How difficult it is to learn Spanish as a 3rd Language?

Question

I'm Filipino and Spanish was abolished in Philippines. It was once an official language. Its my second semester of Spanish in college I can understand but its weird because sometimes I keep switching from English-Spanish or Filipino to Spanish vice versa since its mix with Spanish. I'm getting confuse when I listen to a native speaker of Spanish or even when Im studying the language because most of the time it doesn't make any sense when I translate it to English but to Filipino mostly it make sense anyway please advice me please thanks.

Answer 1

If you are very smart, you will pick it up quickly. especially if you can hang around people speaking the language.

Answer 2

My second language was French. Then, when I started studying Spainsh, I found that it really messed with my mind. Finally, I got advanced enough in Spanish that it no longer matters and I can switch between all 3 languages... English, French and Spanish, but I still have problems at times when I'll borrow a word from a language and use it in another... with some funny results, at times. Of course, it helps that I have lived in countries where the individual languages are spoken because practice is everything.

Answer 3

Learn each language by using it instead of comparing it to a language you already know. Spanish is difficult because of verb conjugations, lots of them being irregular. Also Spanish nouns have gender, so adjectives must match. Filipino contains some Spanish cognates, yes, but is based on ancient Proto-Malay. It is quite different from Spanish and English!

Answer 4

I think you can do it... just get a spanish speaking conversation partner. I think it's easier to learn a third language as spanish (that's actually what I do... I speak Chinese, then English, and now Spanish.) It takes some time to learn the grammar and slangs and stuff like that, but it isn't that bad.

Answer 5

Spanish is a hard to learn language.. but not too much if you are really interested on learning, the most hard thing to learn in spanish is the conjugation of the verbes and the modisms... and of course you have troubles on translating spanish into english or viceversa, because english and spanish are written and spoken backwards one from another, you can translate the idea not literally the words as they are written or spoken. Spanish is my primary and native language and my english sucks as you can see.. lol.. Asi que buena suerte en el aprendizaje del español, necesitaras mucho esfuerzo, pero se puede lograr. Exito!

Answer 6

English was the most difficult language to learn in my opinion, as you said Filipino has helped with Spanish, and the more languages you know the easier they become. Anyway Spanish has more defined rules with less exceptions and it matches the Romantic guides.

Answer 7

If you've mastered English (and your spelling tells me that you have), and you already speak Filipino (similar to Spanish), then learning Spanish should come easy for you. I've heard that English is the hardest language to learn and you have that one down pat....Spanish should be a breeze! Good luck!

Answer 8

You have two choices - You can either go to the local bookstore and find out if they have those casettes or cds on how to speak fluent spanish or you can go to the spanish embassy and find out if they have classes or knowledge of private tutors. Spanish is easily learned on a conversation basis (70%) and learning the conjugations (30%).

Answer 9

when i studied spanish last sem, i found it easy to memorize all the verb forms (reg & irreg), but the thinking of the verb itself was difficult. and another thing that leads to confusion is since we're filipinos we would first have a thought in filipino and then translate it to english and that's the only time we can translate the thought into spanish. maybe you should try conditioning yourself to always think of what you have to say in english first since the structure of the spanish sentences are closer to english than in filipino.

Answer 10

If you learnt english and filipino, then spanish is going to be a breeze!

Pick up extra help manuals at your bookstore, and if you are an auditory learner, then pick up some cd's or tapes...

Good luck!

Answer 11

The best way to learn spanish is to go and eat a mexican restaurants cus the waiters will translate the menu for you and help you out the mexican difficult words