Read about my tips, resources, failures, and successes while learning to speak Spanish

We recently purchased a Nintendo DS game system.  Besides the usual selection of kid-oriented video games, the DS has a substantial selection of games that involve puzzles and learning.  One of the more popular ones is called “Brain Age” (and its sequel), which helps to keep your mind sharp through daily activities.  In addition, you can learn a few foreign languages using the Nintendo DS with the “My Word Coach” game series. 

As you have probably guessed, there’s a game called “My Spanish Coach” game for the DS.  I purchased the game yesterday and have worked up to level 17 in a couple of hours of playing.  The game begins by giving you a simple test of vocabulary and depending on the results, you will be moved forward in the lesson sequence.  Once you begin, you receive short lesson and you demonstrate proficiency through your successful completion of mini-games.  Most of the games are really fun!  The only one I’m not very good at yet is the “memory” game, which is just like a memory card game, except it is timed.  It seems that the game has 50 levels in total and a 10,000 word dictionary.

My Spanish Coach is not an advanced learning tool, but it is a neat little game for review and practice of Spanish.  It is geared to beginners or those who have been studying for probably a year or less.  If you have done any study of Spanish, then you will be placed somewhere above level 1 and you may find most of it very easy.  However, I think the review games will help build skills and make more concrete words and concepts that you already know.  I would not recommend this (or anything else) as a sole learning tool, but if you have a Nintendo DS, you might consider this as a fun review/reinforcement resource.

I did notice that in the UK there’s an Intermediate version of this game.  I have not yet seen this available in the U.S. but I suspect it will eventually be available soon. 

Well, after my last post, I couldn’t help but notice in another restaurant what seems to be a very accurate translation of the sign instructing employees to wash their hands before returning to work.  It seems that Babin’s Seafood should strongly consider simply purchasing a pre-made sign out of a restaurant supply catalog — which is likely where these items were sourced.

The signs pictured here were mounted to the inside of the men’s room door at Zio’s Italian restaurant in north Houston.

Of course, just because the sign is here in both English and Spanish doesn’t mean the employees are reading it!   ¡Buen provecho!

Living in Southeast Texas in the 21st century means becoming increasingly accustomed to seeing bi-lingual signs virtually everywhere.  As recently as five years ago, this was not very common.  Caution signs simply said “Caution”  … not “Caution — Cuidado.”  Nowadays, things are changing rapidly. 

Since I’m learning Spanish, I find these bi-lingual labels, signs and documents slightly intriguing, because they are a good source of new vocabulary for me, as well as everyday reading comprehension practice in Spanish.  That’s why when I saw this sign in a local seafood restaurant, I found it slightly… disturbing.  Some people would refrain from telling you where this sign was located, out of some irrational fear of lawsuit or political correctness.  That’s not my style! 

This sign is located in the men’s bathroom at a Babin’s Seafood restaurant in Houston, Texas.  This is a Cajun-style seafood chain that we have here in Houston.  It’s not a cheap restaurant, either, at about $25-35 per person, which is why the poor translation is so surprising.

In my rudamentary Spanish, my take on the translation would be something like “Think about washing your hands,” which is certainly not the same as “Employees must was their hands.”  Keep in mind, a good portion of the kitchen staff are likely to be Spanish speakers…  This translation is so poor, that I almost wonder if it was a joke by one of the bi-lingual employees on their English-only boss.

Before anyone asks:  Yes, I still eat here.  They have some awesome fresh Gulf (of Mexico) fish cooked in delicious Cajun style! 

Recently I put an ad on Craigslist under the category of
‘activity partners’ to find a local native Spanish speaker with which to practice spoken Spanish, while offering assistance with English. My ad looked somewhat like a personal ad, because for obvious reasons it is good to have things in common with someone in order to have interesting conversation topics for both parties, although I was very clear as to the intent of the meetings. 

Anyway, I was fortunate enough to receive a couple of emails from potential conversation partners. The most promising was from a local teacher who moved here from Mexico to teach. We are also of similar age and it turned out later that he and I have a common interest in dSLR photography, too.  This type of educated Spanish-speaker is exactly who I was hoping to find!  I can see us finding interesting topics to discuss long after we exhaust the usual family, work and travel topics.

We have met a couple of times so far, utilizing local coffee shops and cafes that are mutually convenient.  More of our conversation has tended to be in English thus far, because we discovered our interest in photography and I really don’t know the technical terms for anything in Spanish, yet. However, we plan to increase the Spanish, and he has been helping me by correcting my Spanish. I also help him where I can with English phrases, unusual vocabulary usage and more advanced idiomatic usages that he hasn’t mastered quite yet, although his English is already superb.

The next “phase” of our plan, in addition to our one-on-one meetings, is to meet with a group — some Spanish-speakers, some English-speakers, such as my wife and some of his friends.  The feeling is that the Spanish speakers will tend to speak only Spanish with their Spanish-speaking peers, and the result will be that my wife and I will actually be forced to speak Spanish in order to be involved in the conversation.   I’m hoping we can do that fairly soon and I also would like to be able to converse about photography and other technical topics, such as education, with him eventually as well, in Spanish.

I hope that eventually I will develop even more native Spanish-speaking friends so that I can get to know more about this beautiful language, its people and its culture through those who grew up speaking the language.  I don’t know what the long-term effectiveness of this process will be, but perhaps others have tried or will try this and can comment on their experiences as well. 

Something that stands out in my mind when I think back to our month in Mexico is the mornings.  The mornings were cool, fresh and beautiful.  Accompanied by comfortable routine and friendly faces saying “buenos dias” as we walked along the sidewalks and streets to our Spanish school.  Once at the school each morning, I often enjoyed a cup of coffee while checking my e-mail on the school’s wireless internet service and observing the view of the beautiful tree-filled barraca (ravine) upon which the school is situated.

I’m so ready to go back.  I just wish we had more than two weeks to spend!! 

In the summer of 2007, I had the amazing opportunity to spend 4 weeks at an immersion Spanish language school in Cuernavaca, Mexico.  I was given advice by several people indicating that this is by far the best way to quickly acquire functional skills in Spanish.  My wife went with me and we attended the Encuentros school located in Cuernavaca, Mexico.  Actually, Cuernavaca has nearly 30 schools teaching Spanish, primarily to native English speakers.

The school works on a one-week scheduling pattern, which means you can join in classes on any Monday of the year.  Depending on when you attend, the number of students will vary.  If you are able to take vacation during “off” times of the year, you will have the advantage of extremely small classes and you may perhaps have an instructor all to yourself.  If you are a student or a teacher and you can only travel during summers, there are more people, but it is still a worthwhile trip.  Classes are kept small, with about 4 students or less, and the school’s facilities are beautiful.  I don’t want to focus too much on the specific school, because I think you can get a similar experience at any number of schools.  There is much culture and language to absorb in Cuernavaca.  From historical sites like the Cortez’s Palace to the very active central plaza, I had no shortage of opportunities to use and learn Spanish on a daily basis in Cuernavaca.

When I got back home, the most difficult thing for me was finding the time and place to really practice Spanish the way I did in Mexico.  Even in a heavily Speanish-speaking city like Houston, there just are not many opportunities to engage people in conversation as compared with a Spanish-speaking country.  I think I really regressed in my abilities for a few months before I really got the “bug” to keep up the work of learning a second language.

If I had to give advice to anyone about learning Spanish in another country, it would be this:  Try to stay longer!  Although four weeks is a nice long stay, I would have enjoyed spending the entire summer there.  If I had discovered an interest in this years ago, as a single person with no real financial or work obligations, I would have to seriously consider living in Mexico for several months to a year.  In fact, I hope some people reading this blog are in their early 20’s… if so, now is your time! 

I will include some links to popular Spanish immersion schools in Mexico here on this site.  Please keep checking back as they are updated!

In February of 2007, I had a job interview for a position that I really wanted. The interviewer was brutally honest with me (which is a rarity): She needed a male who is bi-lingual in English and Spanish. A male, because the position involves working with adolescent boys and possibly doing personal searches for drugs and weapons. Bi-lingual, because the school is about 85% hispanic, meaning that a good portion of the students and parents speak Spanish as their first or only language. She told me she was interviewing 4 candidates and whichever one was bi-lingual was getting the job.

Well, I was not bi-lingual at that time and at that moment had absolutely on intention or desire to become bi-lingual. I was actually sometimes offended by all the Spanish TV channels on my cable television (and all the time it took me to program them out of the list!), annoyed by all the government and bank forms in English & Spanish and paranoid about the influx of Spanish-speaking illegal immigrants, wherever they happened to be from. I figured if they wanted someone bi-lingual, well that was not me and I had no desire for it to be me.  I was slightly bitter about the whole thing, though.

That quickly changed in the coming days as I mulled over the implications of that job interview. I began to really think about what a great asset it would be to a school for me to be fully bi-lingual or at least to be conversational in Spanish, and how this would help my career goals. This would be a great skill that would set me apart from other applicants. But, how would I accomplish this and could I even accomplish this seemingly difficult feat?  A second language?  In my 30’s?

I posted this question to a mentor of mine, an administrator at the school where I work. He is bi-lingual and, like me, also of a hispanic family background. What’s different than me is that he had to learn Spanish in order to speak to his grandmother when he was growing up. This seemingly inconvenient reality has made him a highly sought after person in his job in Texas public schools. The response I got from him was both encouraging and obvious: “You have a master’s degree and a bachelor’s degree…. you’re a smart guy. If you put your mind to it, of course you can learn Spanish!” This was food for thought.  If I put my mind to it.  If I work at it.  How much work?  Do I really want to do this work?

Well, after several other similar responses from other professionals, I changed my focus from whether I should learn Spanish to how I was going to learn Spanish. Overwhelmingly, I heard the same advice from my co-workers: go to a language immersion school in a Latin America. This was based on experiences from three different professionals, all of whom are now proficient Spanish speakers.

I ended up deciding that I’d like to go to an immersion school in Mexico and I my wife, who loves to travel, was also interested in going.   She decided that she wanted to go and take Spanish classes, too! So, with this decided, my journey began. While my wife has been there with me throughout this process, learning is really a personal experience.  As such, this blog will mainly be about what has worked for me, with occasional anecdotes about how this experience can differ from one person to the next. 

Anyway, at this point in my story the problem was that the trip to Mexico was still months off and I was ready to begin learning spanish right away! So, I began a search for how I could learn Spanish locally. I checked on community college classes and “googled” for other local classes.   (Please note: links provided are from several resources that I’ve used.  I have not been paid, nor do I ever expect payment, for any sort of endorsement… The whole point of this blog is to share my journey, the good and the bad! So, here goes.)

First, I found a local provider called Speak Spanish!: Spanish Over Coffee Program. Their website is HERE. I met with the instructor, Gena Scurry, in a downtown Houston coffee shop for a free evaluation lesson and program explanation (note: I believe there is now a charge for this meeting). Although the instructor seemed really enthusiastic and competent, the price was really a lot more than I could justify: over $900 per level. Ouch! This was particularly frustrating, because it seemed in her methodology that most of the work was really put on the student and people that he/she would encounter in daily life (Spanish-speakers). While the idea is very good, it isn’t worth paying someone else $900+ to show me how to do this…. I can do that myself. What I wanted was a methodical classroom learning experience.  Grammar instruction, a framework upon which to build.

Low and behold, I found what I wanted in a local provider called Spanish Language Services. They can be found HERE. Because I took 2 years of Spanish in high school, I didn’t really want to sit through the alphabet and basic pronouns for 6 weeks, so I took the Beginner’s class online using streaming video. In the meantime, I signed up for the in-person Intermediate class, where the challenges really began. Although it was challenging, the instructor also made it downright fun! I anxiously attended each of the 2 classes per week, thirsting for more information, more practice, more SPANISH! I was really loving it!  I am eternally grateful to Mr. Jerome Booker for not only teaching me the basics of the language, but for showing me the cultural doors that are opened when you learn Spanish.  If you live in the East Houston area or Beaumont, I highly recommend taking his courses.  If you need a foundation to build your other Spanish learning upon, I recommend the online video class. 

Before our four week stay in Mexico was to begin, I was able to squeeze in 12 weeks of in-person classes (2 nights a week) with Spanish Language Services. I was having a blast and anxiously awaiting Mexico… I couldn’t wait to speak “real Spanish” with real people in another country!!

I almost couldn’t believe that a failed job interview lead to all of this…

(to be continued on the next post)