Learning Spanish

Bob and I both have been studying Spanish for months, in hopes that we would be able to get around and communicate successfully in Spanish, even though we are told that many Costa Ricans speak English, especially in tourist areas.

In this endeavor, Bob is way ahead of me. When he was a teenager, his father was posted first to Panama and then to Bogota, Colombia as a government consultant for the FAA. Bob went to high school in the Canal Zone for two years and afterwards spent a few summers in Bogota. Although he has not spoken Spanish for over fifty years, it is coming back to him now as he is studying Spanish again. I, on the other hand, never took Spanish in school, even though I grew up in Miami, Florida where Spanish was widely spoken. I took Latin in high school and French in college. And now, as I attempt to learn Spanish, I find that many French words and phrases tend to creep into my attempts to speak Spanish.

We are learning our Spanish via computer. Bob found a wonderful Spanish course online, Visual Link - Spanish. This course is great because it starts out, right in the first lesson, teaching basic words, phrases, and sentences that one would need to get around in Spanish. Bob has completed the Level One course and is now in Level Two. I am still in the middle of Level One. We are both finding that though our recall memory works pretty well, our capacity to learn and remember new language is not as good as it once was. I can go through a lesson and then remember the words in an immediate review. But a day later, I have forgotten about half of the words and phrases. Two steps forward, one step back. Frustrating!

There are some other Spanish-learning tools in our toolkit. Both of us have loaded an unabridged English-Spanish Dictionary into our iPhones and iPads. I have also found an App called iTranslate, which I think will come in very handy. And just in case our electronic gadgets do not work, I am also bringing with me a small English-Spanish Dictionary that will fit nicely into my purse. The Visual Link course also provides a print manual that includes summaries of all the lessons in the online course. Although it's too big to fit in my purse, it will be a handy reference as well.

I am hoping that once we are in country, I/we will learn at a much faster pace. I am not confident that I could get around much in Spanish at this point. But I am confident that Bob can. I think we will do fine. Immersion is the best way to learn. Use it or lose it! Here we go! Adelante!