Complete beginner taking Spanish ab initio

[Guest ly77]

Hello everyone,

I need advice on taking Spanish ab initio as a complete beginner!

I decided not to do Mandarin B for IB only recently, so switched over to the only alternative- Spanish ab initio.

The issue is now that I have to pick up this extremely new language. I know the ab initio courses are designed for the complete beginner, but through talking to my friends and reading some other posts, I know that most people who take an ab initio language already have a little experience in it or are proficient in a similar language (like French is to Spanish). My only background in other "similar" languages is the 6 months of French I did in lower Secondary (so basically I can count to ten and say a few phrases). I really enjoy learning languages, and I really want to do well. Many people have also told me that it shouldn't be too difficult for me to pick up a new language after learning Mandarin for so long.

Has anyone been in my situation with Spanish or another language!? Any advice regarding how the ab initio course is structured to accommodate total beginners and how to do well learning Spanish from scratch while trying to excel in other subjects at the same time would be greatly appreciated!

Edited December 15, 2013 by meowlilly

[r1111]

I am taking French ab initio right now. I also took Spanish for a while but felt I wasn't prepared enough to take Spanish B so I took my next best alternative: french ab initio. I also don't live anywhere in Europe and don't really know anyone from France. But I think french has been fine so far. I just try to pay attention in class, ask my teacher for help and refer to YouTube videos. Who knows, maybe Spanish will be useful for you one day? I know, that it is very likely that French will be useful for me depending on where I live.

Oh yeah, btw I have friends in Spanish ab initio and they seem to be doing fine. oh yeah and you already know a bit of french and obviously you know English and there are few similarities between these languages and Spanish. You are right tough that ab initio courses are fast paced. And there is a lot of memorization involved (for example verbs...). I don't think an ab initio language will be a hard course because it's designed for complete beginners.

[Emmi]

Relax. Ab initio courses are designed for people who have never taken a language before, so you won't touch any of the really difficult stuff that a B level language would do. In my experience, people who have already learned a foreign language or have had experience in learning them do better than people who never have. In high school I had a free elective and chose to take a beginners level German class while still doing Spanish. Even though Spanish isn't too closely related to German (they are both Indo-European languages, but Spanish is a Romance language and German is Germanic), it was easy to pick it up because I already knew how to learn a language. Even if the former foreign language is unrelated to the new one (Mandarin is not similar to Spanish AT ALL), the skills you acquired while learning how to learn the other language transfer nicely over to your new one. You will probably pick it up faster than you'd think. Since you say you enjoy learning languages, I believe you'll do well. El Español es fantástico

[khimberleigh]

I was in your exact same position.

I studied Japanese all through school and then decided to do Spanish ab initio for IB having not done any other languages, never been to a Spanish speaking country or anything like that. Don't worry, the course is designed for complete beginners and they're not expecting you to be fluent or anything like that by the end of the two years. Honestly, Spanish was one of the subjects I put the least amount of work into and I still did fine (I think... results come out in 3 weeks!! ahh) Anyway, keep up to date with your homework, revise verb conjugations reguarly and basic vocab for the topics you study and you will be okay. Seriously, it's really not that bad! After your first year start doing past papers reguarly and you'll get a feel for exactly the sort of level they expect you to be at. Also, Spanish sentence structures and a lot of the words are really similar to english, so if you have a decent grasp of english it'll help you a lot too.

Don't worry, you'll still be able to excel at your other subjects. Try to put a similar amount of work into all your subjects. Obviousy you will put in more effort in subjects you like or need to study more, but don't put in a ridiculous amount of extra time into Spanish just because you've never done it before. Study it reguarly of course but you don't need to spend hours each night studying Spanish in order to do well.

Yes, there is quite a bit to memorise, but remember you have two years and as you progress through the course and start to do regular past papers the grammar and vocab will start to come naturally, you'll be able to conjugate verbs in your sleep!

Make sure that you put in effort for the written assignment and oral as they can seriously change your grade and when you do those it'll be the middle of the year, you won't have exams and you can sort of prepare at home too so you hopefully can do quite well.

Lastly, check out the spanish ab initio subject guide (a quick google search should lead you to it) as it'll tell you exactly what you're expected to know and do for the course.

[Esteban]

The essence of IB ab intio classes is to provide us (the IB students) with an entry-level course. Hence, in Spanish ab initio, it will be assumed that you have NO prior knowledge of Spanish. So you should do just fine.

[Encord]

As everyone else said, ab initio classes are meant for beginners so there's no need to panic. I myself started spanish ab initio about four months ago and so far it's pretty straight forward and enjoyable!! I have no regret doing spanish ab initio although initially I was a bit worried. After all, you did say you enjoy learning languages so I'm sure this will be no different.