subject: Conversational Spanish In Mexico Or How To Keep From Starving On Vacation [print this page] Conversational Spanish In Mexico Or How To Keep From Starving On Vacation
Learning the basics of any language, particularly the language of a country you are planning on visiting, can be very rewarding. Especially if you like to eat! Or drink. Or do anything that requires communication. I found out the hard way what can happen when a tourist thinks the whole world speaks English.
We went to a little village southeast of Acapulco about 7 years ago hoping to escape the normal touristas. It was quite a beautiful place. The mountains and the scenery were spectacular! Just one problem...Nobody Spoke English. Well, nobody besides the taxi driver from the airport and the owner of the Bed and Breakfast where we stayed. Thank goodness for having her around, because she turned out to be our savior. LOL
Almost immediately after arriving we were faced with a problem, find an interpreter or stay cooped up at the B and B the whole trip. We decided to hang out there, (there were no interpreters around). It turned out that that was one of the best decisions we could have made.
Our hostess, savior actually, was a most interesting lady. When we told her the predicament we found ourselves in, she volunteered to tutor us in crash Spanish lessons, (she now has a place in my will). Over the course of the next 3 days, (we were there 2 glorious weeks), our saint patiently taught us enough Spanish to survive on our sightseeing trips.
When we came home, the first thing I did was to look around for some way to not repeat that foolhardy experience of being ill prepared. After looking at numerous internet courses in Spanish, I settled on one in particular. Not only did it expand greatly on what little we learned in Mexico, it provided us with a rich experience in becoming fairly fluent in conversational Spanish.
