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When I first went to Japan, I had a good book knowledge of Japanese as well as survival skills, but I didn't know the colloquial stuff or understand how the levels of politeness function on a practical level. Before I went, I received two excellent suggestions: 1) My grad school adviser told me to be sure that I had a TV, even a cheapo black and white one, and kept it on the whole time I was awake. If possible, I should find a drama series that was just starting and make sure not to miss an episode. 2) A fellow student suggested that I read Japanese comic books, because they are the only places where Japanese is written out exactly as it is spoken, complete with slang, low-class pronunciations, and exclamations.
Both were excellent suggestions.
Before you do either, though, go to the foreign language section of a large bookstore and see if you can find a Spanish workbook for adult learners. There are about six different series, and some even comes with CDs. The ones with two or three volumes are probably best.
Once you've worked through these--or while you're working through them--start watching Spanish TV with the closed captioning on. Yes, closed captioning works just as well for Spanish as for trying to understand obscure British country accents on Masterpiece Theatre. You won't understand everything. You'll never understand EVERYTHING, but gradually you'll understand more and more, and finally you'll understand ENOUGH.
Watch the news programs, because unlike Japanese, where news is one of the hardest things to understand, Spanish is descended from Latin, and Latin is the source of much of the political and economic vocabulary of English. Besides, if you watch the news on a U.S.-based Spanish station, you'll be hearing the Spanish version of news that you already know in English.
I don't know if you have access to Spanish comic books, because I've never looked for them, but if your work takes you to the Southwest, try to find a Spanish-language bookstore. You may be able to find Spanish magazines in any large city.
Watch movies made in Spanish speaking countries. If you have a Netflix subscription, look under Foreign. They have subcategories for different languages and different countries, and you could fill up a whole queue with films from Spain, Mexico, Argentina, and Cuba, and occasionally other countries, although these four are the biggest film producers. Watch with the closed caption.
If you have HBO, that includes HBO Latino, which will give you treats such as The Sopranos dubbed in Spanish.
All these are good for your passive knowledge, but for active knowledge, you need to SPEAK. Every place I've lived has had informal Spanish conversation circles sponsored by the public library or other community institutions. The good thing about them is that you can drop in whenever your schedule allows it.
The key for learning to speak is not to be afraid. My best language students ever were from Malaysia, because it's a multilingual, multi-ethnic country, and everyone of every ethnic group learns Malay and English in school and probably speaks still another language at home, usually Chinese or some south Indian language such as Tamil or Telegu. Malaysians therefore have no fear of foreign languages.
My Malaysian students started trying to talk to me in Japanese after Lesson 3. They were the only students who would try to speak Japanese to me if they saw me on campus. They had the right idea: Do your best, and if you don't know how to say something, improvise instead of giving up. Most Japanese people are just the opposite. They're so terrified of making a mistake that they end up tongue-tied.
If you live in an area with lots of Spanish speakers, eventually you will run across situations in which some Spanish-speaking person asks you for directions. I used to have this happen all the time on the West Coast, and eventually I asked my department chair's wife, who had a graduate degree in Spanish, why this would be, since I'm pale and blue-eyed and not an obvious Spanish speaker. Her theory was that I looked as if I wouldn't bite a person's head off for not speaking English.
Anyway, if you encounter Spanish-speaking people who don't speak English well, try speaking Spanish to them. They'll be glad to have an Anglo they can communicate with, however basically, and you'll have a chance to practice, because after all, isn't that the point, to communicate with people?
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