roseweb,what have you done to me ??? !!!...... 02:55 again this morning

Saqres, your lucky, was practicing my Hindi, saw night time turn into day time and eventually went to bed at 4.55am I think she has a lot to answer for getting us into it Tony.

I've found the Portuguese keyboard facility now and, although it's cumbersome bringing up the accents and cedillas, it can be done.

OK, I just had to have a go for 5 minutes before I went to bed and I'm now onto the fourth list!

Are you using the Portuguese keyboard to get the accents Sagres? I've now remembered that you can type in the letter and then press the up or down arrow key once or more to get the right accent etc. Easy when you know how!

Oh well, back to it ...........!

P.S. Sorry everyone for the late nights!!

P.S. Sorry everyone for the late nights!!

So you should be

I'm trying it as well now. Is it tomorrow yet?

rpbristol, it soon will be if your anything like the rest of us using it, went back to work today after 3 months off with back injury looking like a zombie

What language are you doing, rpbristol?

Hope these hours sitting at the computer don't give you a relapse, Tony! My shoulders are hunched and tense, neck's hurting - why do we do it? Just to get the next list learnt. We know it really, but we make a silly typo and it sets us back another 5 minutes. Masochism or what?!

Thought this might be a good thread for people to give tips in

Something most of us Brits (hmm, i just called myself British ) are pretty bad at, and maybe we should do better, so if people have any hints and tips for learning a new language, maybe we can post them all in here

I'm not too bad at French (thanks to school) and can just about get by in Italian, although it's been a few years since i tried that, but that's no help when i go to Spain most of the time!

So, for someone like myself looking to start out in Spanish, any hints?

Hi Cider, try this, it gave me some simple tips.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/spanish/

Degs.

My daughter enrolled for a spanish course at a local college
she goes every monday evening for 2 hours

Hey Llindy, can you give us a rough idea of what kind of cost is involved in such courses?

I actually get some cash (not a great deal) from my work for personal development, and it doesn't have to be work related

Cidermonster if you can already use Italian and French you should be able to master Spanish no problem as it comes from the same group of languages called the Romantic. A lot of the words are similar in all three but perhaps with slight spelling differences. I know that in Spanish some words are almost the same as in English but the spelling is changed by one letter for example a " c" where a "t" was used in English. Imitation = de imatacion with an acute above the letter "o". Some words are even the same eg hospital.

Yep, the Romance languages!
In fact, from speaking to a few Italian people, they always tell you that they can virtually understand Spanish speakers, they are very similar

Hence the reason why i should really pull my finger out and learn it!!

Hi Cidermonster
we live in Wales and my daughter attends Barry Boys Comprehensive ,
and she has paid £48 for a 10 week course, she has a 2 hour lesson every week .
I thought it was a local college she attended but have just asked her and its in the comp school , she also said a 30 week course would cost £144 . Not convenient for you to attend but a guide line for costings . The course is through adult learning .

Lynne

cidermonster
what happened to you learning Catalan??
i use still a combination of the bbc site, another site called "beforeyouknowit" -http://www.byki.com/
and some of the freebies that the papers gave away. i've got one of these on my walkman and use that as a refresher while on the plane.
i can get by very well now in bars/restaurants/shops/travel etc but holding a general conversation is still a bit difficult.i can,and do, speak to the locals in spanish but they want to speak english.
i find it difficult to follow normal spanish conversation, but my friends now know to give me a clue as to the subject of the conversation and i can usually get the drift -like you i have a bit of french and this does help.
as with all things, practice helps so i think a trip to spain may be required

I have merged this topic with a couple of existing ones which may have some useful information in earlier posts.

luci

Llindy, thanks, i'm looking into a similar thing being run in our area, so i guess it would be pretty much the same, i'll let you know the outcome

Jim, i found that when trying to speak Catalan people were replying in castillian Spanish!! I also think Spanish will be easier to learn having some knowledge of French and Italian, Catalan is a wee bit different!!

Contacted Forth Valley College who are sending me out some info, and found out that i can get £100 from work each year for my own personal development!

Nice start