I have a friend, John, who had traveled a few times to Spain, to a place on the east coast called Denia. After about five years of regular vacationing there, he’d fallen in love with the place. So, as soon as he took early retirement he decided to come over and get himself a place to live. He didn’t have any immediate family to worry about - his wife had died about 10 years before and they’d never had any children.

Like most Brits who come over here, he found a bungalow in a housing estate where the only residents were other Brits. It’s much easier, and you can get everything you need without having to speak a word of Spanish. Satellite TV beams over all your English programs - including his favorite football team’s matches. John couldn’t imagine living anywhere he couldn’t watch Liverpool on TV on a Saturday! Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re looking for a great course to learn Spanish, whether you’re a complete beginner or you’ve already reached a certain level, I recommend you try Rocket Spanish.

Rocket Spanish is a friendly, comfortable course, and because it contains lots of different components it’s a perfect match for most of the different ways different people study. There are plenty of CDs, so if you spend a lot of time in a car, they can be just terrific. It might look strange if someone sees you sitting in the car talking to yourself, but it definitely helps a lot to repeat things out loud over and over again. One of the things that are especially useful are the long pauses - they give you time to say things without feeling pressured. And you can choose which way round you use the dialogues. You can see the lesson in print and then listen to the audio to check the pronunciation and accent of the words, or you can listen and repeat first, and then see how the words are written. Read the rest of this entry »