Learning Spanish - Dallas,TX

If you really need to learn in your car, Pimsleur is probably the best. However, I would recommend that you consider the Rosetta Stone program. These are CD-ROM's that use pictures, voice and writing to help you intuitively integrate language concepts. In other words, you learn the words the way you learned your first language.

I tried a variety of methods to learn Russian, including spending time among native speakers, listening to tapes in the car and hiring a tutor. However, the words and phrases I learned through Rosetta Stone are the ones I learned best.

Personally I find it easier to learn from a person who is native to the language (first language). I tried to learn German from tapes/CDs, but wasn't very successful. It could be that I didn't have anyone there to actually guide me in the right direction (constructive criticism), I tend to ask a lot of questions.

I say this because that's how I learned English I refused to be placed in ESL classes when I first started school here and let me tell you it worked great within a year I could comfortably go talk to just about anyone and in about 2 years I was able to read, write, and translate both languages (Spanish and English)without hesitation.
You don't even have to spend money in a private tutor just find someone willing to teach you and maybe you can do something nice for them.

I agree that Pimsleur is great, and there is a good place in Richardson to get them--they will buy the stuff back from you once you are done so you can save some money. www.cheappimsleur.com

I did some research a while back and found that the Pimsleur method to be highly regarded. I found a set at Barnes & Noble, but it was expensive so I looked at Half Price Books. I didn't find the Spanish set (I think it's popular here so they sell out as soon as they come in) but I found a Japanese set of tapes and gave it a try. I've tried a couple of other "listen & learn" language tapes before and found myself getting lost pretty early with them. With the Pimsleur Japanese tapes, I was following along and able to pick up the language fairly easily. Since I'm no language whiz, I think this speaks volumes to the effectiveness of this method.

When I can afford it, I would like to try the Pimsleur tapes for Spanish.

Here it is on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Spanish-Understand-Pimsleur-Languag...

I also see that they have smaller subsets of the entire course now available. This would make it more affordable. For example, this is the first 16 lessons: http://www.amazon.com/Conversational-Spanish-Understand-P...

Hope that helps.

P.