Help! My Spanish is rusty!
 

Although I studied Spanish in college, I am now 9 years rusty on the language. (Yikes!) I'd really like to brush up before my trip (now two months away) with some basic conversational skills. I attempted to enroll in a couple of community college courses, but they were cancelled due to low enrollment. Any tips on bookstore resources, etc.? Thanks much!

In my local libraries, there are many Spanish language audio tapes and CDs. Is that what you wanted? ((*))

Hi thezanmiller!
If you have iTunes on your computer, look for a podcast on basic conversational Spanish. You can listen to them on your computer or iPod.

I have several students who have used Russian PodCasts for listening comp. practice outside of the classroom, and really found them useful.

%%- Buena suerte!

Wanna come to my house and chat with the guys who are building my pool? Sorry, your thread just struck me as funny because the guys who are plastering the pool arrived at 6:30 am and we had to talk about how far apart some tiles were going to be and I think they are going to be 14" inches apart because at that early hour, I couldn't remember the word for 15.

thezanmiller...Every time I travel I use the local library for language books and tapes. They really are great. I just found an easy series called In Flight. Although I got the French version, I am sure they offer a Spanish version. It had everything you would need to "get by".

Missypie....It may too late now, but the answer is "quince". And when all else fails I always use 10 + the number....like diez y cinco. It may not be correct, butit works. :)

Yeah, I remembered quince after a few minutes...I also got a yardstick out. But by then, my husband latched onto the 14 inches (not realizing that the guy said 14 because he misunderstood; he thought it was design related).

I'm a huge fan of my local library, they have lots of language cds and tapes and I can get them sent to the branch nearest me online.
If you find that the library is in short supply, why not buy your course and donate it when your finished?

Also at the bookstore you'll find a book called Spanish in 10 Minutes A Day. This may be too basic for you're needs as it will all start coming back to you but it's helpful for new languages. It has flashcards for verbs and stickers for nouns.

I really like the Pimsleur series -- I bought all 3 levels, starting from scratch. (My high school and college languages were French, Latin & Greek, so I had some basis for building on, though no actual Spanish.) Pimsleur was great for me because there are no written materials, so I could listen on my way to/from work, on the elliptical machines, etc. If you decide to buy Pimsleur or one of the other costly language series, do a search on Google because I found enough disparity in prices to justify shopping around.

You can watch and listen to the "Destinos" series (a college level course shown on PBS) on your computer for free:
http://www.learner.org/

Go to "View Programs" and scroll down to "Destinos". It's a great instructional series. Your library might have the videotapes, too---those are easier to watch than the computer images.

What ever method or combination of mehtods you choose, just remember practice OUT LOUD. Reading is much easier, but to be practical you need to be able to speak with confidence. Even with a small vocabulary and not so great grammar, decent pronunciation of what you DO know gets you the furthest (in my experience).

I'm going to plug Michel Thomas, again! His advanced Spanish sounds just what you need. Try e-bay for used copies.

TZM: did you brush up on your spanish? I'm interested in knowing if you found a method you liked and used. I hope to do the same but I am incredibly lazy and need the easiest route. Though maybe the most difficult route is for me; I'm more likely to go to a class than complete an online/cd version.

Agree that bushing up is a good idea.

But realize that as soon as you're in a Spanish-speaking counry it will all come flooding back. (It's stillstored in the brain there somewhere - just not at the front of the rolodex.) In 24 hours you'llbe jabbering away - I was after about 24 hours - and had been aout of college for more than 10 years.

Granted my grammar wan;t the best - but I could understand most anything and people seemed to get what I was saying - even if they corrected me once in a while - whichI thaked them for.

(Now we weren;t discussing brain surgery or nuclear physics - but for everyday tourist things it was fine. We even toured an old mansion in Seville with the tour given only in Spanish. The guide kept apologizing for no English and we kept saying no problem - between us (and his high school was only Spanish) we managed to get essentially everything, ask questions that made sense - and it all worked perfectly.)

Just don;t overthink it - accept that you will make some mistakes and just plunge in.