Spanish after Latin

[teamturner]

Hello!

 

Some background: My rising 11th graders have been working through Lifepac Spanish 1 this year. Previously, they studied latin using Latin for Children A-C and Memoria Press 1st and 2nd Form Latin books. They did part of the 3rd Form Latin book as well. We decided to switch to Spanish since there is a spanish teacher through our local co-op. However they had to do Spanish 1 at home since there was a conflict with my guys' schedule when the spanish class was offered at the co-op. The co-op teacher uses AOL Lifepac Spanish so we decided to use that at home as well so we can take Spanish 2 with her this coming year. My spanish is extremely limited as I only took two years in high school myself and that was a long time ago.  :sad: We've only gotten half way through the program so we'll be doing Spanish through the summer.

 

My problem: I had always heard that students of Latin found Spanish easy with the foundation Latin had given them. My guys are not finding that to be true and I'm wondering if it's because the Lifepac Spanish is a whole to parts program whereas the Latin was parts to whole. 

 

Questions: Does anyone have input on this issue? If you think this may be the issue, what Spanish programs use the parts to whole method. Or what can I supplement with the Lifepac Spanish to help them make the connection?

 

Thanks so much!!

[chiguirre]

The major advantage of Latin for learning Spanish is their extensive shared vocabulary. However, I see that you've only done the equivalent of the first year of high school Latin (LfC a-c = Latin Alive 1 and First and Second Form = 1st half of Henle 1). That may simply not be enough to build a basic vocabulary that you can transfer to Spanish.

 

I'd spend at least 15 minutes on Quizlet everyday practicing vocabulary. Here's a link to the search for Lifepac Spanish 1 lists that people have posted. This will save you a bunch of time:

 

https://quizlet.com/subject/lifepac-spanish-1/

 

Building a good vocabulary is probably the most important thing you can do in Spanish 1. With their Latin background, verb conjugations and tenses shouldn't be too difficult to pick up.

 

Suerte!

[teamturner]

Thank you for the suggestion! I had told them they need to use Quizlet to help them with some trouble areas. I wasn't sure if that was enough, but I think they just need more review and drills. Your link is a great source of Lifepac material. Thanks so much!!

[RootAnn]

They might be past it, but Getting Started with Spanish was a great starter course for us. We moved onto Spanish for Children, but it moved too quickly without enough practice and review for us. (The content was great. We just needed more practice and lots of built-in like MP's Forms gives you.)

 

DD#1 found Spanish to be relatively easy at the Spanish 1 level due to her GSWS, SfC, and Duolingo work. Near the end of the first year material, she had to learn new grammar stuff. So, the first year was some vocab review, lots of new vocab, mostly review of grammar stuff she already knew & then new grammar at the end. Spanish 2 material has been almost all new material with only a little vocab she already knew. (Some of the Spanish verb endings are very very similar to Latin endings. Some of the verbs are so close that she sometimes gets them confused with each other - writing the Latin word instead of the Spanish or vice versa.)

 

Good luck!