[During one stint while living in a Spanish-speaking country for a while, I hired a tutor, a young Spanish major at the local University, who spoke almost no English. We talked for a bit, me with my budding but still very basic Spanish, and she looked at me quizically.

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

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 suddenly realized why!  

I had been talking with taxi drivers, gardeners, service station attendants and street vendors, to practice, every chance I got. And I had been learning from them, getting it WRONG! With the WRONG vocabulary and accent!

Please learn from my experience and learn your Spanish only from educated people who are excellent native speakers!]

You learn Spanish fast online by downloading learn-Spanish programs that use instructors who speak perfect Spanish.

(I tested some of the Rocket Spanish tapes on universary-graduated native speakers in three different Latin American countries. None could identify the national origin of the instructors! But all agreed that it was excellent Spanish!)

[Sidebar comment: There is a great deal of difference between lower-class, uneducated street Spanish and "Castillano" (The Spanish of Castille) which is university-level, correct Spanish. Much more difference than that between lower-class, uneducated English and correct English.

The difference is more like the difference between the English spoken by a Cockney cabbie in London or that spoken by an African-American Rap music "singer/speaker" and correct, educated, radio-announcer English!!]