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Re: "Trying Rocket Languages, FluentU and LingoPie"
A major problem with Rocket Spanish is that the woman leading the lessons is not a native speaker (the guy is, but he speaks very little while she drawls on and on)... Not only is her spanish pronounciation far from perfect, but her English is very annoyingly nasal and drawn-out. She practically says "Spaynish"! I like the content, but this may be a deal-breaker.
18 hours ago
It's cliché but i recommend watching films, documentaries, series, etc ... in Spanish, with subtitles (and later without), on topics that you enjoy ... and let it sink in. The less conscious effort you make to learn, the easier it gets, and hearing the language while being entertained works for a lot of people. An example of spanish tv series: "El Internado". It's a bit dull but perfect to learn and you can easily find subtitles.
🚀 stack [OP/mod] · 16 hours ago:
Maybe I'm not there yet... I've been watching a lot of Spanish shows on Netflix with subtitles, and seem to gain nothing... Over the past few week I've been catching more phrases from my other studies, but I'm not able to follow. I think it will happen, and then I' ll pick up the pace exponentially.
Pimsleur might be worth a listen, they are always excellent for pronunciation / natural speech, as that's the focus.
For example in French there is natural variation around whether you bother to say ending consonants when the next word starts with a vowel, "liasons". My French is not nearly good enough to have noticed this, but apparently if you check the audio closely you find there is a mix of present and missing liasons across uses of the same word combinations so you get used to the allowed variation.
Trying Rocket Languages, FluentU and LingoPie — Maybe I am wrong, but my approach to leaning Spanish is to avoid translation when possible, but instead try to internalize the language -- I want to feel rather than know. I think it's the key to fluency. And so, in addition to banging out DuoLingo exercises (which are surprisingly good at making their way deep into my brain), I decided to try out a few more apps, in order to get good enough to watch TV. Rocket Spanish They offer a free trial...