Learn Spanish (Espanol) by Jim

1.  Attempt to learn every day

2.  Listen to real Spanish you can hear on the radio and TV

3.  Look online for books, etc.

4.  If you have a long commute for example, listen to Spanish learning materials in your car.

5.  Make sure to learn some grammar and some vocabulary.

6.  Make sure you learn how to pronounce words in Spanish.  For example, "Chocolate" is the same spelling and means the same thing in English and Spanish, but is pronounced different.

7.   If you do not know a word, you can use a English-Spanish dictionary or use Google Translate, but don't use Google translate to try and learn a language.  There are also specific tips for using Google translate I will put up later.

8.  Obviously, if you know some Spanish speakers attempt to speak with them when possible.  However, they may not always want to just talk about "how do I say..." so understand that as well. 

Some popular sites/software:

DuoLingo - This is free and very useful for learning Spanish

Ouino Spanish - This is a program you buy that has many items including a large amount of Vocabulary and many verbs in all tenses and many examples.

My story with Spanish TV.

I live in a large area and I get cable with 100s of channels, probably 250-300.  I have found around 10-15 Spanish language channels.  About half are sports (ESPN Deportes)  The other half have shows, news (noticias), movies (peliculas), game shows, etc.

I have found sports to be very difficult to understand, as there is terminology related to each sport, and the announcers aren't always being real clear.  Also, I do not really enjoy soccer (futbol), and that is what much of it is.

I have better luck with shows such as La Rosa de Guadalupe, Como Dice el Dicho, and the news sometimes.  Also, it helps to turn on the captions.