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Performance Performance. Plus, the diversity of drills makes it sort of fun. I never once got bored while using the program. Not to mention, diversity of drills and exercises helps with material retention. You can choose between flashcards, listening, speaking or writing , which I was a big fan of.
Overall, the review sessions are a great tool. My third major pro of this program is the fact that the Babbel lessons include English directions and translations. They believe no English is the way to go. So at the end of the day, I can see the argument both ways immersion vs translation , but I ultimately appreciated the limited use of English to help keep the lessons moving and ease frustrations. I like that Babbel incorporates grammar content and exercises into its lessons, which is something that not all language learning courses do.
Instead, they integrate grammar instruction into their lessons in a very subtle and efficient way. For example, one grammar exercise might include just a quick one-to-two sentence explanation in English regarding adjectives vs adverbs, and then you participate by filling in blanks in example sentences. But again, the Babbel program is always right there to provide hints and tips to ensure you understand.
I had no complaints whatsoever. In addition, I really like the calendar tool that Babbel includes. Plus, you can see your achievements to keep yourself motivated. I guess my real gripe here is that I just wish Babbel placed a little more emphasis on speaking within their lessons and review sessions.
I believe output — actually speaking and talking — is crucial for successful language acquisition. With that said though, if you really want to hone your speaking skills, there are other companies out there where you can get matched up with a live coach or tutor to help you practice your verbal skills like iTalki for example. These types of services could be a nice, cheap supplement to the Babbel core curriculum. In short, Babbel is not great for advanced learners.
This Spanish program is really more geared towards newbie to intermediate learners. Think of Babbel as more like a college degree. Using a transcript might be tempting, but you really want to focus on memory and sounds only. As an added benefit, shadowing will also improve your listening skills.
So go ahead: take that first dialogue that I gave you and start shadowing it! Do this exercise as often as possible, especially in the first weeks and months of learning Spanish. But if you end up in a conversation with a native Spanish speaker hopefully you will, at some point , then what exactly should you say?
Simple: whatever you want to say, using the same word combinations or phrases, or chunks you discover in the dialogues you listen to! The idea is that you listen to the dialogue and follow along on the transcript.
Ideally, you also have a parallel translation in English so you can compare and see what these sentences mean. You can download a pdf example of such a transcript here. Bonus: the pdf even comes with some explainer footnotes! While reading the transcript, you want to look out for all these phrases, expressions, word combinations where you think:. This is by far the fastest and most intuitive way to learn Spanish and speak it naturally.
The easiest way to memorize these chunks and make sure you can use them in conversations, is by learning them with flashcards. My two favourite apps are Anki and Brainscape. So yes, learn grammar to understand the Spanish sentence structure. Maybe learn some conjugations. But focus mainly on observing dialogues. At this stage, if you want, you can start speaking some Spanish already. You can only speak Spanish about what you know, with the words or chunks you know.
So yes, if you want you can speak Spanish from the beginning and get that paralyzing fear out of your system. And as luck would have it or is it by design? For the first couple of months, just continue with lots of listening, reading, learning chunks and mixing in some speaking practice. Ideally, you use a Spanish language course for this that gives you Spanish native-speaker dialogues with audio, a transcript, a parallel translation and some grammar explanations.
You might start to understand how this language learning method works by now. You just need to get exposed to them. Pay some attention to what native speakers say, and how they say it. And apart from a Spanish course with dialogues, there are loads of other sources of good Spanish content.
Many of them are quite fun to use, too. And most of them will teach you quite a bit about Latin or Spanish culture too. All these songs are legitimate sources of Spanish chunks. Just create a playlist with some Spanish music that you like and listen to it a lot. You can also use a dictionary website like Context. There are even dedicated website that offer full translations of lyrics! Like for example Lyrics Translate. There are plenty of amazing Spanish podcasts out there, at all levels.
Listen to some of those. The best ones come with a transcript, which will make your life much easier. I have created an article here, where I present the 10 best free podcasts to learn Spanish. They can be quite entertaining, too. Luckily, there are quite a lot of those written especially for Spanish beginners. For example, my friend Olly Richards has an excellent series with Spanish short stories for both beginners and intermediate students.
If you enjoy reading, by all means, go for it!
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