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Learning Spanish is not very hard, unless you have not been acquainted with some Latin-based language in your life (French, Italian, or even English) one way or the other.

However, learning another language takes some real work however gifted you may be. This is especially true if you are past 13 or 14 years old. According to studies, these are the maximum ages when a person has no difficulties in learning another language.

Through the years, people have accumulated some study techniques. These techniques can help any Spanish language student. We have compiled some practical questions and their answers from students and teachers respectively.

Question:
What is the best way to learn Spanish?

Answer:
Nothing beats living in a Spanish-speaking country. It is so much better if you are studying there. You can practice your language skills with just about anybody in or out of class. Today, there are also many ways of supplementing your lessons: the Internet, magazines, watching Spanish-speaking TV stations and films, language tapes, and audio books, etc.

Question:
In Spanish class, the sentences are worded like in English. But in written Spanish, the sentences sometimes seem out of order, with verbs sometimes coming first.

Answer:
Generally, it is correct to write sentences with the common word order in English. In English, variations are done for poetic effect or for questions. In Spanish, depending on which element is emphasized, ordinary statements can start with any of the three: subject, verb and object. In both languages, emphasis is also done by way of intonation. In questions, the subject almost always comes after the verb.

Question:
How do you practice your Spanish?

Answer:
First, practice at all times possible – with a classmate, a teacher, or with a friend. Reading is just as important, so try to get your hands on books and some recent magazines. One tip: try to read your materials aloud, if possible. Chat rooms are also good places to practice reading and writing with other Spanish speakers.

Question:
Any tip on better Spanish dictionaries?

Answer:
If you are starting out, a pocket dictionary is good enough. But you need to invest in a decent dictionary, a big hardcover dictionary if possible, as you go up in your class level. El Diccionario de la Lengua Española is one of the best. One tip: Make it a habit to look things up. Soak up on their Spanish definitions rather than looking up for their simple translations.

Question:
How much time do you spend studying Spanish?

Answer:
Learning a foreign language needs a regular study timetable, like a few minutes (5 to 15 minutes) a day everyday. The short daily routine keeps your interest active. Longer sessions, especially on your own and not in a class, have a tendency of making you lose your interest. Shorter periods feel like reviews and they stick better in your brain.

Question:
I understand enough Spanish to talk with people but it takes me longer to answer because I tend to think my answer in English first and translate it into Spanish. Any tip?

Answer:
Begin “thinking” in Spanish when answering. It takes a while to begin this habit, but once you develop this, your brain is forced to look for the words and thread them together. Once done, you will discover learning Spanish is not that hard after all.

Each nation has its own identity and mark within the confines of its regions and territories as well as that outside the gates of its lands and water areas. But this does not hinder countries from interacting and negotiating with neighboring people and cultures. In fact this mechanism of communication and agreement has been long used in order to ensure the survival and propagation of earlier civilizations and societies. One group of people that has seen its traces across the globes are the Indians. Get a bit of learning at how Indian diversity took the world by storm.

Let’s take off those old books from the Indian shelf and venture into the past to find out how Indian natives made their way into the different parts of the world. The Romani people were mainly responsible for the emigration acts of people from India. At the turn of the eleventh century, invaders from across the central part of Asia run havoc on the nation which at that time was considered as a subcontinent. This is the historical move that led to the gradual spread of Indian Natives worldwide.

The captured Indians were sent off to Afghanistan. From here on groups started to make their way to Middle Eastern part of the world particularly to Iran where they were recognized as nomadic court magicians. Then it was Europe’s turn to house these people who at that time were tagged as Gypsies because of the misconception that they were part of the Egyptian legend. In Europe these people started to embrace religions such Islam and Christianity which they incorporated with their Hindu faith and practice.

South East Asia was another particular area wherein the native form the Indian subcontinent took their chance. It was actually triggered by expeditions and ventures due to military purposes that were facilitated by Hindu and Buddhist kings from the Southern part of India.

The part of the expeditions then began to settle within the comforts of the local areas and communities. The Chola Dynasty which hailed from South India utilized competent naval technology in order to overpower the Sumatra and Malayan Peninsula. That is why at present Bali, Indonesia is still largely influenced by the Indian culture that is has embraced for a number of centuries.

Merchants started to pour over the regions of Central Asia particularly in Persia during the middle stages of the sixteenth century and whose traces of kin have been kept for a long period that has spanned for four centuries. A colony thrived in 1610 within the cold environment of Tsardom, Russia at Astrakhan on the mouth of the Volga. Documentations state that Hindu traders roamed the streets of Moscow and St. Petersburg at the onset of the eighteenth century.
The nineteenth century saw the end of the British occupancy of the subcontinent and the transport of poor workers started towards much of the British colonies all brought about by the indenture system. Workers were brought to different places such as Mauritius, Guyana, the Caribbean, to Fiji, and parts of East Africa. The flow of emigrants continued until the twentieth century.

The Middle East then gave skilled workers from India a chance to make better ways of living during the rise of the oil industry in the 1970s. A lot of natives were brought it on contractual status due to the fact that the members of the Gulf Region did not favor policies regarding naturalization of foreign individuals.

Learning Indian is far from just knowing how to communicate with the nation’s constituents. More so, it entails having an understanding on how these people have propagated throughout history.

Communication can be done in so many ways. Most people prefer to perform it verbally while others converge in very unique ways of nonverbal cues and signals. Let’s focus our attention on the process of talking. It may seem like the words simply come out from our mouths but conversing in a foreign language is quite complex. It’s time to learn Hindi through phonology.

Basically phonology is the systematic employment of sound so as to relay certain meanings in any setting via spoken human language which falls under a more specific field of study called linguistics. Let’s take a look at how it is being applied in the world of Hindi. Basically, Hindi makes use of a symmetrical ten-vowel system. Like in any common phonetic setting, there are vowels having short or long length.

The Hindi vowel system follows a nasalized system. This has aroused disagreement with the English system due to the English loaned ae which is not actually nasalized. Among the four views connected with the Hindi vowel system, the concept of nasalized long vowel phonemes occurring in the final part of the word and before a voiceless stop is the one being supported by experts. Moreover, instances of nasalized short vowels and of nasalized long vowels before voiced stops are considered allophonic.

Now let’s head on to the consonants. The Hindi system has a core set of 28 consonants derived from the earlier forms of Indo-Aryan. There have been supplements that are developed to adapt to other variation of languages. Two consonants were established for internal developments in specified word-medial contexts while seven are originally located in loan words. The expressions of the seven consonants depend on factors such as status and cultural register.

Most of the native consonants come in as geminate or double in length. These consonants are always medial and followed by one of the interior vowels. Another characteristic of Hindi consonants is that it contains a four-way distinction of phonation among plosives as compared to the two-way distinction commonly observed within the English system.

The phonations consist of first, tenuis which is the counterpart of p in English as it is used in the word spin. Second is voiced as in the b of English in the word bin. Third is aspirated which can be likened to the p English in pin. The fourth is called murmured otherwise known as voiced aspirate.

The Hindi system has a stress accent which is not that significant when it comes to the English format. The concept of syllable is given utmost importance in order to have efficient identification of stress placement. A light syllable or one mora ends in a short vowel while a heavy syllable or two moras ends in a long vowel. An extra heavy syllable which has three moras ends in a long vowel and a consonant or a short vowel and a pair of consonants.

The Hindi phonology may be a very complex mechanism initially due to its foreign nature but it surely will allow you to learn and appreciate the language at a full extent. This will give you an advantage, having an extra tongue to communicate with. You can also be confident in facing the natives if one day you plan to explore the beauty of the Indian nation.