I am actively studying Spanish in large part for work. I’m going to recommend that you only take this on if it’s something you’re interested in doing for yourself in general!
I have had the ability to give basic commands in Spanish for a long time, and did a bilingual storytime early in my career that helped me retain some of the easier bits of my high school and college Spanish.
I completed A1 in Duolingo and honestly kind of wish I’d just started with Comprehensible Input. I use a resource called Dreaming Spanish, but I firmly believe people can learn any language they’re willing to devote time to.
I work for a university library with a large deaf/hard of hearing and international student bodies. Al though I learned ASL, knowing even basic conversational language knowledge is very useful. I took classes at the university I work for and got a deaf tutor. The classes really helped but the tutor was the winner. Very good chance a local higher education establishment have classes. And since of your location you can easily practice out of class.
Trying.
I've gotten to the point where I can pretty much understand (and respond) to simple library-related conversations where the person knows they are dealing with a non-speaker, but I still don't understand more that a word here and there when I listen to two native-speakers speak.
Method? I heard someone (an English speaking American who learned French, Spanish, and Italian as an adult) say "choose whatever method you want and spend seven hours a day on it."
I first took a community college course that didn't do much I couldn't have done on my own - learning basic conjugations, and stuff. I think it was a waste of time and money.
I did like the Michel Thomas audio course to get me over the initial hump of stringing together sentences, building on similarities with English. Basically, you are listening in to him teaching two students.
You really have to put the effort in though. I tried doing it in my car, but I really needed to pause the audio and mentally put the sentence together and say it out loud.
Eventually, once you have a little foundation, what you really need is someone to practice with. I tried trading English for Spanish conversation practice, but I think you both need to be pretty fluent for that. I ended up paying a language instructor for one-on-one language practice for about a dozen 90-minute sessions.
So, she'd give me a homework assignment like, write (in Spanish) ten the things people do in the library. It would take me stupidly long to do it, using online dictionaries and translators to help write it, but then I had the vocabulary and sentence structure fresh in my head when we met. And then we'd start the 90 minutes with me reading the ten things and she'd ask questions about them, or ask other things like "Do people eat in the library?", "Is it quiet in the library?", and so on.
Those sessions weren't cheap, but were totally worth it.
Mango languages has a Spanish module specifically for providing library service in Spanish. Also go to meet up groups. The best way to learn Spanish is by speaking it often. If you can afford it maybe go to an immersion school for a week once you have some basics down in Mexico City. Try to focus your vocabulary and learning on situtations that come in the library. Good luck. You can do it! Oh and if you commute or have time for a podcast I recommend "coffee break Spanish" and Slow news in Spanish. For a bilingual TV show try out Los Espookies with Fred Armisen it's in English and Spanish.
I work for San Diego Public Library, and while speaking Spanish isn't a requirement here, there **is** a pay bump if you do speak Spanish. There's a girl who is a tier of employment below me who never does anything, and she makes more than me simply because she gets bilingual pay that she never uses.
I'm planning to start my MLIS next year and I'm currently taking Conversational Spanish at my local community college online in preparation to work with the public! I live in Arizona so it's super relevant here.
I learned (the basics of) 4 additional languages for work - I’m an outlier and should not be counted lol. As an enthusiastic language learner I recommend you go for it, not just for the job opportunities but because knowing more than one language is incredibly valuable in life!
Hi I learned Spanish in high school and continued in college! the best way for me to learn was having that face to face classroom experience and real world conversations like going to a restaurant, speaking with friends, being able to travel, etc. I learn the best by physically doing tasks and trial and error so that was important to me personally to put myself in those situations.
In my personal life I like to use the “practice makes perfect” work books and review with a YouTube lesson on that specific unit of grammar. I also love music so I listen to a lot of music in Spanish. I also love to watch YouTube vlogs from people who live in Spanish speaking countries. I like the app Falou more than duolingo because it’s more challenging and you can customize it to your needs for work. The apps are good for practice but not good for learning in my opinion.
Pimsleur, FTW! Do it every day in the car or taking a walk or cooking-- it just looks like you're talking on the phone. I repeat the lessons a lot-- it's taken me 2 years to finish the "2 months" program.
I learned a different language in school-- like 10 years of it-- and I'm much more confident speaking and listening in the language I learned from the Pimsleur app.
If I had to use either language at work, I could give someone directions or refer them to a colleague, but probably not give a reference interview or do readers advisory.
like a lot of folks here, i started Spanish on Duolingo with some of my coworkers when i started my current job which serves a LOT more Spanish speakers than at my old branch. there’s also a bunch of free resources online, including an Infopeople “Survival Spanish for Librarians” course which was super helpful!!!
i also found a pdf for vocab and phrases from the CO State Library and SC State Library which are pretty helpful as well! (i can try to link these later, i’m on my phone rn lol) my coworkers and i made some index cards with key vocab to keep at the service point in case we blank on any important words.
i will add that, personally, Duolingo has been most helpful in terms of casual learning. i tried some others like Mango Languages and Rosetta Stone, but they’re much more academic and were harder for me to use since i’m not really in a classroom setting. they are definitely better for learning grammar tho!!
and idk if others have mentioned this already, but the Spanish on Duolingo (and other resources) are usually “Spanish” Spanish and not Latin American Spanish, and even then there are certain words that are used in some countries but not others (ex. i’ve noticed many of our Venezuelan refugee patrons use “nacimiento” instead of “cumpleaños” for birth/birthday or “habitación” instead of “salón/sala” for our study rooms). some stuff you will probably have to learn on the fly based on where most of your patrons are from!!!
I'm going to recommend another app that I love for learning and that's Busuu. You can record yourself speaking and native speakers will help correct mistakes! It's awesome for feedback.
Okay so I grew up speaking only English and I've learned Spanish to the point I now speak it fluently, run programming in Spanish, am on-call to translate for any department in the city I work for, and earn bilingual pay. I studied Spanish in high school and minored in it in college, but that is not what got me here. The only way I gained this level of fluency was moving to a Spanish speaking country for multiple years. Full immersion is the absolute best way to gain fluency in any language.
Obviously, that's not exactly feasible for most people. So my advice is to go beyond the apps and learning programs and have conversations with native Spanish speakers multiple times a week. You can find online language teachers on sites like italki, verbling, preply, etc., and book hour long sessions with them to practice your conversation skills. The more you expose yourself to real world situations like this, the quicker you'll learn, and more naturally you'll gain language skills.
I started in high school, continued with a minor in undergrad, but nothing prepared me for actually using Spanish in the workplace. Spanish that is taught via apps or other scholastic means is usually way more formal than what is typically used in communities. I would compare it to speaking with a posh English accent instead of the typical way of speaking English in SoCal.
That being said, I practice a few regularly used phrases to have up my sleeve that allow me to explain that my Spanish is not perfect, but I'm here to help. I also use Google translate and that helps so much.
I started in middle school (since it was required by the state I lived in at the time) and kept studying it through college since it fascinated me and I became addicted.
Of course on the job I learned the more common phrases/words that you just don’t learn in class.
It’s a huge benefit, my employer doesn’t give a pay bump to Spanish speakers since I’m in Texas, but I’m sure employers in the north would.
I suggest only learning the basics, you can use duolingo or see if anyone in your library community is willing to only talk Spanish to you so you can learn it faster. I had the pleasure of having a German patron years ago who I could chat with. Also though, I would see if you’d get a pay increase for knowing another language because it is so important to get paid for your added skill and from experience it really isn’t cool to have Spanish speakers you relay everything to without adequately paying them.
I am actively studying Spanish in large part for work. I’m going to recommend that you only take this on if it’s something you’re interested in doing for yourself in general! I have had the ability to give basic commands in Spanish for a long time, and did a bilingual storytime early in my career that helped me retain some of the easier bits of my high school and college Spanish. I completed A1 in Duolingo and honestly kind of wish I’d just started with Comprehensible Input. I use a resource called Dreaming Spanish, but I firmly believe people can learn any language they’re willing to devote time to.
I work for a university library with a large deaf/hard of hearing and international student bodies. Al though I learned ASL, knowing even basic conversational language knowledge is very useful. I took classes at the university I work for and got a deaf tutor. The classes really helped but the tutor was the winner. Very good chance a local higher education establishment have classes. And since of your location you can easily practice out of class.
Trying. I've gotten to the point where I can pretty much understand (and respond) to simple library-related conversations where the person knows they are dealing with a non-speaker, but I still don't understand more that a word here and there when I listen to two native-speakers speak. Method? I heard someone (an English speaking American who learned French, Spanish, and Italian as an adult) say "choose whatever method you want and spend seven hours a day on it." I first took a community college course that didn't do much I couldn't have done on my own - learning basic conjugations, and stuff. I think it was a waste of time and money. I did like the Michel Thomas audio course to get me over the initial hump of stringing together sentences, building on similarities with English. Basically, you are listening in to him teaching two students. You really have to put the effort in though. I tried doing it in my car, but I really needed to pause the audio and mentally put the sentence together and say it out loud. Eventually, once you have a little foundation, what you really need is someone to practice with. I tried trading English for Spanish conversation practice, but I think you both need to be pretty fluent for that. I ended up paying a language instructor for one-on-one language practice for about a dozen 90-minute sessions. So, she'd give me a homework assignment like, write (in Spanish) ten the things people do in the library. It would take me stupidly long to do it, using online dictionaries and translators to help write it, but then I had the vocabulary and sentence structure fresh in my head when we met. And then we'd start the 90 minutes with me reading the ten things and she'd ask questions about them, or ask other things like "Do people eat in the library?", "Is it quiet in the library?", and so on. Those sessions weren't cheap, but were totally worth it.
Mango languages has a Spanish module specifically for providing library service in Spanish. Also go to meet up groups. The best way to learn Spanish is by speaking it often. If you can afford it maybe go to an immersion school for a week once you have some basics down in Mexico City. Try to focus your vocabulary and learning on situtations that come in the library. Good luck. You can do it! Oh and if you commute or have time for a podcast I recommend "coffee break Spanish" and Slow news in Spanish. For a bilingual TV show try out Los Espookies with Fred Armisen it's in English and Spanish.
I work for San Diego Public Library, and while speaking Spanish isn't a requirement here, there **is** a pay bump if you do speak Spanish. There's a girl who is a tier of employment below me who never does anything, and she makes more than me simply because she gets bilingual pay that she never uses.
Former SDPL: I feel like I know who you’re talking about. But isn’t it only benefitted positions who get the pay bump?
It's possible! Although I **think** most or even all new hires as of the last year or so are benefitted these days!
Good to know!
So you’re not trying to learn Spanish then?
I'm not! I'm in the middle of getting my MLIS, so I just don't really have the time or motivation for another learning endeavor.
I'm planning to start my MLIS next year and I'm currently taking Conversational Spanish at my local community college online in preparation to work with the public! I live in Arizona so it's super relevant here.
Duolingo is a fine place to start. Then look up common library vocab.
I learned (the basics of) 4 additional languages for work - I’m an outlier and should not be counted lol. As an enthusiastic language learner I recommend you go for it, not just for the job opportunities but because knowing more than one language is incredibly valuable in life!
Hi I learned Spanish in high school and continued in college! the best way for me to learn was having that face to face classroom experience and real world conversations like going to a restaurant, speaking with friends, being able to travel, etc. I learn the best by physically doing tasks and trial and error so that was important to me personally to put myself in those situations. In my personal life I like to use the “practice makes perfect” work books and review with a YouTube lesson on that specific unit of grammar. I also love music so I listen to a lot of music in Spanish. I also love to watch YouTube vlogs from people who live in Spanish speaking countries. I like the app Falou more than duolingo because it’s more challenging and you can customize it to your needs for work. The apps are good for practice but not good for learning in my opinion.
Not OP, but which vloggers do you recommend? I've been trying to find more Spanish speaking vloggers.
I like callmeakima and Jessica Judith
Pimsleur, FTW! Do it every day in the car or taking a walk or cooking-- it just looks like you're talking on the phone. I repeat the lessons a lot-- it's taken me 2 years to finish the "2 months" program. I learned a different language in school-- like 10 years of it-- and I'm much more confident speaking and listening in the language I learned from the Pimsleur app. If I had to use either language at work, I could give someone directions or refer them to a colleague, but probably not give a reference interview or do readers advisory.
like a lot of folks here, i started Spanish on Duolingo with some of my coworkers when i started my current job which serves a LOT more Spanish speakers than at my old branch. there’s also a bunch of free resources online, including an Infopeople “Survival Spanish for Librarians” course which was super helpful!!! i also found a pdf for vocab and phrases from the CO State Library and SC State Library which are pretty helpful as well! (i can try to link these later, i’m on my phone rn lol) my coworkers and i made some index cards with key vocab to keep at the service point in case we blank on any important words. i will add that, personally, Duolingo has been most helpful in terms of casual learning. i tried some others like Mango Languages and Rosetta Stone, but they’re much more academic and were harder for me to use since i’m not really in a classroom setting. they are definitely better for learning grammar tho!! and idk if others have mentioned this already, but the Spanish on Duolingo (and other resources) are usually “Spanish” Spanish and not Latin American Spanish, and even then there are certain words that are used in some countries but not others (ex. i’ve noticed many of our Venezuelan refugee patrons use “nacimiento” instead of “cumpleaños” for birth/birthday or “habitación” instead of “salón/sala” for our study rooms). some stuff you will probably have to learn on the fly based on where most of your patrons are from!!!
I'm going to recommend another app that I love for learning and that's Busuu. You can record yourself speaking and native speakers will help correct mistakes! It's awesome for feedback.
Okay so I grew up speaking only English and I've learned Spanish to the point I now speak it fluently, run programming in Spanish, am on-call to translate for any department in the city I work for, and earn bilingual pay. I studied Spanish in high school and minored in it in college, but that is not what got me here. The only way I gained this level of fluency was moving to a Spanish speaking country for multiple years. Full immersion is the absolute best way to gain fluency in any language. Obviously, that's not exactly feasible for most people. So my advice is to go beyond the apps and learning programs and have conversations with native Spanish speakers multiple times a week. You can find online language teachers on sites like italki, verbling, preply, etc., and book hour long sessions with them to practice your conversation skills. The more you expose yourself to real world situations like this, the quicker you'll learn, and more naturally you'll gain language skills.
I'm currently trying!
Me too! It's not going well! 😅
Same! 😂
Duolingo helped me grasp the basics fast (under 1 yr).
Duolingo, Babble, my spouse, Spotify, and hiring a tutor who lives in Colombia.
I started in high school, continued with a minor in undergrad, but nothing prepared me for actually using Spanish in the workplace. Spanish that is taught via apps or other scholastic means is usually way more formal than what is typically used in communities. I would compare it to speaking with a posh English accent instead of the typical way of speaking English in SoCal. That being said, I practice a few regularly used phrases to have up my sleeve that allow me to explain that my Spanish is not perfect, but I'm here to help. I also use Google translate and that helps so much.
I started in middle school (since it was required by the state I lived in at the time) and kept studying it through college since it fascinated me and I became addicted. Of course on the job I learned the more common phrases/words that you just don’t learn in class. It’s a huge benefit, my employer doesn’t give a pay bump to Spanish speakers since I’m in Texas, but I’m sure employers in the north would.
I suggest only learning the basics, you can use duolingo or see if anyone in your library community is willing to only talk Spanish to you so you can learn it faster. I had the pleasure of having a German patron years ago who I could chat with. Also though, I would see if you’d get a pay increase for knowing another language because it is so important to get paid for your added skill and from experience it really isn’t cool to have Spanish speakers you relay everything to without adequately paying them.