Spanish Facts Almendra Gomezleyva

Hi there, welcome to Spanish Facts. Today is our sixth episode and we're going to hear about Marine from Belgium. She came two years ago for the first time to Mexico and she started learning Spanish with a private tutor. But she learned most of her Spanish while working in a hostel. Then she moved to Australia to learn English for two years and came back to Puerto Escondido. She is now working again in the hostel and her Spanish improves day by day because she practices everyday with the locals and with the community, and she's very willing to improve and to learn more. Let's hear about Marine and her challenges while learning Spanish.


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Welcome to Spanish Facts

This is the fifth episode and this time our guest Kevin is telling us about his experience learning Spanish in Dallas.

Kevin first learned Spanish in high school with very little success, however a few years later he was working in a kitchen with a lot of latinos who were mostly speaking Spanish, Kevin became very good friend with them and he started to use his little Spanish to communicate, he started to listen to music in Spanish and he would print the lyrics and translate them in order to learn new words and expressions.

Later on, he decided to study Spanish and translation and a box full with opportunities was open to him. He was able to do an exchange program in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Once in Mexico he was invited to work on a program with the “Triquis” an indigenous community in Oaxaca. He also went to Galicia, Spain where he improved even more his knowledge about the language, there he was introduced to his wife on a phone call and now he lives in Mexico with his beloved family in a full-time bilingual life.


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Hi there, welcome to Spanish Facts. This is our 4th episode and today I am interviewing my good friend Rosita from the USA. Rosita lives in Mexico and she has been here for two years now. When she arrived two years ago she was not able to speak any Spanish at all so she started to have lessons with a private teacher for two months and then she started to try the language with the locals. She started to play volleyball every afternoon at the beach with some local folks an at the beginning, it was very difficult for her to speak because she she couldn't understand anything and now she has very good friends that she met there, who helped her to improve her Spanish and to speak better everyday, she acknowledged that a flaw in her learning process is that she also has very good friends from all over the world, so they mostly speak English when they are together. But it's a good thing that she acknowledged that and she knows she needs to keep practicing and talk with the local people and to try, so she is brave enough to conquer her fear of speaking and making mistakes. So she's getting better every every day. Let's hear about Rosita and if you have further questions for her let me know, so next time she comes back we can ask her these questions. Thank you.


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Hi there, 

Welcome back to Spanish Facts, this is our third episode and this time I am interviewing my friend Przemyslaw from Poland, he is married with one of my best friends from Mexico and they live together in Poland, so I took the chance  while they are visiting the family here in Mexico to interview him since he learned Spanish in a very unusual way.  He learned Spanish in Poland about 4 or 5 years ago, and he learned it by watching Mexican and Colombian soap operas, which we know as telenovelas, they are very dramatic but they are a very good way to learn Spanish. 


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Hi there, welcome back to Spanish Facts

In this episode I’m going to interview my good friend Fiona from England, Fiona learned Spanish at school with very little success, the first time she went to Spain she was able to say only a few sentences but she couldn’t communicate with the locals. When she moved to Spain she was living with 4 guys who only spoke Spanish so it was very difficult for her to communicate but it forced her to learn Spanish faster, the main challenge for Fiona was her perfectionist personality, she didn’t dare to speak because she was afraid of making mistakes or speak with an accent but her Spanish friends encouraged her to keep trying and to speak. After a while she was able to speak fluently but then everything changed when she visited Mexico the firs time and she couldn’t understand a thing, the main problem was that locals were speaking using many slang words that she didn’t know, but she was determined to speak so she wrote a list with every new slang word she learned and she memorized them all. She is now leaving in Mexico and she speaks fluently, she knows many slang words and she is very good integrated with the locals and their way of living. Let’s hear about Fiona and he experience learning Spanish.


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Today we are going to interview my good friend Tuuli, Tuuli comes from Finland, and the first time she came to Mexico was  11 years ago she was coming only for three weeks and she only could speak Finnish, English and a little bit of French. She came to Mexico with a small book with some sentences in Spanish, so she was only able to order food, to ask where the bathroom was, to say  "hi", "thank you" and "please." After this time she went back to Finland and she started to learn Spanish at college. She came back to Mexico for three or six months. Then she started to learn Spanish with a private tutor from Uruguay. After a year, she realized she was able to understand and to communicate quite good, but she had another challenge: She had already a group of friends, but when they were speaking together, she was not able to understand the topic until it was too late to participate, so she developed some techniques in order to understand and to pick some words from the topic so she could participate and contribute with her ideas. Then she got a job and she was very excited for it. But there was another challenge: the phone she was able to answer the phone and to understand who was talking but she was not able to understand the message so she could only tell her boss who had called but she was not able to tell what the message was. After some practice and some hard work, she was able to speak Spanish. Now she lives here. She has a job and her life is like any other local. She has a tip for you, when you are learning Spanish in another country, go with the locals and with the people who have no other choice but to speak Spanish. If you try to talk with people who also speak your language or English. They are going to try to talk to you in English because they are also eager to practice their second or third language. So if you go with a host family, that only speaks Spanish, it will be very good for you. It will be faster. It will be challenging, but it will be better. So let's hear from to Tuuli. Thank you for being part of the first episode of Spanish Facts. If you want to ask truly some more questions and to get to know her better and get to know about her life here and her work, please let me know so we can interview her again. Thank you so much.


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