train your ear to hearing Spanish, and you will find your understanding improving. It will also expose you to different Spanish accents. Pay attention to the way native speakers pronounce words and try to imitate.

Buy Spanish magazines and books written in Spanish. Keep a Spanish dictionary handy so that you can look up unfamiliar words.

Label household items in Spanish. This will reinforce the words visually, but be sure to use the Spanish words out loud. Soon you won’t need the labels anymore.

Choose a Spanish language study program you can listen to in the car, or learn Spanish software to use on your computer. This is good complement to taking a Spanish class. Not taking a Spanish class? Then you can get a comprehensive course for self study at home.

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If you can, take a long vacation to a Spanish-speaking country. Choose locales that are a bit off the beaten track. The reason for this is that in big cities or touristy towns, you are more likely to find that people speak English and that signs and menus and many other things will be printed in English as well. To get the most out of your Spanish-learning journey, you don’t want be able to cheat so easily!

Lastly, the key to learning Spanish is to be steady and consistent in your studies. A little bit day by day will produce faster and deeper learning.

Try these suggestions – you are sure to learn how to speak Spanish in no time!

WHEN learning how to speak Spanish, it is often helpful to know some common sentences or questions to use. Here are some useful Spanish phrases to learn.

How do you say ___ in Spanish?
¿Cómo se dice ___ en español?

Can you help me, please?
¿Puede ayudarme, por favor?

Excuse me.
Permiso.

Good morning.
Buenos días.

Do you speak English?
¿Habla inglés?

What does (Spanish word) mean?
¿Qué quiere decir (Spanish word)?

Please speak more slowly.
Por favor, hable más despacio.

Please write it down.
Escríbalo por favor.

La Boca, Buenos Aires, Argentina, S.A.

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Have a nice day!
¡Que pase un buen día!

Help!
¡Ayúdame!

I have a headache.
Me duele la cabeza.

For more Spanish phrases and words, click here.

WHEN you start to learn Spanish, you may come to notice differences in the way Spanish is spoken, depending on where the person comes from. In this article, we’re going to look at the Spanish of Latin America.

Latin America Spanish

Spanish is widely spoken, from Spain in the Iberian peninsula to the tip of South America and to even Africa, so it’s not surprising that there are differences in the language that reflect particular regions. The densest population of Spanish speakers reside in Latin America.

Latin America broadly refers to everything south of the U.S., but it is more specifically those areas that were once part of the Spanish empire, or those areas where the language spoken by the natives is a romance language. A romance language is one that descends from Latin, the language of ancient Rome.

The Spanish accent varies widely from place to place, much the way it differs in English between a New Yorker and a Texan. Latin American Spanish dropped the lispy ‘th’ sound of the letter ‘c’ and ‘z’ that you would hear in Spain. In parts of the Caribbean, Panama, Venezuela and Chile, it is not unusual to hear an ‘r’ that comes near or at the end of word pronounced like an ‘l’, so that the word for door, puerta, might sound like pwel-tah.

Many speakers of Latin American Spanish use the word vos for the familiar form of the word you instead of tú. In standard Spanish, a female president is still a presidente, but in Latin America she would be called presidenta. Other occupations are also feminized such as arquitecta (female architect) and abogada (female lawyer).

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Additionally, Spanish in Latin America has been influenced by other languages spoken in the area, so that hundreds of words from various and distinct Indian languages have made their way into the language. For the most part, a Spanish speaker from El Salvador will have no trouble communicating with a Spanish speaker from Chile or Puerto Rico or Mexico. But some of these Indian derived words can cause confusion! For instance, a Central American’s ahuacate is an Andean’s palta. (Those are words for avocado.)

English has also influenced Latin American Spanish. In this part of the world, you’ll have no trouble asking for lunch (lonche), a sandwich (sándwich) or a cocktail (cóctel). Baseball is béisbol, a home run is a jonrón (‘j’ is pronounced like an ‘h’), and a chance is chance (pronounced chahn-seh). And if you’re so inclined, you can enjoy a highball cocktail (jáibol) while you prepare to type (taipear).

IF you want to learn Spanish, there is good news – you know more Spanish than you think!

The Spanish language shares many, many words with English, some spelled exactly the same way or are so similar you have to look twice to see it’s not an English word. This gives you a built-in vocabulary in Spanish and you will use that as your base.

Next, master the Spanish alphabet and in particular the pronunciation of the vowels. Unlike English and many other languages, Spanish words are said the way they are written. If you know the sounds the letters make, you know how to say the word.

Learn some key Spanish phrases – useful stuff like ‘My name is Joe’, ‘Where is the bathroom?’ and ‘I would like a beer, please.’

Get jiggy with the grammar. Yes, grammar can be fun. Just keep telling yourself that if you don’t believe it. But more than fun, it’s important. And it’s not so different from English that it will make your head explode (for mind-blowing grammar try learning Japanese!).

Study the basic Spanish verbs and know how to conjugate them. Verbs like ‘to be’ – there are two of them in Spanish – ‘to have’, ‘to want’, ‘to like’, and so on. Think about things you are likely to want express and focus on those first. If you’re traveling, then understanding directions, times, numbers, food items and transportation is important.

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And the last tip on how to learn Spanish is simply to relax. Don’t stress over getting your d’s or your r’s or anything else for that matter perfect. It won’t be at first. Who cares? Don’t let fear of embarrassing yourself stop you from practicing when the opportunity arises. As you begin to use the Spanish language and make yourself understood you will gain confidence and skill, and you will find yourself learning Spanish faster.