Learning Spanish

For the probably nonexistent readers of my past posts, I would just like to say that I am no longer using this blog to post my field reports or daily experiences. That is just too much work and too personal. I will now just post resources I find in my quest to improve my social skills, make friends and lovers, learn languages, succeed at work, and other shit.

Today the topic is learning languages. I took Spanish in high school. I did better than most people because I was good at rote memorization. But when I tried to keep on learning Spanish by myself in college, I learned that at some point you need to have conversations with native speakers. This turned me off completely and I gave up learning languages because at the time I was far more under the spell of social anxiety than I am now.
I am now about to begin Skype tutoring and language exchanges. The website I will probably use is italki.com. Before I start though, I am reviewing my Spanish. To this end I am listening to a podcast called News in Slow Spanish, watching the presidential debate on Telemundo, and using LingQ.com. What these resources have in common is that they all have transcripts with them. This allows me to check my comprehension. LingQ seems like the best resource because it is free and has an archive of Spanish audio with transcripits, including conversations.

Youtube
Spanish Lesson. Advanced 10. A Day Out - YouTube
Marina confesses - Notes in Spanish - YouTube

 Podcasts:
Intermediate Spanish | Spanish Podcast | Easy Spanish 
http://spanishlingq.com/

Internet TV:
http://es.wwitv.com/television/136.htm
Spanish Internet Television - Watch Spanish online television and video and practice your Spanish! 
Debate presidencial 1/9 | Decisión 2012 | Telemundo


The main reason I am learning Spanish again is that it seems like a great opportunity to practice having conversations. It is frustrating how I am trying to have better conversations but I have access to so few of them. Spanish is an excuse to have conversations with strangers online.