I must say good spanish teachers are hard to find,so if you found a good one your lucky

I'm sure the quality is variable, just like it is in all walks of life! Someone here told me about the free Spanish classes available at our local Adult Education Centre, so I put my name down. I went along to the first lesson and was so underwhelmed that I never went back, I preferred to carry on paying €50 per month for my classes at a local private language school with the teacher I had there.

I've been lucky with Spanish teachers over the years, only really had one bad one. A young girl, fresh out of uni, all the paper qualifications but no experience whatsoever. I realise they all have to start somewhere, but after one term, several of us left and never renewed our membership. Currently we have an excellent Spanish lady, tomorrow by way of a change she's going to be cooking cocido madrileño for us, so has told us not to eat before we come. She´s young, no hang ups, will introduce all manner of subjects, sex, drugs, homosexuality, politics, slang etc. We all realise how lucky we are to have her, she´s a star. And she´s not even expensive!

I agree, my husband is using this and is progressing well if nothing else it has shown him that he can learn the basics, and gives him confidence. He is doing this 2 hours a day. Then he practices with me.

I am half way through, I talk to a colleague at work only in Spanish ( she is from Madrid area. She insists that I need to learn the verbs and conjugation. Which makes for interesting conversation. If I get it wrong she corrects me and tests me the next day. She make me write a diary in Spanish and marks it!
Sometimes I know what I want to say, but I just stand there looking stupid, i can do that on my own, don't need any help But Its about gaining confidence and so far she is pleased with my progress. At the end of the day I suppose until you are there and living and breathing Spanish you do not know how effective it is

I considered Rosetta Stone - but at nearly £300 I will give some of the other ones on here a look though

The verbs are difficult to remember and learn Im struggling

But will not give up

Sounds like my kind of girl, maybe you could PM me her tel.no.

And very smart, good looking as well! Not daft either, has chosen a local lad! In fact, I only know of about six in my area, all married to Brits.

Lots of people give up on the verbs, they are the hardest thing in Spanish. But well worth the effort as you can't have much of a conversation without them!

Have you tried the Spaleon Verb Trainer? Boring as hell, but just 15 minutes a day will make all the difference.

Thanks Pocaloca I have not seen this one before
Its nice to have some encouragement when trying to learn home alone
Theres plenty of work for me to do then??????
I guess no pain no gain.

I learned alot of Spanish with the Michel Thomas CD's. I thought the system was a good way to gain a basic understanding quite qucikly. Used to drive my daughter crazy when I had it on in the car
I think I must have reached language saturation point though - my wife is from Lithuania (where we used to live many years ago). Now when I try to speak in her Lithuanian I keep reverting to Spanish before I can stop myself

There's quite a few videos here, all fairly basic, but hey, it's free.

https://www.youtube.com/user/ebpaes/videos

I don't think there is an easy way to learn a language, unless you have spanish etc. relatives/husbands/lovers. Whichever method you use there has to be some boring verb and other grammar time to do it properly.

Quite agree Jacky. I've tried CDs, books, online lessons and the rest. It's the verbs that get me. I'm fine with words as I can soak up new words without much of a problem. It's just these dastardly verbs,

verbs are just words........ & once you learn the pattern it's easy

I agree but lets not give up .and encourage each other to continue and thanks for posting free learning sites on here,even if some are basic we might encourage new learners