Learning Spanish

We've now been in Puerto Rico for 8 days. We've settled into a routine with home school, excursions, and trips to various beaches for swimming. We also have incorporated learning Spanish into our routine.

Prior to our trip, Karen and I both spent several months using Rosetta Stone to begin learning Latin American Spanish, which is different from Spanish spoken in Spain. An acquaintance from home, who grew up in PR, recommended a 1990's educational series made for TV called Destinos. We explored a couple of other online resources, too and made enough progress that we were not totally lost when we arrived.

Learning enough Spanish to be comfortable here is a goal we have for ourselves and for the kids. We have hired a tutor who comes to the house twice a week for an hour each time. Beatrice was born in Cuba and has lived in the US. She talks to us in a mixture of Spanish and English, asks us questions, teaches us pronunciation and usage, gives us information about Puerto Rican history and government, and gives us 'homework' assignments. Face-to-face learning helps us to be accountable for learning.

The kids have located a number of Spanish lesson resources on youtube. Part of home school is spending time each day working on their Spanish. Claire, in particular, seems to really enjoy this learning and spends a good bit of her 'free screen time' using the ipad to listen and practice the alphabet, days of the week, counting, and conversation.

We've also started watching episodes of Destinos each evening. This 52-episode story teaches communication and comprehension skills in the format of a continuing story:

 "Destinos recounts the story of Los Angeles-based lawyer Raquel Rodríguez who is hired by the family of Fernando Castillo. He had discovered that his first wife, Rosario, did not die in the Spanish Civil War as he had believed, but had survived and had an unknown child. In the course of her investigation of the case, Raquel travels to a number of Spanish-speaking areas — Seville and Madrid in Spain; Buenos Ares in Argentina;  San Juan in Puerto Rico, and Mexico— has a number of adventures and mishaps, and faces a number of melodramatic conflicts."

Everyone seems to enjoy this mode of learning and we've been known to watch more than one episode in an evening!

We try to use our Spanish words whenever we're out. We've gotten reasonably good at ordering food and shopping. We have told our waitstaff - in Spanish - that we are learning Spanish and request that they speak to us in Spanish. We've been pleasantly surprised by the smiles we get when we say this or when we make attempts to talk in Spanish.

We also try to read signs we see while walking or traveling on the bus. When we have excursions - like today's trip to the Castillo San Felipe del Morro - we start by reading the placards first in Spanish. This works pretty well for the first several signs, then our brains get tired.

Day by day, we make a bit of progress:-)

 ¡Hasta mañana!