[TheWolfHowls]

(11-13-2013 03:08 AM)Tenerife Wrote:  

I'll procrastinate on my spanish studies to comment on this thread.....

Getting fluent in such a short time is going to take about 3 solid hours a day of deliberate practice (not including time zoning out, and refocusing), for at least 6 months. It´s probably a random number, but there is a tipping point somewhere above 2 hours of deliberate practice where you learn something much more quickly. Adding a few hours of passive exposure and immersion would be good. Music, TV, Movies, Newspapers....and of course cutting off from english Setting wikipedia to spanish, bbc news to spanish, etc.

I concur with what VP said. Communicating on a daily basis with native speakers either in person, through text, or video chat is critical. Having content in the language you find fascinating is also super super important. If you´re into a spanish novelist, or literary period, bingo. If you love spanish history, etc.

I´m in a similar position with Spanish in terms of having holes in my knowledge. I had four years of it in highschool, got mostly A´s, but now I´m finding myself going over basics. It´s important to use multiple grammar methods to cover up deficiencies. I´m currently going through Study Spanish . com, then I´m going to go over the same material with the Practice Makes Perfect series. On top of that I´m using Pimsleur, which I find is basically just review. I´ve got multiple readers (essentially spanish content that gets progressively more difficult). I'm also communicating with a bunch of latinas via iphone, and online.

I´m using Anki for flashcards, plus physical flashcards, notepad for typed up notes, and a physical notebook for physical notes. It´s nice to have all the mediums covered and be extremely engaged.

As for the specific question of which immersion schools are out there, I'm also interested in this. I'm curious how necessary it is over going to a normal school. Ultimately your passion quotient determines how much you will learn.

If tomorrow RVF was only in spanish, you would probably achieve native fluency in a month

That is a fantastic idea, setting most daily websites to spanish only. I'm using pinsleur as well and i'm loving it already. I'm enjoying it more than HS Spanish classes which i easily forgot.