hi everyone as you know i am looking at making the move to spain only problem is im trying to learn spanish and it aint easy ,im just been wondering how many of you that have made the move to spain speak the lingo and how long did it take you to learn ?

If your finding the language hard,try this; Teach Yourself instant Spanish,by Elizebeth Smith.
It gives you a vocabulary of approx 400 words,which will serve you well in all imaginable circumstances
After that,you can learn new words at your own pace.

However,do make the effort with the language,if you dont your only storing up trouble for yourself,desgraciademente .

PS;the book and cd set is available from WHSmith's,at approx £17.00.

I speak the lingo like a native,and so does my other half.

I speak spanish but only after 10 years of working with them 5 or 6 days a week. It is not easy in the beginning but you have to be in amonst them almost everyday. In my opinion, classes don´t work unless you practice everyday with the people.

I get by .... but only just. I'm not really up to conversational standard yet

Been here 2 years, finding language hard to learn, being a builder my spanish is all about construction, but i won,t be defeated keep hacking away at it, i find keeping a note book with me helps a lot, jotting useful new words down before i forget, nothing more frustrating. After 2 yrs my level is a very basic conversation, but a lot more confidence.

Learning the language is vital.

I'm not going yet (tho I'd go tomorrow if only all the problems here were sorted) but I am able to converse a bit.

Hi there Threemonkeys
Ive just read youre a builder - my hubby is a builder over here in the UK - did you find it really difficult to get work over in Spain - that is one of our main worries him not being able to get any work - we do not speak Spanish but we would of course be learning or trying to.
Thanks
Love Sam xxxxx

We are building a house in Costa Esuri and at the outset I bought 2 books on Amazon. The first,

"Constructionary" published by McGraw - Hill is an English/Spanish Construction Dictionary from America but most of the terms are the same.

and second,

"buying a home in spain" in the teach yourself series which comes with a CD of pronunciations. We have other Buying books but this one has more construction terms in it than the others.

Thanks for that - im gonna have a look for them as they may come in handy - thanks again - love Sam xxx

Sammy..... I will give you some lessons for free when we next meet... or we can practice on msn xx

That sounds good to me xxxxx - do we start with the all important swear words first then

Of course not! I don`t swear.....

and `dos ******** san miguel por favor` wouldn`t go down too well....

Altho saying it was 'de la puta madre' would go down well.

Oh yeh