Learning Spanish with a Tutor

Today's blog post is going to be a quick one because I'm tired.  But I promised myself I'd write a blog post every day in November, thinking that it should be easy given my time is completely my own.  Here I am with time to do anything I want, yet I'm still having a hard time finding time to write a simple blog post!

Similarly, I wanted to spend time every day speaking Spanish while I was in Mexico. This turned out to be more difficult than expected because..  I'm still really bad at Spanish!  Here in Playa del Carmen just about everyone knows English, so as soon as it's obvious that I don't know Spanish well, people speak in English.  However, I've been telling people that I want to practice Spanish, and they are very accommodating. And even though they usually rattle off some very fast Spanish that I can hardly understand, I usually get the gist. The good news is,  I'm a lot better than I was last year.  The bad news is, I'm not nearly as good as I want to be.

Today, I got a private tutor, German, who I met with from 8-10am this morning. I really liked our session and I could understand everything German was saying.  We spoke only in Spanish and even though I know my grammar was all wrong, it was great just getting the practice of speaking and listening to a native speaker.

Then I got the opportunity, once again, tonight.  My friend, Jack, is getting private Spanish conversation practice with a native speaker, Maria, from Columbia, and he invited me to join along on his session with Maria tonight.

It's a little ironic that while I'm here in Mexico, I'm speaking Spanish over a Zoom call with a friend from the US and his tutor in Columbia.  It goes to show you that in today's world, we are able to learn and practice a language from anywhere!

Both German and Maria spoke very slowly, using easy vocabulary, and enunciating their words clearly... not at all like the "real world." And still, I didn't understand them completely,  but I know the more I practice listening and speaking the easier it will get.