Post by dannusmaximus on Feb 20, 2014 19:08:28 GMT
I've dabbled in Spanish since high school, and actually got half-assed proficient with it in college. Lack of use makes such skills degrade, however, and with the exception of some 'emergency' Spanish phrases I occasionally use at work, I haven't practiced it in ages.
That said, I spent 3 weeks in France recently, and while I speak only retard level French, I had some luck resurrecting Spanish to fumble my way through some conversations. Turns out a lot of French people (at least in the region we were visiting) speak a little Italian, which has more than a passing resemblance to Spanish. Attempting to ask a French person directions to a car rental place in Spanish while they back translate it into Italian and then broken english was an adventure, to say the least!
Anywhoo, I've enrolled in a Spanish class given through a largely hispanic Catholic church in town, and one of the online tools the instructor said we should start using for practice was www.duolingo.com If you've ever wanted to learn some basic foreign language phrases, or want to brush up on old knowledge, it's a pretty good site. It has other languages besides Spanish, but that's the one I'm using so it's the only program on the site I'm familiar with.
From a prepping standpoint, I don't think I have to point out that a basic knowledge of Spanish, depending on your AO, might be very helpful. I'm really trying to commit to learning this language better, because our hispanic population locally is growing by leaps and bounds, and I don't really have the luxury of just pretending they don't exist due to my profession. Trying to get a handle on an emergency scene can be difficult enough without having to have everything translated by the 4 year-old who speaks the most english out of a room of 20 people...
That said, I spent 3 weeks in France recently, and while I speak only retard level French, I had some luck resurrecting Spanish to fumble my way through some conversations. Turns out a lot of French people (at least in the region we were visiting) speak a little Italian, which has more than a passing resemblance to Spanish. Attempting to ask a French person directions to a car rental place in Spanish while they back translate it into Italian and then broken english was an adventure, to say the least!
Anywhoo, I've enrolled in a Spanish class given through a largely hispanic Catholic church in town, and one of the online tools the instructor said we should start using for practice was www.duolingo.com If you've ever wanted to learn some basic foreign language phrases, or want to brush up on old knowledge, it's a pretty good site. It has other languages besides Spanish, but that's the one I'm using so it's the only program on the site I'm familiar with.
From a prepping standpoint, I don't think I have to point out that a basic knowledge of Spanish, depending on your AO, might be very helpful. I'm really trying to commit to learning this language better, because our hispanic population locally is growing by leaps and bounds, and I don't really have the luxury of just pretending they don't exist due to my profession. Trying to get a handle on an emergency scene can be difficult enough without having to have everything translated by the 4 year-old who speaks the most english out of a room of 20 people...
