RobertX

It's not so black and white. Both US and UK English are based off languages that did indeed originate in Britain, but neither of them bears too much resemblance to "original" spoken English of say, 500-1000 years ago. A simple example of what I mean is that organize is actually the original spelling of the word. Why British English uses the s today, I'm not sure.

Well it sounds somewhat useful, but is it just a pure translation app? That's not too useful for learning.

My GF is tutoring me in Spanish and she alternates between laughing at my accent and deriding me for how strong of an influence it is on my speaking . I think most people would find it really weird, but eh... speaking with a weird accent is better than not being able to speak at all!

Personally, I'm finding anything short of actual conversation, tutoring or courses to not offer enough for the time invested :/

Yes, there is a Z, of course. Think of words like "zoo" or "zombie." The alphabet is the exact same in both US and UK English. The regional spellings and pronunciation are just different. Other examples of this are apologize vs apologise and recognize vs recognise.

I finished Spanish on Duolingo... I don't feel like it helped very much. Yeah, I know what some words mean, but I still can't form more complex compound sentences by myself and I still can't even really begin to hold a natural conversation with a native speaker. It's simple reputation masked in "game" form to give you incentives to keep coming back, but imo its no more effective than someone yelling "YO COMO UNA MANZANA" in your ear 50 times.

Hi guys! I'm an Australian learning Spanish, as I'm looking to move to Peru for a few years to live with my girlfriend while she completes her BA at a Peruvian university. So I need to learn Spanish fast... but I haven't really been clicking with the resources I've found online, my girlfriend is too busy with school and work to spend much time teaching me, and lessons here are really expensive! So here I am, ready to document my experiences in Peru in the near future. Hopefully living in a country where Spanish is the native language will help me learn fast!