Tag: Spanish by the River

How’s the Spanish going? – thoughts on the Travelling Spanish School

So after five weeks and 92 hours of Spanish lessons, what were our final thoughts, and how did it compare to the travelling classroom in Ecuador?

As a small anecdote, editing this post from El Salvador a few weeks later (no spoilers, we’re still alive) we recently took a tour of the San Salvador national theatre. At first, being the only people on the tour, the guide asked if we’d prefer Spanish or English and we explained, as we often do, that we’re trying to learn Spanish and we need the practice so we’d prefer Spanish. A few minutes into the tour, an American family arrived (who appeared to be of Spanish descent) and requested English, leaving us in the slightly awkward position of having the remainder of the tour given to us in Spanish only for the guide to then switch to English to repeat it to the Americans. Whether he realised that English was our native language or not we’ll never know but, thanks to his clear intonation I was pleased to see, when he repeated each section in English, that I had understood 80-90% only missing the words that just aren’t in my vocabulary.

So, it’s clear that we have definitely improved, for me, my better understanding of the language means that when I’m reading I’m better able to recognise conjugation of words and correctly identify the tense. I’m finding it easier to compose sentences especially when I’m writing and have more time to think it through. I also found the Spanish lessons much easier to understand than last time and learnt more as a result. My speech was definitely the weakest area of my Spanish when we started and it has also improved with the result that I’m finding it easier to make more complex requests. This isn’t to say that we’re fluent or ever find it easy, when people speak very quickly, drop consonents, or do both at the same time (which I am very guilty of in English!) it’s quite normal for me to start only catching as little as 1 word in 10! I now feel however like the key to improving my Spanish is practice, whereas last time I was surprised after 4 weeks how much there was still to learn!

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Whitewater Rafting on the Pacuare River

The Travelling Spanish class included a two day rafting trip. We were both really excited for this, having been whitewater rafting a few times before but only for a few hours each time. We left on the Saturday morning from Turrialba, stayed overnight in a camp in the jungle, and continued down the river to Siquirres the next day.

On the first day we packed a small bag which was taken away to arrive by car at the camp that evening. For the day we could only take with us things that could get wet. We were dropped off outside of town and walked down to the river with our guide José-Luis. He was great, so enthusiastic and knowledgeable. He overheard me say I didn’t get to see red frogs in Bocas, two minutes later he found a couple for me by the side of the path!

We had two rafts for the ten of us, and two guides, plus a kayaker who went ahead at each rapid and took photos and videos for us. Our raft was me, Chris, Luisa, Berglin, and Mimi. Luisa and Berglin had never been before, but José-Luis was great and soon got everyone going.

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Learning Spanish in Panamá

One of the main reasons for choosing Latin America for our travels was to improve our Spanish. We found a Spanish school whereby we can travel and learn at the same time.

On Sunday evening we had our introductory talk for the Spanish school. Our teacher, Sergio, had been detained by another engagement so it came to Camila, who was assisting us for the week, to give the introduction. After a brief intro she took each of us in turn for a one to one Spanish oral test. I was a little nervous and it didn’t help that the first question she asked me was “Que has hecho en Panamá?”. This uses the preterito perfecto tense which is not one that I’ve used before. I managed to answer some more questions but I didn’t come away feeling confident. Alex seemed to fare better, but her Spanish is better than mine so I wasn’t surprised.

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