Spanish, German French... ...it's all Greek to me!

rpbristol - I think I'll probably stick to BYKI. It's so simple to use. I'll be trying out my Spanish again in a few weeks.

the bbc do a good spanish(and other language) course here

You can download language course podcasts free from iTunes to put on your iPod and listen to whenever you have a few minutes I have a couple of different Spanish ones, a Catalan one and a Welsh one - not really had time to listen to any of them just yet, but will get around to it

I did a spanish evening course a few years back was for 10 weeks as iI recall, I really enjoyed it, I picked up quite a bit that I didn't know already, and I think it makes such a difference when you attempt to speak Spanish even if you don't get it quite right, the very fact you make an effort I think is appreciated.

My hub is not a natural linguist, but he went to Spanish evening classes and eventually got an A* GCSE after about 7 years .
He retook some of the "levels" sometimes, also had to change colleges several times as various courses didn't run some years......
and of course he had other commitments at home and work
but it can be done with enough determination

He then tried AS level but the National exams were immoveable, and not enough notice was given of the dates to arrange time off work.
Now he goes to the university for evening classes and is doing a modular course at his own pace, and the university is more flexible about the exam dates.

Sadly most colleges don't have holiday or conversational language courses any more, everything has got to be exam based so that the course and teacher etc. can be audited.

He spent a lot of time practising and listening to tapes, the Michel Thomas ones are good.
When we go on holiday he buys Spanish puzzle books, crosswords, wordsearches etc, which all help the vocabulary.

There's been a lot of fun along the way, and we've befriended some of the waitresses at our favourite hotel in Mallorca, who've stuck with his efforts over the years.
In Tenerife one time though, he ordered our drinks in his best Spanish, and the waitress said "That's very good, but I'm Hungarian!"
He also tried to ask for a box of matches (fosforos) but asked for a box of lighthouses instead (faros), which caused much confusion. However another time in Tenerife when our transfer taxi didn't arrive, he was able to speak to another taxi driver and arrange new transport and we didn't miss our plane