Learning/retaining Spanish

[lennytheduck]

Those who mentioned living in Latin America (or Spain) are correct. Nothing will make you learn and understand a foreign language more quickly than being surrounded by it at all times and being forced to use it.

I lived in Ecuador last summer, and while I had 3 years of formal college education in Spanish and considered myself pretty skilled before the trip, I was far far better after I came back.

I was kind of worried about losing my skills in the past year as I no longer needed Spanish classes for school. I watched movies (Pan's Labyrinth, Almodovar films, etc) in Spanish without subtitles and that helped. I've found that my time in Ecuador really caused the language to be ingrained. I hadn't spoken much in months up until a few days ago when I was sitting with two Cubans at a poker table in Vegas. We talked in between almost every hand. The words just kind of flowed out without much thinking and next to zero translation in my head. It was a good feeling.