This is a little different than our normal topics but I’m trying to learn Spanish fluently. I’ve had several Spanish courses over my life time and honestly I think I learned more Spanish working at the Olive Garden from the employees in the kitchen. I’ve been using Duolingo for a while but I find most Spanish lessons in school or atleast on Duolingo are teaching proper Spanish and not so much conversational Spanish. Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions?

I also have difficulty, as in I can’t, roll my R’s. Never been able to trill or whistle or anything like that. Is that something that’s going to hinder my communication abilities?

 

 

4 hours ago, AeroFishOne said:

I’ve had several Spanish courses over my life time and honestly I think I learned more Spanish working at the Olive Garden from the employees in the kitchen.

This is a great point. Spanish can be a tricky language to learn but I've definitely learned more Spanish from just listening to others than from any actual classes. I wonder if that's something about Spanish or if almost every language is like that.

Yes conventional Spanish is very different from what I picked up from my Spanish family especially my grandparents who spoke zero English. I remember being in Spanish classes and often thinking "this isn't the way abuela says it." Even the opposite of that where I would say something from Spanish class to my family and they would be like umm no that ain't how you say it.

To me that helped with my Spanish socially because I'm not perfect with my Spanish and I'd probably fail many Spanish tests but I can communicate in Spanish pretty easily or I can at definitely navigate a tougher Spanish situation by what I know of it in the non conventional way.

And funny u mention this as just two days ago I hung out with a friend from childhood who is 100% Iranian and when we were kids he knew zero Spanish and it was comical how he tried to say bits and pieces of Spanish to the almost entirely Spanish parents of the neighborhood kids. He did it as a friendly kid trying to pick up the new language around him and we always laughed lovingly at how bad his Spanish was.

Well now it's been over 20 years and I'm hanging out with him over some beers and suddenly he starts throwing out the most excellent Spanish, it was amazing how this was the same kid. What happened? He didn't take 20 years of Spanish classes obviously. He is a naturally friendly and talkative person and he went into a line of work where he has to speak with so many people in the community on a daily basis that he adapted to the language just by having so many daily conversations and having such a socially driven job, much like you were suggesting about learning from coworkers in Miami. 

Good topic when u think about it. 

Someone teach me.

Yo soy bueno con el español. 

Mucho Besos!!!

3 hours ago, pollythewog said:

Mucho Besos!!!

Nein, danke.