Can anyone tell me the best way to widen my spanish vocabulary?

Question

I really want to be good at spanish. I study and read books and listen to the radio. I try to incorporate it in my daily life but I feel like it is slow going. Can anyone who is fluent or knows something i don't tell me: is there something I should be doing that i am not?

Answer 1

I think the best way to learn any language is to practice. Here are some tips that may help you.

1. Read a lot of books, specially books for kids, no offense but the books for kids have simpler Spanish. This will help you learn new words and increase your grammar.

2. Listen music in Spanish.

3. Watch TV shows and movies in spanish.

4. Get an online friend that speaks Spanish. Explain that your trying to learn the language and would love for him to help you.

5. Try to do all your common tasks in Spanish, for example, switch yahoo to yahoo.es.

Hope this helps...

Answer 2

I know exactly how you feel because I'm here fighting to keep the Spanish learned as third idiom live in my brain as well as improve it.The things you do are pretty good, just try reading everything, including papers or any other material produced by Spanish Native ones.There are great sites for you to practice.Don't forget of marking the words you have doubts about the meaning to check then later in a good dictionary - even if you was able to get the meaning by the context : is a way to improve your vocabulary and learn synonyms.
Watching movies, listening to songs, using the new words you learned ( talking with someone or teaching someone that knows less than you),and, most of all, having lots of patience, that's the way you can get progress in your studies. Don't give up and Good Luck!!!

PS: I've forgot to tell you that is better use a dictionary Spanish/Spanish than a Spanish /English one. Of course will be harder but ...You can try one semi-bilingual; they give
an explanation in the language target and end with a brief definition in the other. Unfortunatelly, don't know any to sugest you... the only one I know is English/English/Portuguese.


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Answer 3

I've been learning Spanish too. I found a copy of Harry Potter in English and Spanish at my local library. Some days I worked on translating it into Spanish or vice versa, some days I just read from the Spanish one. The key is, you have to enjoy what you are reading to really motivate you to do it every day. Also, whenever you check out DVD's, use subtitles, or put on the Spanish audio.

Another thing I just discovered too is that you can do yahoo answers in Spanish, and practice your Spanish by giving answers in Spanish, or asking questions. There are also Spanish yahoo groups too that you can subscribe to. (In the address line, just type "es." before the "answers.yahoo.com" part. ) Read what you usually read, do what you usually do, only find ways to do it in Spanish. Then you will always be learning and having fun!

Answer 4

If you have the time and the money, go to your favorite search engine and type in: full immersion spanish mexico
This will give you many options of Spanish language schools all over Mexico. You will have Spanish classes every day; live with a Mexican family and take trips for sightseeing.

Answer 5

I think you're on the right track, but it's best if you practice talking with a spanish person-not on the internet but in real life, so that you would get used to the accents and get some language help.
You could also take classes, this would help you learn grammar and stuff, and you'll be able to talk and use Spanish.

Answer 6

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Answer 7

Write your vocab words really big from side to side. Make one word take up a whole line of notebook paper--wider now!

No, you seem to be doing everything right. I only studied Spanish for a couple of years. I'm not fluent, but just go over vocab lists and stuff like that. Are you in a class? Read the books, and ask your instructor for additional sources because they probably know more than you. I actually mostly learned Italian by looking over vocab lists that my instructor gave me, and now I'm trying to learn Dutch just from books which just means going over vocab lists mostly, but I also listen to some Dutch songs. I am minoring in German at college now, and my instructor told us to think in German to get better at it and listen to German music. You've got that one under control already too though. Maybe you could make friends with someone who speaks Spanish or find a job that forces you to use your Spanish skills. My granny's friend taught me Danish when I was younger, and I spoke it with her, but she has passed away. It's hard to find people who speak Danish here though, but her daughter gave me all of her old Danish books that she brought over with her from Denmark because the lady's kids weren't interested in learning Danish and can't read those books anyways. And I made friends with two students from Germany that go to college with me. So, maybe you could find a Spanish friend or at least interact with more people in Spanish.

Answer 8

Watch soap operas in Spanish! You will see the gestures, the situations, so the words will be in a context. Plus you will hear the words as they happen within the context.

I learned most of my spoken English watching Seinfeld, LOL (of course, I had studied the grammar).

Buena suerte!

Answer 9

When you say read, I hope that they are not grammar books.
For otherwise the best way to increase your word power of a foreign lanuage is by reading store, news or otherwise books and when you come across a new word you take note of it by keeping a notebook next to you, jot it down, find its meaning and then go over these new words and their meaning frequently so that you get used to them.
Good luck.

Answer 10

You have the motivation. If you are doing all that on a consisten basis, you are improving even if you feel you don't. contact with the language will teach you new words or new fidioms.
If you still feel you need to do something more about just VOCABULARY, I'd suggest to download this software: http://jmemorize.org/
Or this one: http://www.vocab.co.uk/
Or any other that has similar characteristics.