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!
But after a year or so he thought he’d see how the other half lived – the other half being the natives. He went into the town and found that he actually liked escaping from his fellow Brits, and the atmosphere in the Spanish bars and restaurants was actually more exciting. The only problem was, he didn’t understand anything that was going on – except the football on the TV! The people there tried to talk to him in English, but they weren’t very fluent.
After a month or so of this, John rang me and asked me how he could learn Spanish so he could communicate with the people he’d met. First I suggested going to a Spanish language school, but John didn’t like the idea very much – at his age he didn’t want to back to school! So I recommended looking for something on internet and studying at his own pace at home. I had a look around as well and saw the course offered by Rocket Spanish. It looked just what John was after – it would get him speaking right from the first day, and the type of situations they used to present the language were just the sort of situations John would probably find himself in. The only drawback I saw was that the Spanish in the course was Latin American Spanish, but I told him to give it a go anyway. It’s basically the same as a student of English learning American English and then speaking it in Britain – they can understand and be understood, so it’s no great problem.
John started to study Rocket Spanish at home, and used to go out most nights to practice with his Spanish friends. The combination was just perfect – he was learning in logical steps from a structured course and at the same time he was able to use the new language for real! The more he learned, the more he could understand his new friends, and the more motivated he became. Now he’s almost completely integrated in the Spanish community in Denia. And his friends just love his Latin American way of speaking!
John’s case was special, and he had the advantage of being able to practice with native Spaniards, but the Rocket Spanish course is just as good for people without access to natives. If you’d like to try it you can get a free 6-day course – just click here to grab your copy. If you like it and find it useful, you can update to the main course.
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