Are there any self-taught Spanish speakers here?

[ohnoyoudidnt]

Without going to classes or immersion into the culture (like moving to a country), what do you find were the best ways to learn the language. I found a couple sites, duolingo.com and spanishdict.com that are helping. I am considering finding some movies in Spanish with English subtitles or in English with Spanish titles to help also. Are there any good books or other methods that you have used?

[hunter]

1. No. Which sucks. I'm comfortable, but I'm not fluent at all.

I exist in a place where 40% of the conversations are in Spanish. Conversations flow between English and Spanish, the boundaries entirely fluid.

My wife speaks Spanish, one of my grandmas spoke Spanish, my kids speak fairly functional Spanish...

Alas, my brain is stone. At best I pick up some gestalt. My public school Spanish fails me.

My wife and I have an old friend who is a translator for the European Union. He studies and learns languages, including Asian and American Indian languages just for fun. He's entirely fluent in seven languages and they pay him well as a simultaneous translator. He's the voice in the headset.

I'm not him, I never will be. I can barely manage English.

http://www.endangeredlanguages.com

[Kali]

2. comic books

don't do subtitles just watch the movies or television and see how much you get

Spanish telenovelas are good too (if you can stand them)

[DFW]

3. I found a combination works

If you can, watch TV or movies in English with subtitles in the language you are trying to learn. That helps with visualizing what you want to say, as oral learning by itself my lead to inaccurate absorption (Danish is the worst like that). To compliment this, spend as much time as you (and you native speaker companions) can spare and ask them to speak to you in their language, explaining what they are saying if you can't follow it, until you CAN follow it.

I tried this with Dutch. In Germany, for a while, we got Dutch TV, and they never dub their English or American programs. They just subtitle them in Dutch (which is why in Holland, even the street panhandlers speak better English than half the Texas Congressional delegation). When we opened an office in Holland, I asked our guy there to speak to me in Dutch slowly until I could follow him without translation. Luckily for me, he is from the far north of the Netherlands, so standard Dutch was not his native language, and he therefore spoke it clearly and distinctly--sort of like learning Spanish in Barcelona, as I did. In Barcelona, where Catalan is the local language, the natives speak Spanish very distinctly and clearly, as is normal for a second language that is used daily.

I have never lived in Holland, but can now speak Dutch to the point where the natives aren't sure if I'm from another country or not. It does work.