How to further improve my Spanish

[aliyusuf]

Hey guys. I've grown up around Spanish, and although I'm not fluent, I am able to communicate my ideas. I find myself with a lack of vocabulary and also sometimes I mess up the tenses. But other than that, I am able to read/ write/ and speak to people. What's the best way to go about fixing my lack of vocabulary and increasing my fluency. I want to work my way up. Is there any test to see where I am currently classified? Thus far all I've been doing is watching noticias, telenovelas, and have been reading books.

Is reading books and google translating words I don't know a good idea? I think I'm not gonna go the whole buy a dictionary route cause for me memorizing words and lists is so monotone.

[AureliaeLacrimae]

Well, I also don't like the idea of memorising words from a list. This doesn't really work in the long run. You forget most of them anyway, but here are some tips:

Check out the websites of Spanish embassies and such. They usually have information about language certificates and the levels (I know this is the case with both English and German, so I assume it is also the case with Spanish). They usually give you a practice test or a quick check test which you can do online. I guess this is one of the ways of seeing where you are.

Keep reading the books and watching TV. These will provide you with the vocabulary you need. I would also recommend listening to the radio and perhaps even Spanish music. Even though these aren't really helpful in a great scale, they can certainly work in the long run. I believe Azucar Moreno, Mecano and Sarah Brightman have interesting songs in Spanish. You can also check out Enrique Iglesias and Gypsy Kings. These are just some suggestions, of course, you could make your own list.

Even though you dislike learning words from a dictionary, perhaps you could find a website you like that has this. I know that Livemocha was very interesting to me when I was learning Spanish. I am also sure you can find some interesting phrases and sentences online.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

[gjk0020]

I use a combination several resources:

www.FreakyFastFluency.com

Anki Flashcards

Duolingo

They each have their upsides and downsides. I like to combine the use of all of them to try and pick the best aspects of each resource.

Hope this helps!

[petesede]

I like duolingo a lot, and I am probably different than a lot of people in that I find value in memorzing long lists of words.  I try to do 100 words a week.  What I do is on one side of a paper have 100 words with their translation ( 3 columns).  I just study that a bit for a couple days.  Then on about the third day, I have tests, where i just have the word in english, and I write the spanish word.  The first day of the test, I miss a lot, but then I do the same thing the next day.  After the 4th test, I get pretty much 90% or above correct.  Each time I take the test, I study just the ones i got wrong, so by the 4th test, I only have 15-20 to study, but still test myself on all 100.