The guy in the Ted Talk has a new app that's coming out soon. I've read lots of praise for his methods. That being said, my Vietnamese is coming along very slowly!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gabrielwyner/fluent-forever-the-app-learn-to-think-in-any-langu

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iBMfg4WkKL8" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>

We have a bunch of youngins fresh out of school who take a minimum wage job in "guest services" to put something on the resume. Basically they stand around and tell guests where to go (in a nice way).
I was working near the entrance to the pavilion and a young Latino girl was greeting and giving directions when a well dressed couple and their child walk up and start chatting to her in Spanish, she looked a little panicked but gave them the info they were looking for. Then turned to me and said "those people are from Spain, I could barely understand them!"

And +1 on speed... when I try to talk to someone in Spanish they take off at a thousand miles an hour.

Spanish Spanish sounds very nice to me (I won't say beautiful). I love hearing it compared to new world Spanish. On this side of the world, they drop the "vosotros" part of verb conjugation. One time in Spain when I was there traveling with a couple of Mexican ladies, a Spaniard pulled me aside and asked, " Why do they drop that part of the language?" The only thing I could think to say was that was the way the spoke it there. I had actually never thought of it before. My former wife spoke English, Spanish, & French fluently and could get along in German, Italian, Portuguese, and Russian.

Most gringos think that Spanish speakers speak really fast, but then I've also heard that non-English speakers think that we speak fast. I did once learn that it's true, the Spanish do speak quickly. To me, it's more like they sometimes run all of the words together and now I have proof.

I was in Spain once when I was younger (dad was in the Navy). I had a summer job while I was there working in one of the restaurants on base. Most of the employees in the kitchen were Spanish nationals, but most spoke more English than I spoke Spanish (which was basically none). One night one of the guys was going to make my dinner, and was asking what I wanted with it bakedpotatofrenchfry. He said it about 5 or 6 times really quickly so it came out as one word. I had no idea what he was saying, but I felt a little vindicated because there was another young guy that worked there who's father had been in the military and married a Spanish woman and retired there. So this guy was perfectly fluent in Spanish and English and even he didn't understand what the guy was saying and had to ask him in Spanish. It was funny, when the young guy finally figured out what I was being asked, and repeated it to me, the guy that had been trying to tell me huffed and nodded his head and said it again as if to say "yeah, that's what I've been saying the whole time."

Very impressive. I wish my parents had forced me to take a language when I was younger. They really should have since we lived in Japan twice for about 2.5 years both times when I was 8-10 and again 13-15. I'd have probably been pretty fluent. Oh well.

When I was younger, I didn't want to learn any other languages, now I'd like to learn several.

Some people pick up languages faster than others. They say kids up to eight learn very quickly. My former wife had awesome and scarry computing power across the spectrum. She's been the director of Master's and PhD programs at a major university on the east coast for some years now. In the '80s she wanted to become an interpreter at the Olympics in Moscow, so she signed up for Russian courses at the local university where she taught. She didn't go on to do the interpreting gig but did start leading tours in Russia for several years.

Children are much better at learning languages. It is a fact. They just do not have the brain clogged like adults. Therefore, language courses are more recommended to them than others. We teach our child courses of Spanish. Successes are encouraging.

Go for it! I suck at math, but languages come quite easy for me. Besides English I speak Spanish (Castilian), Catalan, and French. My French is a bit rusty as I haven't had the opportunity to use it since I've been living in the US, but I'm sure I could get by. Spanish is not that difficult of a language, but the verbs, good luck with the verbs.

I purposely have not learned the swear words. I see non-native english speakers try to use swear words, and they roll off the tongue much too easily. There isn't the built in taboo of using them.

Speaking Spanish and communicating with idioms, phraseology and being a native speaker are two different things. Here, without the practice of communicating with the same native speakers can not do. Not to mention correct pronunciation. Here Americans themselves often break their own words depending on the region of residence. Although, you can always adjust the pronunciation of the language courses. Also a way out of the situation.

I got a tape and was listening in the car as background noise.
While asleep probably might help drive it into the subconscious.
Absorption in my late 40 is almost nil.

Only problem was when I tried to talk I'd start mixing French and Japanese and everything goes away poof.

:)

I tried learning Spanish but had a lot trouble accumulating the vocabulary. At 66 yo my brain is increasingly pre-occupied with regulating heartbeat and respiration!

When I was in high school, I was pretty fluent in Spanish. I knew it well enough that I found myself sometimes thinking in Spanish instead of in English. I haven't used it in 40 years, so I am beyond rusty. I often wonder how quickly I could pick it up again, given that I knew it so well years ago.

On the other hand, I'd rather learn French. If I could retire to the south of France, I would. The best food and wine in the world.

If my Spanish teacher in high school had looked like SuperHolly, I would only have managed to learn a handful of words, but I would've used them often.

This is the best free app I've found so far...

https://www.duolingo.com/

I met a woman years ago who was born/raised in the US, went overseas at the age of 28 for 10. years.
She came back and attended a Berlitz language school for English.

Speaking of what I just posted above...when I was self-employed I hired Latinos in my early years and began to speak some of their language - not Spanish.
Sometimes I'd be speaking to friends or others and in the middle of a sentence I'd say a non-English (Mexican) word...just out of habit.
It was weird.

Spend any time in South Texas and chances are when you're talking to someone, half of any given sentence will be in one language and the rest in the other. And I'm sure Arizona is the same way

In boot camp for 2 months with boys from all over.
In the end I was talking like the boys from Memphis.
That Southern brogue is intoxicating.

I can't give a recommendation of a particular method or app, but Spanish is a relatively easy langiage to learn for a native English-speaker, as pronunciations are very consistent (unlike English), there are only five vowel sounds, there aren't any difficult-to-pronounce sounds (other than perhaps rolled 'r's) and so on.

It is quite idiomatic, however, and vocabulary is significantly more regionally-specific than English. I was born in Venezuela (North American mother, Latin American father) and moved to the US after 8 years; my Spanish (which is not up to my English, thanks in part to most of my life here) reflects this. The word "chimbo", for instance, means one thing in Venezuela and the opposite in Colombia, and it means nothing in Mexico; slang in particular is extremely local. Foods can have four or five different names just in this hemisphere (e.g. banana can be cambur, guineo, banana, platano) You're best off learning whatever variety of Spanish you're most exposed to where you live. As one who grew up speaking and listening to Caracas and costeño Colombian accents, I find Castilian (e.g. Madrid) accents and speech, such as many US students learn, rather odd-sounding. And I find voseo especially odd-sounding, as most of Latin America doesn't really use it and I never grew up with it.