CLEP Spanish: Best way to learn for someone with ZERO prior knowledge

[sanantone]

I now understand the OP dosen't want to learn Spanish! The OP just wants to pass a test. Oh! good for them, hope it helps in the future. I wont brag to anyone that I know Spanish after passing that test though! because you WILL be embarrassed.

@Sanatone I understand what you are saying about passing the test and you are right. If the OP just wants to pass a test, then hell I think someone can learn to pass a grammar test in 6 weeks, if they can learn fast enough. Just cram basic words, conjugations etc but reading and writing effectively in 6 weeks, lets hope you can guess well!

As for fluency in two months, you are so wrong!! It depends on the ability of the person and whether or not they have access to a native speaker and how much grit they have. With a few lessons and a native speaker you are in love with, you learn ANYTHING quickly. It just amplifies your learning ability! If you never experienced that then you cant say "basic conversation", you can hold very advanced conversations because you will understand not only the language but the CULTURE associated with the people and things become very apparent.

Some guys I worked with after they got a Venezulean woman could go from zero to very very good in two months! There is no better way to learn a language than having someone to speak it with every day. And I can speak for men, when you love that woman you will listen to Spanish day and night, in about a month you'll be over than pimsleur 4 or 5 times and bugging your coworkers to help you learn, losing sleep listening to those lessons just to make her happy and impress her!

As for me I ripped through pimsluer Tagalog in  3 weeks, it was a day and night effort on my part, I talk to her every single day, what is this, what is that? I centered my life around learning only that and could hold conversations with her family and friends within the two months. And of course I learned about the culture and was even realizing when google translate was wrong (btw google translate for tagalog and visaya (cebuano on translate) is so wrong!)

What was the reason that guy learned Russian? was he learning for learning sakes? or was he just lazy, no motivation?

To learn a language just immerse yourself in the culture, listen to podcasts in the language, talk to a native speaker everyday, listen to songs in the music (Tagalog love songs are the BEST) and just enjoy learning.

I guess I shoudl clarify, I'm not saying Pimsleur is all you need, but it gives you a start and the confidence you need to immerse yourself.

@defrecore you are right I never took a CLEP, but I just looked at the test. Anyone speaking to a native speaker and messaging their family and friends on FB can definitely get through a lot of these sample questions, I think they will do better than the guy who crammed some grammar after 4 weeks:

https://clep.collegeboard.org/pdf/spanis...-sheet.pdf

And what do you know! speaking a language also involves listening! wow amazing! Wow!! there is a listeing component to the CLEP!! but I guess I am wrong, no way speaking a language can help with listening

If you learn to speak, you will get high marks in the listening portion, then do what you can and guess the rest in the other section.

I think someone like that will stand a better change than a guy who learned a few basic rules after a few weeks, who will most likely FAIL the listening portion.

Btw I'm feeling to caved in

[armstrongsubero used the escape rope]

If you reread my posts, maybe you will have a better understanding of what was said. I clearly made listening recommendations and broke down what percentage of the test covers listening. What I said is that there is no SPEAKING. 

All I'm saying is that it's misleading to say that someone can become fluent listening to Pimsleur lessons. Pimsleur only covers about 700 words, at the most, depending on how many levels they have available for a language. One can indirectly learn grammar through Pimsleur or Duolingo, but it's not a quick process. It is also misleading to compare some languages to others. Some languages only have about 10k-50k words; some have fewer than that. There are around 100,000 words in a typical Spanish dictionary. If you need 10k words to become fluent, then you need to be a genius to learn all of those in two months. One of my Spanish teachers in high school was married to a native Spanish speaker, and she said it took a couple of years of living in a Latin American country to become fluent. 

Your first post said nothing about surrounding oneself with Spanish speakers, which might be impossible for the OP. Most Americans are not surrounded by friends and family members who speak Spanish. But, as I mentioned before, being a native speaker does not guarantee that you will pass the test. Many people are not very well-educated in the proper grammar and spelling of their native language. As a matter of fact, many native speakers around the world can't even read and write in their language or any other language.