learning english, advise?

[wayno 9]

For those of you who came over here speaking little, if any english. how did you learn? How long did it take for you to feel comfortable? Should I look for a course in a nearby school for my wife? Would you feel it's best going to a class taught by a professor who only speaks english?

I am the USC but my wife is Colombian and hardly speaks any english. When I met her more then 6 years ago we didn't speak each others languages and our conversations had to include a dictionary and a pad of paper. However, since I was in Costa Rica and spending most of the year working on boats there I felt I needed to learn Spanish. So I picked some up. We converse well and I feel my Spanish isn't bad, though I speak like a "spanglish" tarzan. Of course sticking to my belief (living in another country - learn the language) I can get by in that part of the world by myself.

She tried one class in C.R. for her to learn english but she didn't learn a thing. Seems the professers (from the U.S. or Canada) were just there to party and had no teaching skills whatsoever. Of course the class went through 3 teachers in 4 weeks. It was a joke. She Tried again a couple of years later, this time with a local. Now she was giving lessons much too advanced. My wife took those classes with a friend and the teacher was also a friend, needless to say she didn't learn anything. Add to that my lack of help as I would always speak (or try) Spanish.

She has visited the U.S. a good bit and last summer started to order at the restaurants for herself and all my friends seem to slow down their talk for her but I would still talk to her in spanish. I always hated the dictionary.

Any hints on how to go about getting her to learn english comfortably when she arrives here. She would like to learn. To start I am trying to talk to her in English for basic conversation though I switch to spanish for more serious issues.

Thanks,

Wayne

[Reba 2]

Well first off, the word is "advice, not advise.

There are ample accredited ESL courses in the US I'm sure. Best way to to immerse onself into the language.

[NickD 203]

Wife was born in Colombia but moved to Venezuela, part of her job was translating documents and excellent in the writing, grammar, and reading skills with English. Pronunciation is a different story. So we watched a lot of movies and purchased a closed caption decoder for my projector. She still has an accent, and I hope she never loses that, plus, I am her English teacher. Her daughter was a different story coming here at 13 years of age, she picked up very quickly and became an honor roll student. But for whatever reason, my wife likes to speak Spanish to her where my step daughter answers in English, ha, I get half of the conversation.

We have purchased several English teaching courses from amazon.com and our library is loaded with them. Kind of curious as to how good http://www.rosettastone.com/ is, but kind of expensive. Wonder how true their commercial is when a person says they learned more about a language in two weeks than 50 years in college.

Spanish lacks the hard "T" behind a word, and the "TH's" in front of the word, ha, like to show my wife how to pronounce those words mouth to mouth. She tried to teach me Spanish, my tongue got twisted up so bad, required surgery to straighten it out again. But I get by with a computer translator.

[NickD 203]

Well first off, the word is "advice, not advise.

There are ample accredited ESL courses in the US I'm sure. Best way to to immerse onself into the language.

To advise is to give advice, OP is correct in his usage, but should have stated, Please advise in learning English, I need your advice.

[trailmix 77]

Well first off, the word is "advice, not advise.

There are ample accredited ESL courses in the US I'm sure. Best way to to immerse onself into the language.

To advise is to give advice, OP is correct in his usage, but should have stated, Please advise in learning English, I need your advice.

Advice is also 'to give advice'. Advice would have been correct in this case.

Edited May 15, 2009 by trailmix

[almaty 19]

aw sheesh..who cares..

[LoriLawless 0]

aw sheesh..who cares..

[trailmix 77]

aw sheesh..who cares..

You know you do.

[almaty 19]

f##k no.... i care about the week-end coming up..and this noob's plight ...

[trailmix 77]

f##k no.... i care about the week-end coming up..and this noob's plight ...

yeah. Well some of us had no intelligent advice to give, so we just wandered off down the irrelevant trail.

Good luck OP!

[almaty 19]

i agree..i was just being pissy

[Caladan 19]

Get her into an ESL class. Learning a second language later in life is hard, and English is one of the harder ones. You might (talk it over with her) want to decide something like an English-only rule at home, or English between hours X and Y, Spanish between Y and Z, because using English comfortably will be the most important part.

If you're near a university, they often have international student spousal groups (usually wives of grad students who can't work due to visa restrictions) that are good for friendship and language practice (because they are usually from all over the world, they tend to communicate in English.) University students are often looking for conversation partners when they're learning foreign languages; someone learning Spanish might welcome the opportunity to chat in Spanish to your wife for an hour in exchange for chatting in English for an hour.

[Shad and Dani 3]

A lot of these ESL (English as a Second Language) classes are free at you local community college. I would check their website

Edited May 15, 2009 by Shad and Dani

[Ladylethal 12]

In my case I had to learn Spanish (since although going through the same steps since PR is an US colony, we live in Puerto rico, not the USA), and although my native language is somewhat similar I couldn't understand a single word of what was being said. My husband and all his family are all fluent in English so for the first few months I just talked to them in English but then I realized I had to learn to communicate in Spanish if I ever wanted to function by myself and for work, etc.

So I simply told my husband he had to speak Spanish only with me at home, over and over till I understood what he was saying. I was very hard and frustrating for both of us at first as he had to repeat the same phrase 5-8 times before I knew what he was saying, and my Spanish was so poor both on accent and on mixing Portuguese words that it was at times hard to understand what I wanted to say as well, but now I can function alone, go shop, working, etc. I still need to sit and study grammar and get myself writing properly, and I'm not nearly as good in Spanish as I am in English speaking/reading/writing.

So my advice would be to get into an ESL course and immerse yourself, watch movies, read books, go into public, read labels when grocery shopping, and make sure your SO pushes you into the language instead of speaking to you on your own native one.

[wayno 9]

Thanks for the reply's. Think I'll check into the local community collage.

As far as advise/vice--I feel my English has gotten worse since I have spent so much time in Latin America (Ven, C.R., Pan over the past 9 years) and I'm from the U.S. I find I tend to slow down my talking and leave out words to make it simpler for people who hardly speak english to understand. Of course when I return home it takes a little bit to adjust