Learn Spanish Audio - How You Can Learn Correct Conversational Spanish, Without an Accent

There are approximately 40 million people in the U.S. who speak Spanish. You might think that it would therefore be easy to learn Spanish and to find someone to practice it with as you learned it.

Perhaps, but you will need to be careful. It's easy to make big mistakes here. You would be better off downloading a good interactive audio Spanish learning course from the Internet, with its 'learn Spanish audio' media, to get the words and accent right.

When I was first learning Spanish I didn't know that and had to learn it the hard way! Of course, it was before there was much 'learn Spanish audio' available!

While I was working on expanding my knowledge of Spanish, on one extended work trip to Central America, I hired a tutor, a young Spanish-major at the local university. She charged me a lot less per hour than the language schools charged. And, she spoke almost no English, which was ideal for me.

In our first session, we talked for a bit, conversing about a variety of subjects, me with my budding but still very basic Spanish. Then she looked at me quizzically.

"Don Jorge, usted habla mas pachuco que Castillano!" (Mr. Chavez, you speak more steet slang than proper, correct Spanish!). I was shocked!

What she was telling me was that I had picked up bad habits and was speaking the "Spanish" of the lower-class, uneducated, street people!

I thought about that for a moment, and then suddenly realized why!  When I spoke with educated people, they heard my accent and switched to English, to practice their English with ME!

So I had been talking with people who did not speak English. That meant taxi drivers, gardeners, service station attendants, mechanics and street vendors. Anyone to practice with, every chance I got. And I had been learning from them. And I had been getting it WRONG! With the WRONG vocabulary and accent!

It would have been much better if I could have gotten a 'learn Spanish audio' with an educated native speaker to learn from and copy after, rather than just start talking with anyone.

You see, as I later discovered, there is a great deal of difference between lower-class, uneducated street Spanish and "Castillano" (The Spanish of Castille) which is what university-level, correct Spanish is called.

There is much more difference between lower-class uneducated Spanish and upper-class Spanish than there is between lower-class, uneducated English and correct English.

In Spanish the difference between the two types is closer to the difference between the English spoken by a Cockney cabbie in London, or that spoken by an African-American Rap music "singer/speaker", on the one hand, and correct, educated, radio-announcer English on the other!!

Ever try to talk with a cab driver in London? It's an education in what you don't know about English dialects! And try to write down just exactly what a black rapper is saying sometime!  The dialect is so far off the mainstream that it's like another language! 

It's the same kind of difference between street Spanish and correct Spanish.

When you are learning Spanish, you want to learn it right the first time. Then you could pick up slang and special dialects as add-ons later, if you wish. We all tend to pick up the accents and the manner of speaking of those around us. To learn Spanish, that is one of the good things about downloading a learn Spanish audio course.

Almost all of the learning courses use educated, excellent native Spanish speakers as "say after me" instructors. The 'learn Spanish audio' parts of the courses are excellent. And you own the digital copies, which means that you can copy the lessons to your iPod or other portable audio device and take it with you.

You can refer back to your learn Spanish audio lessons at any time, refresh your recollection of how things are said, and get it right! It will keep you on track to learning educated Spanish and not sounding like some kind of bum, or an illiterate, uneducated peon.