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I’m a newly inspired Spanish language learner

I have been working hard lately on my Spanish and am determined to improve and improve a lot. I’ve been listening to podcasts and lessons on my walks in the morning and have been pushing myself to use what I learn by talking to people much more. But sometimes luck can intervene, and for me it did in the book at the top of the post. (click the image to check it out on Amazon) The author, Benny Lewis, has...

Mazatlan this ‘n that

Life is good here in Mazatlán. Warm but not too warm. Sunny but not too sunny. Breezy but not too windy. We love it. What’s been going on? Not too much. I’ve been watching my pineapple grow… I would say it’ll be ready to eat in about another month. This is the second one I’ve grown by planting a pineapple top – the first was delicious so I hope this one is, too. I’ve been keeping up on the walking...

Learning Spanish through immersion…

One reason we chose Mazatlán as our home in México was because we weren’t fluent in Spanish.  We knew it would take time to learn and that until we achieved more fluency we’d be more comfortable in a place with some English speakers.  We knew we’d want English speaking friends and a bit of a safety net. While we don’t for a second regret our choice of Mazatlán, the quantity of English speakers here means that we aren’t living immersed...

Paul was immersed

Paul takes the blog to tell about his experience: When we moved to Mexico I had several goals in mind. One of the most important to me was to learn to speak Spanish well. I have always had a pretty good ear for languages and considered myself the type of person who could pick it up quickly. I had studied Spanish in high school and remembered some basics, and I spent a lot of time listening to instructional CDs before...

Change is in the air…

Paul and I have lived in Mazatlán for a year and a half now. We’ve been taking Spanish classes for most of that time, and have progressed quite a lot. We understand all the tenses and know how they are used. We can read the paper. We can go about our daily life without a lot of tension. But one of our goals – that we stated before we even moved here – was to be able to have a...

Friday update

It’s just been regular life around here, but we like it. The weatherman in the newspaper says that it won’t be cold anymore, and will just get warmer and warmer.  This year has been very mild, I have only worn pants in the evenings a few times and never got out my socks and shoes like I did last year.  There has been some blustery weather though, but the temperatures were still mild even though the ocean got very choppy. ...

My nose is longer than a telephone wire

I’ve noticed something a bit upsetting about myself lately.  I’m a liar. This morning, Guadalupe was here cleaning the house.  Lately we have been chatting for a few minutes here and there.  I told her my son Adam and his wife Martha were coming to visit tomorrow and she said I must be very happy and we went back and forth like that for a little bit. We’d bought some beautiful gladiolas Sunday at the flower market on our way...

Ordinary Life

It’s just ordinary life here in Mexico these days. The humidity hasn’t been too bad this summer so far, until yesterday. It just felt wet most of the day. I didn’t eat or drink enough and had kind of a bad moment in the late afternoon but after a bunch of water, a smoothie, and a shower I was back to normal. You really need to pay attention to your body in the heat. I won’t make that mistake again....

Meltdown, an update

My Spanish class meltdown was back on June 18 – so I thought I would give an update now that a couple of weeks have passed. First, I am really glad it happened. I talked to so many people, thought about it a lot, and had wonderful feedback from many blog friends. But the bottom line is that sometimes the really bad day is what you need to get you to analyze the situation, and from that, make progress. I...

Meltdown

I was a mess in Spanish class yesterday. It has really gotten hard. Something happened as if a blender went on in my brain and all the separate tenses, their conjugations and irregulars all were mixed up into a Spanish smoothie. I can’t even tell you how upset I was. We are in a difficult place as far as learning goes, and our teacher tells us that he’s pushing us, which is usually good for me. But sheesh, I have...

Gracias, Maestro

Today is the Dia del Maestro here in México and I would sincerely like to thank Hector for his excellent instruction, eternal patience, and ever-present good humor. We are still only beginners but we have come a long way in a few short months. Thank you!...

Learning Spanish in the real world

Paul and I are really working hard at learning Spanish. We are taking lessons from Hector – and the reason we chose him is that everyone we spoke to said that he was hard but that if you really wanted to learn Spanish, he was the teacher to choose. The thing we want to learn is to communicate verbally…to really be able to talk to people. In class we basically translate sentences in the various tenses for an hour and...

Let’s Learn Spanish!

  I am working on learning Spanish by employing a number of different methods. Some seem to help me more than others. I was thinking about how a child learns language. They learn “mom”, “dad”, “cookie”, etc…and as time goes on they add verbs and conjunctions and before you know it they have simple sentences. What this revelation did for me is made it clear to me that I need more nouns in my vocabulary. I checked a book out...

Why Mexico?

There are many reasons that we want to move to Mexico, and I thought I’d explain a few of them. These are not in order of importance! 1. Because We Can Retire. Paul is going to be 62 in June. I’m 9 years younger. If we are going to be able to both retire, we really can’t do it here. Given our financial circumstances, if Paul were to retire here and take his social security and pensions, I would have...

Book Synopsis

  As stated in a previous post, I just finished reading How to Learn Any Language Quickly, Easily, Inexpensively, Enjoyably and On Your Own by Barry Farber. I guess I am smart since a number of the suggestions he makes for learning any language are ones that I’d already worked out for myself. Take full advantage of opportunities – If you meet someone at a party, or a cab driver, or wherever you run into someone in your target language...