CLEP Spanish

[margotsara]

My last CLEP is going to be Spanish..I already know French and passed that exam for 12 credits.

I've started watching the Destinos episodes through the Annenberg/CPB site, but I was wondering if anyone else had come across good sites for Spanish vocab, conversation, and skills practice ..

Also (this might be insanely specific) has anyone found good sites for native FRENCH speakers learning Spanish ?

I think that would make it easier to learn because the structures and a lot of the vocab words are similar.

Finally -- In your expert opinions, can I learn enough to get a 63 on the test before, say, July or August ? I pick up language quickly.

Thank you fellow autodidacts eeya:

[rmroberts]

Well I don't have much advice to give but I'll tell you my experience with the spanish test.

I have taken two years of high school spanish, but I'm still not fluent. I only studied for a week and after making a 77 on petersons practice test and a 67 on REA practice test, I thought I was ready. However, I was wrong. I barely missed with a 49.

I'm not at all trying to say you can't do it. You sound extremely smart. I amazed that you already know two languages and going for a third. You just have to be fluent to pass the real test but not the practice tests. You might want to look at the links on free-clep-prep.com. Let us know how it goes when you take it and congrats on your last CLEP!!

[NAP]

I do think that your background in French will help you learn Spanish.

Another angle to consider is taking the ACTFL for French, especially if you are good at having conversations in French. It would give you an opportunity to earn upper-level credits. It is an ACE approved program. I have also read that it does not duplicate CLEP credit. I don’t know what TESC’s policy is about this exam, though; you'll need to search the board and/or contact TESC to find out.

There is more information at the bottom of this post -

http://www.degreeforum.net/general-educa...-lots.html

I'm looking forward to following your progress and reading others' suggestions and insights.

[zefrench]

Before I answer more indepth, your first language, is it French or English?

[Yenisei]

I am bilingual English/Spanish and took the French CLEP, so I will tell you what I did and maybe you can apply that to your own study. I practiced by studying a typical French textbook so that I was aware of the grammatical differences and I took the placement tests for French offered by my university to get some pratice with the listening part. You're most likely to confuse the two languages when speaking them, and since that's not part of the CLEP I would not worry about getting confused.

[Maniac Craniac]

I passed the Spanish CLEP with a whopping score of 76 . I used the REA guide (too bad there isn't one for french ), which I bought used. There are some organizational problems with the book, but overall, it is WAY more intensive than the test is.

A website you can try is Language Learning with Livemocha | Learn a Language Online - Free!. You select your native language and the one you want to learn and it really hooks you up with some good resources. Wikipedia and YouTube are also great resources for some exposure to the language.

[Maniac Craniac]

I do think that your background in French will help you learn Spanish.

Agree wholeheartedly. Most Spanish words are very similar to either French or English, almost all of the same verbs are irregular and both French and Spanish use subjunctive in almost all of the same circumstances. There are of course major differences (no preterit tense in French, passed tense uses an auxillary verb) but it really isn't a huge jump from French to Spanish in either reading or writing. The challenges are speaking and listening- the former of which has no bearing on the CLEP exam, the latter, relatively few questions.