View Single Post
Old 06.15.2006, 06:35 PM   #23
acousticrock87
invito al cielo
 
acousticrock87's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2006
Location: Los Angeles
Posts: 5,515
acousticrock87 kicks all y'all's assesacousticrock87 kicks all y'all's assesacousticrock87 kicks all y'all's assesacousticrock87 kicks all y'all's assesacousticrock87 kicks all y'all's assesacousticrock87 kicks all y'all's assesacousticrock87 kicks all y'all's assesacousticrock87 kicks all y'all's assesacousticrock87 kicks all y'all's assesacousticrock87 kicks all y'all's assesacousticrock87 kicks all y'all's asses
If you don't have a lot of time, you won't learn the language. I've taken 2 years of Japanese and hardly know enough to find the bathroom (though I can blame that on foolishly relying on my good short-term memory to blow through tests). Going to Spain will help you immensly in and of itself, though. So don't worry about it. I'd recommend a grammar book (Barron's has really good compact ones), a dictionary, and at least a beginner's course on it before going. Familiarize yourself with some phrases and basic vocabulary so you can survive, and try to familiarize yourself with sentence structure (i.e. where verbs and subjects go, and if you're really good maybe even a little conjugation). That'll prepare you about as much as I think you can in a month.

If you do have a good amount of time, one more recommendation but more for the long term if you're really interested. I was over at my friends house a few days ago, and when his roomate came home (he and his roomate both being native Japanese) I was lost in a whirlwind of a language I thought I knew a bit of. So I picked up this Learn In Your Car Japanese thing. Comes with 3 hours of general language aquisition and 9 hours of vocabulary/grammar practice, and they do have a Spanish one. It's pretty nice from what I can see, and reviews averaged out to about 4.5/5. So if you have $40-50 and a lot of time, you could look into that. I don't know how helpful it might be prior to your trip, though.

Ultimately, there's no subsitute for being in the country. Which you're priveleged to get a chance to do. Next to that, you'll need to take classes. I'm sure !@#$%! would be happy to invite you to his house for a full free course.
acousticrock87 is offline   |QUOTE AND REPLY|