agoreira

Disagree, I'm sure we are all more capable of understanding spoken Spanish than speaking it. When listening, everything is already conjugated for you, the grammar is correct, it's a very different skill to actually having to conjugate the verbs, use subjunctive if necessary, word order, sentence structure etc. My wife understands spoken Spanish quite well, but can hardly string two words together! Listening is certainly important, but I'd put speaking and writing correct Spanish way above listening on a difficulty scale.

pete_l

Not me!
The hardest thing I find about conversing in Spanish is working out what the other person actually said.
Most conversations I have - generally with people in shops or trying to get something done at the town hall goes like this:
Me: Hola! ¿tienes una botella de leche?
Shop person: something something something something something something something something something do' euros something something something something nada

Typically I reckon I can pick out about 1 word in 50 of what someone says to me. A lot of the "sense" I get from the person who's talking to me comes from their tone and body language. I have completely given up trying to speak to a spaniard on the phone - the speed, lack of visual clues and having little idea what their context is means I get almost nothing at all from what I hear.

Generally I can make myself understood, even without getting the tenses (or even the gender) correct. The mechanics of listening to a response is mostly that of checking that the word you heard is the one you expected¹. When you don't know what to expect and haven't really much of a clue as to where one word ends and the next one begins, the process is virtually impossible.

[1] You can test this for yourself. Play a game with a partner where you say a sentence and he/she/it has to repeat what you say, in real-time while you are saying it. If you deliberately make mistakes, such as saying "Paris in the the spring" your playmate will subconsciously correct the error (as you may well have done when you read the example, the first time). When you start speaking random words, the speed of them repeating - and the accuracy - drops markedly.

bobd22

I think I would agree with Pete I by no means speak much Spanish but do try and when having a conversation with neighbors when over I can often get the gist of most of what they say, but it is the speed and of course regional accent that I find difficult. Also of course I am trying to translate i n my head at the same time where on the other hand the bits I have actually learned I don't do that like our own language you just know that. Be great when I can do that with a full conversation. Other thing as well for me I try and learn it but find it hard to forget our pronunciation of common letters. I find mind that re speed the Spanish think that we english speakers speak very quick and I have been told they think we sound like we are singing. Paul Noble on his last CD does quite a good job of trying to resolve this as they go through what you have learned at full speed with the Spanish speaker.
Pete re Rosetta Stone I do find that quite good luckily I was given a copy the thing for me though I don't mind the repetition as I need that to be honest but it is the pedantic speech recognition when it splits words down i.e. MUJER - MU - J - ER, there is only so many ways I can say MU by about 50 attempts I am about to throw the computer through the window, then out of the blue it accepts my MU however as you say repetition shortly after back it comes and guess what I am yet again saying the same but still taking 40 goes lol. I do like the way it also monitors and makes you feel by doing that, that you are progressing.

agoreira

Even if your Spanish is reasonable, I find the Spanish generally slow down, I'm very aware that when speaking with Spanish friends they speak at a much slower speed than when talking with their friends or family. If they don't, ask them to, I'm sure they will. Chatting with a friend recently, I had no problems following him, then the phone rang, and I was struggling to get all his conversation when he switched to "normal" Spanish. We do the same in English, often without realising it.

missile

Those who can't speak any Spanish go into a shop and find they are not understood shout loudly as if the shop assistant is hard of hearing<LOL>

bobd22

Argh yes the good old bilingual Brit method not forgetting of course the frantic waving of arms and look of disgust when they fail to be understood, of course stupid Spanish fault lol

missile

Best anecdote I overheard, when in the hairdresser.

How long have you been here dear?

Twelve years in September

and how's you Spanish?

I been practicing my numbers. Uno, dos, tres, quantro ..........

bobd22

Lynn R

I'm glad it's not just me who finds listening comprehension much harder than speaking or writing Spanish! I've got a bit better over the years (slowly!) but still struggle, and I find that even if I ask a native Spanish speaker to slow down, they do initially but soon revert to the usual machine-gun speed - and yes, Bob, Spanish people who are learning English have also said to me that English people speak very fast, which I never thought we did! I can now cope OK with phone calls, but only if there is absolutely no distracting background noise such as TV or passing traffic, as I really have to concentrate.

Different people must have different skills, like Agoreira's wife my OH does not speak very good Spanish (knows a lot of vocabulary but can't put a proper sentence together, due to having given up on lessons at a very early stage as he "couldn't be doing with the grammar") but could always get the gist of what was being said to him better than I could. Not any longer, though - ha!

bobd22

I have just been doing a bit on Rosetta Stone and did having completed a section did one of the milestones. They are very strange to say the least

beverleyp

The course others have thoroughly recommended to me are: www.duolingo.com and www.senorjordan.com/los-videos. The first is free, the second I think is free. The course I personally thoroughly recommend is Linkword, but it is not free and one disadvantage is that you can't stop mid module and come back to it later.

angiescarr

Linkword. I only did level one as a book years ago, but loved it! the most entertaining course I ever did and it really gave me confidence to go on. And although I'm fairly fluent these days if anyone has the course...especially the higher levels I could buy/borrow I'd love to iron out some bad habits and fill a few gaps.

beverleyp

Mine is an online course and I understand other formats are available. I wonder whether it's the same as yours though as although I find it quick, easy and clear, I certainly wouldn't describe it as entertaining. You are given lists of words in English first and then in Spanish. Then you practice those words in sentences which most of the time are nonsensical so I definitely wouldn't describe it as entertaining unless you are very easy to please! You are also instructed in Grammar of course which as I say is always clear and easy to understand. Have a look at their site www.linkword.co.uk.