I have always wanted to improve my Spanish skills. Now I am going to make an honest attempt to do so. In fact, I'd like to do the Pimsleur for a lot of different languages. Lots of people seemed to like the Portuguese that Tight_Fit and I did, but it seems much more logical for me (since I live in the Southwest and travel to Mexico frequently) to improve my Spanish first. I could probably start a little later in this unit, but I don't think it hurts to brush up on the easy stuff. Plus, if I do actually complete all 90 lessons and all 3 units, then this will be a tremendous resource and then I can move onto to something else like Portuguese and then maybe Italian, German, Russian, or French. I'd even like to do Japanese and Mandarin, but I doubt I could do the characters on this board. The main reason I type everything out is because I am a visual learning and typing everything out also helps with pronunciation.

As always, if people could help out when I get stuck or with words I cannot find in the translator like Sabio did with the Portuguese that would be greatly appreciated!

So without further adieu, here is Pimsleur's Spanish I, Unit I.

1. Excuse me – perdón
2. Excuse me miss. perdón señorita
3. English - inglés
4. Do you understand? – entiende?
5. Sir – señor
6. No sir – no señor
7. I don’t understand - no entiendo
8. I speak Spanish – hablo castellano (español) Pimsleur uses castelllano instead of español like they do in Mexico. When I went to Argentina Spanish was referred to as castelllano. I believe the word for Spanish is translated as castelllano in most of the Latin America world. It refers to Castilian, the particular dialect of Spain which has had the most prestige.
9. Yes I speak Spanish – sí hablo castellano
10. You speak – habla
11. A little - un poco
12. I speak a little – hablo un poco
13. You are - usted es
14. You are North American - Usted es norteamericano
15. Are you North American? – es usted norteamericano?

I knew quite a bit of Spanish before I started going through Pimsleur...as in vocabulary and grammar. What I didn't know was how to speak the language...I had the bad habit of translating my English thoughts word for word into Spanish, with the result being some sort of verbal Frankenstein's monster. Mexicans were frightened when they weren't just perplexed.

I started Pimsleur from scratch and that is the way to do it if you know nothing or if you know a decent amount but approach the language as I did. The early units certainly move along painfully slowly when you aren't a novice (I must have looked like a deranged road rager in my car screaming at the CD player..."OK, buenas fucking tardes already...CAN WE MOVE ON PLEASE!!")...but it pays off in the end. Even the early insult to your intelligence lessons will teach you something...assemble your knowledge into something cohesive.

At the end of all 90 lessons I still had only learned about 14 words that I didn't know before I started lesson 1, but it all came together and my language skill is improved to the 90th power. The monster is dead...there is almost nothing I can not now find a way to express understandably in spanish.

The frustration is that having completed the whole program, I am still a long way short of where I want to go with spanish. I haven't got time or money for immersion programs. I don't know how to improve my speaking ability at this point since no other books, CDs, software has been useful to me as Pimsleur was...though I have to say watching lowlife U.S. produced spanish language TV shows like "Buscando Amor" (Drooling vatos looking for love with latina sweetie pies) and Jose Luis Sin Censura" (latino Jerry Springer but MUCH more stupid) are beginning to "train my ear"...I am keeping up with the rapid spanish tongue much better than before - something that Pimsleur assuredly does NOT help you with as you are spoon fed short clearly enunciated phrases.

Btw, they lose the "castellano" not to far into the program and bring good ole "español" aboard.

Have fun Xen and I'll look forward to reviewing the program with you as you document some of it here.

(Message edited by erip on December 21, 2003)

Don't fret Xen, Pimsleur switches over to "Español" somewhere around lesson 18, and sticks with it from then on.

>>>The frustration is that having completed the whole program, I am still a long way short of where I want to go with spanish.

I'll have to second that sentiment. The first 3 Pimsleur courses teach somewhere around 1000 words. Mostly very useful words. And like you, I can express most needs/wants one way or another. But 1000 words just isn't enough. I once heard that the average (English-speaking) person uses a vocabulary of around 2000 words in day to day speech. If perchance that carries over to Spanish, then Pimsleur only gets you half way to reasonable fluency.

Any advice on improving vocabulary would be much appreciated. I found the Pimsleur repetition reeeeeaaally necessary to truly remember the words. Otherwise, they fade from my memory pretty rapidly.

Erip,

Your Spanish sounds like it was probably further along than mine when you started the program. I took a couple of semesters in college and it has helped, but I want to be more conversational than I am. I don't ger very far with my current Spanish, even though I seem to know more than I can use at any given time.

I may try to take some additional courses later on after I finish the 90 units. We'll see.

Should be fun. I'll look forward to reviewing the program with you as well. Looks like I found my Spanish Sabio!

Have fun with your new language. The nice thing about Spanish here in California is that you have no problems finding places to hear and speak it. Spanish accents vary all over the place with the Mexican version being "hard core" in its extremes. I can't understand a word from most of the Mexican laborers here but the news casters tend to be much clearer in their pronounciation. It's probably like the difference between someone from the Deep South with no education and another person who is a university graduate.

Here's a site I just found yesterday. The have a daily spoken word in around 60 different langauges including both Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese. And Spanish of course. You can backtrack on the site for quite a ways which lets you hear a number of words. I don't know about all the different speakers but on the Brazilian Portuguese daily word there are various people being used which is good.

http://travlang.com/wordofday/

Xen, I recently started Pimsluer Spanish also (last week). Good luck and I look forward to your continued postings.