Best way to learn Spanish

You can always watch Spanish speaking television stations if there’s one in your area. You should pick up a few words. You could also go to a book store and buy a Spanish for Dummies type book. If your child’s school has basic Spanish classes for his age, maybe it could lend you a book. Since everybody learns differently, there is no one best way.

We've had good luck with the Pimsleur CD's. Very convenient. Can probably find them at your library.

Are you just going to Barcelona, or elsewhere in Spain?

Barcelona is in Catalunya and the local language is Catalan, not Spanish. There is currently a strong (but not universally accepted) Catalan independence movement, and some people there are understandably sensitive about their language and culture. I have seen reports that many in Barcelona would rather be spoken to in English than Spanish, if you cannot speak Catalan. So learning Spanish for this trip might not be a important as you think.

Lola brings up a great point. I was in Barcelona in the fall of 2015. I was in a hookah and whiskey bar (purely for research) and ordered a drink from the bartender. My Spanish was reasonable, but he didn't seem to understand my nuances. He asked me to speak English to him, and we made ourselves understood. In the ensuing conversation he told me that he was from Poland, not Spain, and that if the other bartender had been on duty, she would have asked that I speak English as well, because she identified as Catalan, not Spanish.

With that said, go to Barnes & Noble or to Amazon and get some CDs to play in the car as you drive. That, plus Google Translate, will make the trip memorable. Or, you could speak English and probably be understood most places.

The languages of Spain are Gallego, from Galicia; Catalan,from the region of Catalonia;and the Castellan,from the region from La Mancha, Madrid and Andalucia the most common and official language in Spain is Castellan or commonly called Spanish. The language that your family wish to learn is Castillian or Castellano.its the official language of Mexico, Central and South America,so you and your family have strong and good reasons to learn Spanish.if you wish to visit Barcelona or any of the beautiful places from Mexico,Central or South America.

Here's Spanish 10 minutes a day. It gives you the basics for a traveler. Where's the bathroom? May I have the check? etc.
Most likely you can get by with English, but it is nice that you make an attempt to speak some Spanish.

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_13?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=spanish+in+10+minutes+a+day&sprefix=spanish+in+10%2Caps%2C538&crid=2560GWB2B71AT

Watching movies in Spanish when you know very little Spanish is a waste of time.
Listening to Spanish while driving is highly ineffective. Your attention is divided with driving. Not a good idea.
There are loads of Spanish lessons for free on YouTube. I particularly like Professor Jason. He explains the grammar in a very logical manner, gives examples, and practice sentences.

I apologize for not directly replying your question, which others have already done, but I thought some readers might be interested in an explanation on why it is not necessarily the only (or best) course of action to use Spanish when visiting the region of Catalonia and its capital Barcelona and maybe English can be an equally plausible choice.

A BIT OF BACKGROUND

As Lola pointed, language matters are sensitive in Catalonia (as well as in Basque Country). The reason being, in a nutshell, because of the historical forceful imposition of Spanish (Castillian) in those territories over the local languages.

In the region of Catalonia (capital city: Barcelona), Catalan language is "the" local language almost since its inception, over 1000 years ago. Catalan, much like Spanish (Castillian), French, Portuguese or Italian, evolved from Latin, spoken throughout the Roman Empire since the 6th century BC. I was only since Catalonia lost its freedom to the Spanish (or Castillian, as you prefer) in the 18th century that Spanish was forcefully introduced across all layers of society by specifically banning the use of Catalan in the public sphere. Since then, there have been a few periods in which Catalan has resurged coinciding with brief periods of democracy (or pseudo-democracy) in the Spanish history. The latest one only since the death of the bloody Spanish dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.

Many of us over 40 here in Catalonia do remember our early school years in which Catalan, our mother tongue, was barely taught, only in one subject once a week as if it was a foreign language; or being reprimanded for speaking Catalan among us students when playing in the schoolyard. For goodness' sake, my parents were not allowed to officially register me nor my sister with our Catalan names when we were born and we had to wait until the dictatorship ended to officially change them! So there's a very valid reason for this animosity towards the Spanish.

But with the arrival of democracy in the late 1970s and the partial devolvement of self-government to Catalonia, normality was restored and Catalan is nowadays the vehicular language in all schools in Catalonia. Spanish is taught alongside English and French (the later in many but not all schools). Since then, all students schooled in Catalonia -regardless of their origin- are proficient in both languages, Catalan and Spanish, even obtaining higher scores in Spanish than students from some monolingual regions in Spain where Spanish is the only language (Source: annual assessment tests carried by the Spanish Ministry of Education).

In the adult learning arena the results are not so encouraging and while a large chunk of migrants that arrived in Catalonia either during the dictatorship -when teaching in Catalan was forbidden- or as adults (post-school) have learned Catalan by mingling with Catalan native speakers, some have not, either because they arrived in neighbourhoods with a large migrant community or simply because they have not bothered to learn it -or worst, they've arrogantly disparaged it. Same goes for a handful of migrants and expats from other nationalities. Barcelona, for example, is home to +300,000 migrants and expats from over 120 different nationalities.

DAY TO DAY COEXISTENCE OF THE TWO LANGUAGES

One needs to realize that over the past 80-100 years, a lot of migrants from Spanish-speaking areas (elsewhere in Spain but also, more recently, from many countries from South America) have arrived in Catalonia, and while most have learned (those schooled in Catalonia since the early 1980s anyway) and even adopted Catalan as their main language, many others have maintained Spanish as their primary language. The population in 1900 in Catalonia was under 2 million, now is nearly 8 million, so one can see the % of Catalans with ancestors from other territories (even continents) is rather large.

In this context, a healthy and respectful non-written de-facto agreement has been reached between the two language communities: since those schooled in Catalonia do learn both languages and are able to communicate also in both, everybody uses the one he prefers without forcing the other party to change his choice. Thus, it's very normal to hear conversations in which someone speaks in one language and the other party replies in the other. Both understand each other and the conversation flows normally without even realizing they're using different languages.

This, of course, is not necessarily the case with those that were not schooled here and didn't make the effort to assimilate. Again, there's also a tiny minority that in a perfect colonial attitude, refuse to acknowledge the right of Catalan speakers to use their language and despicably attempt to force the other party to switch language. Here is when trouble appears, of course.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN TO YOU AS VISITOR?

Catalan is spoken across communities in four different countries in Europe: Spain, France, Andorra and the town of Alguer in Italy. This is due to historical reasons dating back to the high of the Catalan influence in the 13th-15th centuries. Today is the 14th most spoken language in Europe, far more than the "national" languages in countries like Romania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Slovakia, Croatia or Norway to name a few, and at par with Portuguese, Czech or Greek for example.

Even though, we understand it is not "big enough" --despite being taught in over 150 universities around the world!-- to be a choice for students in many other countries like Spanish is, as the later has a far larger speaking community elsewhere. For this reason, no one in Catalonia expects visitors to know Catalan yet we do understand some of you might know Spanish instead. So when visiting, if you wish to try your Spanish, as a general rule, no Catalan native speaker will frown nor will answer rudely, moreover taking into account that it's very easy to discern your accent.

Having said this, if you make the effort to learn a few words in Catalan -there are plenty of free online resources (ie www.wikitravel.org/en/Catalan_phrasebook or www.parla.cat - be sure Catalan native speakers will appreciate it immensely. Nothing better than a couple of sentences to win our hearts.

Still, you might encounter situations in which you're replied to in English.... uh? Well, this falls into three possible scenarios: (1) the most common one, you've been spotted as an English native speaker and this is then a great opportunity for locals to brush up on their English skills; (2) errr, your Spanish pronunciation is harsh and for sake of communication it might be better to switch to English so, to avoid the unpleasantness to let you know they're not understanding you, they prefer to facilitate it by switching to English (then, of course, the situation might have reversed, LOL!) and (3) yes, there might also be a tad of an animosity towards Spanish. That depends on the person and the unpleasant situations he might have had in the past in relation to 'language matters'.

Surely there might be other points of view on the matter, even totally opposite, depending on one's own experiences and appreciations. This is just mine.

Enjoy!

Enric, thank you very much for your explanation! Very interesting!

Another option for learning Spanish would be Coffee Break Spanish podcasts, which you can download for free.

I was surprised how much I used my very, very rusty Spanish on our 2 week trip last summer, mostly north and west of Madrid. I think whatever you can learn will make your trip more fun! I even learned a few words in Gallego.

@Eef, my pleasure :)

Forgot to mention that, in any case @jmdaubin, you'll come across plenty of people that speaks English (or at least mumbles it!). Not only is it taught at school as a foreign language since an early age but this is also a land that receives millions of visitors every year and has a large foreign community residing here, so in some circles is the de-facto third language of this small nation :))