Ever since my first trip to Costa Rica a year ago, I have been bragging to my Canadian friends about my new trilingual status. I have a minimal formal Spanish education (beginners Spanish at university, which I barely passed) and I have never lived in a Spanish speaking country other than Costa Rica[...]
Posts Tagged ‘Spanish’
Skyping for School
“Back in my day, we had to send letters across the ocean and wait weeks to get a response,” says my pastor who lived in western Europe for 20 years as a missionary. I’ve got it good. Two thousand miles is bridged in seconds with Skype, a program often used by my husband and I [...][...]
September 6th, 2010 - 9:47 am § in News, Tips & Resources
¿Did You Know Idealist Also Blogs En Español?
Adapted from the Idealist.org homepage blog Are you a Spanish speaker or do you have any Spanish speaking amigos? You might not have realized that writers at our sister site, Idealistas, are blogging up a storm on topics ranging from career advice to ideas for social change that are spreading throug[...]
Runway Mix: This Time Tomorrow
The day of departure is an emotionally volatile period for soon-to-be expats. Anticipation is tarnished by anxiety. Isolation belittles independence. Caffeine wrestles with physical and psychological exhaustion. On May 19, 2010, the day that a Midwest summer was traded for the Central American rainy[...]
How to Learn a Language
Immersion, immersion, immersion! Sadly, I never learned the amount of Spanish I had hoped to while volunteering in Chile but now in Guatemala, I’m more than making up for it. Staying with a Spanish speaking family is the best possible immersion you could hope for and great fun, too. My Spanish[...]
The Multiple Personalities of You
I suspect I wasn’t the only grade school Spanish language learner for whom the vosotros form had a sort of rogue ninja presence. Easily avoidable in classroom skits, it would spring out of the shadows at the most inopportune moments (usually, a pop quiz) to remind us that no, we didn’t h[...]
¿Dónde Está El Baño?
¿Dónde está el baño? That is arguably the most important question to know in Spanish. Most who arrive in South America, regardless of previous Spanish education, will know how to ask for the bathroom. This knowledge is both crucial and painful. Many of the public restrooms haven’t been cleaned[...]
From Hostel Living to Becoming a Tía
For the past ten days I’ve been living in a room with seven other strangers and awoken each night, and morning, by unusual sounds each day. There is always someone snoring heavily, someone speaking nonsense in their sleep, someone stumbling in after a long night of partying, or someone packing up[...]
