1 week of spanish classes are almost over:surrender:

[bdahunter]

My wife and I have been taking spanish lessons this week in Cuenca, Ecuador and it has be a real eye opener for us. We've both done a lot of learning over the years but we were surprised at how hard it has been to take in a new language, even though we have some experience with it. We've definitely learned a lot that is over and above out 'survival spanish' which has gotten us bye in south america for the past 4 months but we also now realize just how much more we have to learn if we are going to live in south america in the future.
We travelled in Mexico for many years and were able to get by in Spanglish (spanish/english) but south america is another story. In south america the lingua franca is spanish, period. If you have to speak in English then you have to pay a high price for it, all the good deals are in spanish and anything that is english oriented is expensive. So back to the grind for us today and more spanish lessons. It is interesting to see things from the local perspective though, something we only got glimpses of with out more limited spanish language skills.

Have a great weekend,

Eric

 

[Cupajo]

In High School as a Texas youngster I was required to take Spanish and did so for two years. A year after graduating I left the state and have returned only for brief visits since then.

Needless to say my Spanish has gotten "rusty" and today I would be lucky to get my car's gas tank filled with warm milk! I have traveled to far away places in the military and somehow managed to muddle through everywhere I went, although I was pretty un-easy a few times in the back streets of Tripoli, Libya back in the '60s just before we got asked to leave by their fearless leader Omar K.

Of course the Castilian Spanish I was exposed to in school wasn't used by many of the Tex/Mex folks and I suspect some of them might not even understand it. My youngest daughter has a BA in Spanish and while working for the local phone company in customer service found that she had a tough time understanding and being understood by the "Spanish" speaking customers.

Then you throw in the Portuguese speaking folks in Brazil and you can really have fun in S. America. Most of the Brazilians do seem to comprende Espanol though.

You are sure to find yourself in a more favorable situation when you become more adept with the spoken word.

Have fun with it,

CJ.

 

[bdahunter]

We're giving the language lessons a break for the next week to let things gel a bit, right now spanish and english vocabulary are bouncing around together and it is confusing. We'll spend the next week scouting around the Cuenca area, looking at property and possible gold panning areas. If we can sort out some of our travel plans we may just spend another month here, instead of heading back to Argentina.
Where will we end up? Qien Sabe?

 

[Micheal_R]

When I left University lo these many years ago, I was pretty much fluent in six languages....... Latin, Italian, Russian, Spanish, German and English. However, i have not used them in over forty years... so they are not there any more........ but I think that they would come back fairly quickly if I put my mind to it.

Fair winds

Micheal

 

[Cupajo]

A friend fluent in several languages assures me that the best way to become fluent is to live in a place where only the language you want to learn is spoken.

This leaves out writing however.

 

[Bayrat76]

I hear it all the time, a couple my best friends are Tex Mex, and I still don't know to speak Spanish, I need to learn even brought some tapes a few years ago. One of my son in laws is from Columbia by birth. I have good friends from Chile too, all of them great people, and true family people. Would really like to go to Costa Rico to fish and enjoy some RnR. Plus most the woman I meet from there true beauty's.