Tips for learning and remembering a foreign language?

I agree with the earlier posters & harwarda has some very good tips :-)

A few other tips/techniques you could try (in no particular order) :

-- think of common situations you may face when in Spain. eg. if you were in a restaurant, what would you need in terms of communication. Then prepare a list of all those words, phrases, sentences. See how well you can translate them into Spanish & then verbalize them out Loud.

Make such multiple lists for each category/situation & keep it handy. "Revise" it every weekend or so till you get it right without having to look.

-- The more you speak out loud, hear yourself speak [even when alone], the more confident you will get & the better your accent & pronounciation will get.

-- always keep a dictionary at hand [or a smartphone app] where you can translate between languages.

-- you might find something useful here : http://eslcarissa.blogspot.in/2012_07_01_archive.h...

-- watch movie DVDs where you can change the subtitles/voice-overs to different languages. This way, you can watch the same scene in English & repeat in Spanish. It will give you a better feel for verbal language.

-- try to listen to Spanish broadcasts or watch TV shows as much as possible. Use these to identify nuances, pick up the right pronounciation, etc.

-- As regards phrases, write down the English & Spanish versions of phrases you find difficult to remember on cards. One phrase per card. Then try to memorize it. Also add comments about the phrase wherever necessary, to increase comprehension, recall, & usage/application. eg. when Not to use the phrase or what should/should not be included, etc.....

Keep adding to your collection as & when you need to learn something new.

Every so often [once a week?], shuffle the cards & randomly pick out a few & see how much you can recall & remember.

Hope these help too

All the very best :-)

OK, here's the deal. Speaking a language is a skill. That is, it's not like memorizing the capitals of the states or something. It's more like learning a sport. IF you wanted to be a good tennis player, you'd take some lessons with a coach who told you things and gave you feedback, AND you'd practice outside of class. You could learn the rules of the game, but that doesn't help you hit the ball better. Only practice can do that.

You don't have to "remember" how to speak English, right? It happens unconsciously- your brain does it automatically, just like your brain keeps you balanced on a bicycle without you having to think about it.

One really good way to improve your vocabulary is to read. Find children's books in Spanish, or look for things online. Then you really need to practice speaking. Find a friend who wants to learn and practice for a while every week. Better still, find a native speaker of Spanish- there are probably kids in your school who could use some help with their English and would talk to you in Spanish sometimes.

Everyone learns different, but here are some things that help me learn German so, in no particular order: 1) try to read a lot of French books (or websites) for fun in your free time while you are studying the language. You won't understand a lot of what you are reading at first, but that's ok -- it's things like sentence structures etc that you will start to pick up naturally with time just from reading them (and also an excellent way to introduce new vocab.) 2) Write in the language; keep a little journal or something. You can even look for online diaries in French where you can get feedback from others. Again, you aren't going to do everything correctly just starting out, but the point is to write a little bit every day to get more accustomed to the language, and it can also be fun since you can express yourself in a new way. 3) Listen to French music...basically try to surround yourself with the language as much as possible...it does, after a while, become second nature somehow. 4) TRANSLATION -- I love this method, though you won't be able to likely go very far with it until you've learned a semester or two of the language (roughly speaking) but once you have a main idea for how the language works, trying to translate things is an excellent way to go even deeper and learn a lot more. There's so much you can translate...your favorite song, quote, poem, spiritual verse, whatever. Try going from english to french as well as french to english. I never personally found flash cards etc to be very much help (but you might.) To me it's just too dry, and I find that just adding a bit of time each day to fun activities in the language is more helpful in the long run.

practice practice practice is all i can say