The first thing that crosses most peoples mind is if it is worth learning Spanish in the first place. For that the answers is usually a yes. Spanish is now the second most spoken language of the United States. This makes it very useful when it comes to getting a job and just communicating with people in general. It is also a good language to learn for people who want to learn a second language. Spanish is fairly easy to learn if you are a English speaking person.

The cost of learning Spanish is not very cheap. Most online courses will cost you in the hundreds. If you want to take online classes then things get even more expensive. The top of the line classes can cost into the low thousands at the high end. But not all is lost. There are many great tutorials online that you can go through for free. These free tutorials are often a great place for you to start.

Many of the free tutorials that I have gone through will give you audios that you can download. These audios can be burned to CD or you can upload them to your mp3 player for on the go. This makes it great for learning while you are working out or even on your way to work. Like all things that are free these tutorials are not perfect, but they are a decent place for one to start.

One of the ways I started to learn Spanish on a budget was by using an online translator. There are many of these online where you type in the word in English and it will give you the Spanish version of the same word. This is great for some basic work that you might be doing.

When all is said and done you won’t be able to beat learning Spanish using an audio CD. This when they teach you how to say English words in the Spanish language. There is nothing better then being able to hear the proper accent.

It was 100% unconscious with her and the more and more she tried the more and more embarrassed and frustrated she got and the worse she felt inside. Now she is a really smart person but she just couldn’t get past the Spanish mental block.

So I got her a ‘Subliminal Spanish CD’, which is a really simpl but effective language learning aid. She usually listens to it once or twice a day, once in the morning and perhaps again at night while she goes about her usual business. It doesn’t help her to learn grammar, syntax or verbs in itself. It isn’t a ‘talk at you in Spanish thing’.

What it is; is unconscious encouragement to speed up her learning. As well as studying Spanish and her general absorption of Spanish it steadily removes any barriers in her brain so she can better understand and process the vocabulary etc. She has stopped stumbling over her words and is no longer reticent about talking to our Spanish friends, and swears by the subliminal messages! At first it improved her ability to recall and remember Spanish words, and gradually her entire vocabulary improved. She goes about her studies with added concentration and understanding, and is even talking about going on to Catalan Spanish now.

The crux to learning Spanish, just like any language really, is that you dedicate time to learning it. You need to immerse yourself in the language as much as possible until your skills levels reach a point where you can learn new things without much apparent effort.

As far as Spanish CD or Mp3's go, you really get most benefit from them if you listen to them often. Try to listen to spoken Spanish whenever you get a free moment for the best results. So even if you don’t have the specific CD’s available, try listening to music or Spanish language radio.

Many people like to listen to CD's or Mp3 in their car. This is a good use of time as many people spend upwards of an hour each day in traffic driving to work. This is time well spent although it is important to reach a balance between driving and participating in a Spanish audio course. Sometimes you need to give you full attention to the road or the traffic ahead so you may not be able to give your full attention to the Spanish. I would suggest you listen to Spanish audio CD’s in the car after you have listened to them a few times beforehand. In this method you can drift in and out of the lesson and still follow what is going on.

Another option if this is not for you is to listen to them while commuting to work on public transport. If you have a personal CD or MP3 player this is an ideal solution however as most audio course require you to repeat sentences aloud it may seem a bit odd to your fellow passengers on the bus or train.

You can also use the audio in the home when doing housework or whatever you are doing in the home. Just have it on like you might have the radio on. You can replay it countless times in the background without paying much attention and still learn bits and pieces about Spanish. Your subconscious will be taking in useful information that will come in handy as you continue to learn the language. Certainly it wouldn’t be a fast way to learn Spanish but you would learn.

Some people also listen to Spanish mp3 or CD's while doing exercise. So you could listen to it while jogging or at the gym. Jogging could be good as you could speak out loud although it’s not always easy to speak a run at the same time.

So the advantage of an audio course is that you can listen to it and do other things at the same time, although this is good, I wouls advise listening to it first without any other distractions if you want to get full value out of it. After that you can multi-task. 

The key is to be consistent and hear Spanish spoken everyday. We are thought to be intuitively capable of learning languages so even with a little instruction you will make progress. In the end it comes down to giving yourself enough time and hearing the language spoken often enough, with this in place you will be successful in learning Spanish.

Get more details on popular Spanish audio courses, including Rocket Spanish and the Michel Thomas courses at http://rocketspanishreviewed.com