I want to learn spanish...

Check out RosettaStone. Their Italian package worked really well for us. Also they have a long list of A-list client endorsements.

There are a bunch of Podcast resources for language learning. There are forums on Skype that are contacts of people wanting to learn a second (or more) language.

Thanks for the link rgray, price is a little more then what I want to pay if I can avoid it though.

Rosetta Stone is the best there is.

Used it before a month long trip to Mexico, worked awesome.

maybe I will see if I can find a used copy somewhere.

This might sound ridiculous but it helps. In conjunction with learning CD's or whatever.

If you watch a lot of TV, or even if you don't, set your TV or stereo to a Spanish station if you can, leave it on. You don't have to concentrate on it, but as background noise your brain gets used to hearing the language. A translator told me that trick.

I dont watch alot of tv, not even sure if I have any spanish stations on rogers cable. It is something I definitely want to learn before I go, my friend and I will be on our own in some remote areas and if anything goes wrong we definitely need to communicate. Rosetta seems like the best option, going to keep my eye out for someone selling it cheaper.

Spanish is very easy to pickup. Not sure what Waterloo has, but sometimes community centers offer language lessons. The best way to learn it is to find someone who speaks Spanish and hang with them. Don't speak English and the cardinal rule - Don't translate back and forth. That's why kids pickup languages so fast, they don't translate. In Spanish that red thing you are eating isn't an apple it's a manzana.

It's hard to do when you are an adult, you will always silently do it, but if you can stop yourself from saying it out loud it will help.

Search iTunes store (ca) for "spanish podcast" - turns up 150 free items..

EDIT: found on Google "learn spanish podcast": Really Learn Spanish

Decided to go with Rossetta seems to be the best choice so I bit the bullet and ordered it yesterday both level 1 and 2. Thanks for all your help!