I remenber when my first english teacher told me..."The only form to lear any lenguage is memorizing a lot of words and rules, and after taking a lot of time practicing. There is no other way". Sadly he was wrong. there are many other forms to do it. One better than the others is talking with the people that really speak the lenguage. So lets talk spanish.

as in any language there is no ideal starting point. Got any book? I was in Riga last september and you got a lot of spanish learning books there. True, books there are not quite cheap, specially for latvian incomes... but i saw a conversation guide L-S which was not bad and quite handy! Contact me if you need any help. (p.s. Riga center is quite nice! I stayed in a hostel which has a karaoke bar in floor plant, forgot the name. Quite nice, specially a young barman there. Just in front and explanade that hasnt built again, and that big japanese style restaurant/bar. Really, quite nice! If i have the chance, i ll come back.....

Try to listen to spanish songs... ballads or something easy to understand and pronounce. Listen to the songs over and over again, read the lyrics, sing the songs trying to prounce every word in the most correct way. That is an excellent way to learn by yourself... Every word that you don't understand just search it in the dictionary. If you find a verb, try to conjugate it in the basic tenses and then in the other tenses. (you learn vocabulary and grammar) Watch some news like CNN (but in spanish) and try to get the accent and the sounds.(you learn vocabulary and phonetics) Learn the basic grammar rules and the conjugations of the most used irregular verbs like: SER, ESTAR, HABER, IR, VENIR .(you learn grammar) If you know the internatinal phonetic alphabet... try to use it as a tool to study the sounds of the words. www.wordreference.com is an amazing site were you can see the different sounds of a word. .(you learn phonetics) Try to search spanish slangs. (you learn vocabulary and culture facts) Don't forget to have someone to talk with in spanish ;) Well these are some advices that I can give you to begin learning spanish by yourself!!! Good luck!!!

Sveiks! You can learn Spanish here at Italki http://www.italki.com/learn-spanish/en-us Text book http://www.italki.com/docs/53A404DB-7667-476E-9D2B-C9CC1E45F89C.htm