Part 1... (For Part 2 please click here)

For myself and many of those of us who are on the down slope from 50 this is not going to be a cake walk!  HOWEVER, I can tell you a while into it, and you will be pleased with yourself that you can do some of the essentials.  You will be able to order what you actually want in a restaurant, get your hot tea with cold milk, ask for black pepper and get it! Get your Spanish workman to understand where you want that extra plug socket, and when you have waited in for the plumber and he brings in all his tools, puts them in your bathroom and then leaves – you will be able to ask him, “When are you coming back?”

Here in Spain as with anywhere you will find receptive and non receptive native speakers – after all how many times do you go into M & S and find the assistant speaks fluent Spanish?  If your Spaniard is receptive he will be enormously helpful and make you very proud of yourself, if on the other hand you pick a non receptive person GIVE UP.  Por favour escribalo. Which roughly translated means Write please – is very useful at least then you can go home or sit and have a coffee with your dictionary and work it out.

Don’t bog yourself down with too many books – I have many you could have!  All along the lines of ‘teach yourself Spanish in 7 days’ or ‘you only need to know 500 words!!

My advice would be get a good dictionary and get a good verb book and if you are visiting Spain soon get a basic phrase book to get started.

Hola
Adiós
Hasta Luego
Por Favor
Gracias
Café con leche
0-10
Un poco mas por favor
Habla ingles?

Lo siento, yo hablo solo un poco Español – helps a great deal!

The question words

Donde?
Cómo?
Por qué?
Quién?
Qué?

For those who really want to learn, many people find that to take a class once a week helps enormously with self discipline and makes you do your homework!  After all who wants to turn up to class and say ‘sorry I forgot my homework’ or ‘the dog chewed up my entire book.’

Some people recommend putting a ‘post it’ note on items around the house – this might work for you, I however do not find fridge, juice maker TV, or saucepan vital subjects that I need in everyday conversation!

Vocabulary is important and a children’s picture dictionary is a good start and pigeon Spanish will get you by in many situations.

Quiero means I want and ‘Quiero xxx por favor’ will get you most things you want to buy or order. Cuanto cuesta? – and you will know how much it will cost.

For those of you who are already looking up the 20 or so words above or know them already – YOU HAVE STARTED TO LEARN SPANISH!

I cannot teach you Spanish in 500 words each month but I can tell you what has helped me, my family and my ex pat friends in Spain and if anyone wants to email me to ask about books and tapes I have found useful you can contact me on sueinthesun@terra.es