Cancun is one of the convenient places in Mexico where you can find many people who speak English. If you stay exclusively in the Hotel Zone, it’s probable that you will not need a single drop of Spanish speaking abilities. However, if you plan to relocate to the city of Cancun, speaking Spanish will do nothing but ease your pain. This coincides with one of my goals of cultural immersion and shedding any lifestyle resemblance to a gringo. Yes, I will always be a gringo, but no, I don’t have to act like one!
Fortunately, I have several years of formal education in Spanish and love learning languages. My Spanish abilities reached their peak about 5 years ago when I was living with a good friend of mine from Zacatecas. We would converse in his native tongue a good bit (although my bit was likely rather crude.) Since then however, I’ve had very little opportunity to use the conversational skills I had learned and my abilities have regretfully regressed.
My goal is to be as fluent as possible by the time I arrive in Cancun next fall, although I fully understand it will take months of total immersion to listen and speak like a native. To accomplish this, I’m brushing all of the rust off of my grammar knowledge, trying to increase my vocabulary, and immersing myself as much as possible here in the U.S.
For newcomers to Spanish or for those out of practice like myself, there are several options to learn Spanish: if you have time and live near a University you can enroll in classes, you can buy expensive learning software, you can use free lessons on the internet, or you could hire a personal instructor for private lessons.
I’ve heard many great things about Rosetta Stone, so I decided to give it a whirl. There are several things that the software does well, but I personally wouldn’t recommend it. Having substantial previous experience with Spanish, the level 1&2 coursework was a breeze for me. Level 3 introduced some new challenges, but in the end, I’m not a huge fan of how the software approaches learning the language. It has a conversational feel to it, and I can’t imagine being able to work through it efficiently with no prior Spanish experience. The approach doesn’t really teach by helping you understand sentence or grammar structure, but through repetition, visual/audio relations, and native dialogue/voice recognition. Couple that with an outrageous price tag, and you have a no-win situation to me.
There are other software suites out there for learning languages, but if Rosetta Stone is the best of the best, then I can safely recommend against them as well. After finding Rosetta to be a disappointment, I decided to scour the web for lessons. It is not hard to find a site that offers Spanish lessons, but most of them charge a fee. Being the frugal person I am, I eventually uncovered a completely free site that has lessons mirroring those of my formal education.
I jumped into the intermediate section and immediately found myself relearning concepts that I had forgotten or simply never learned. I’ve spent about 4 hours poring through this site and taking notes and so many things are already coming back. I can safely say that this site and I will be very good friends for the next 8 months!
To compliment the lessons on this site, I’m trying to expand my vocabulary as well. Every day I’ll turn to a random page in my Spanish dictionary and read it several times, often writing down totally unfamiliar words repeatedly. If I come across a verb I don’t recognize, I’ll look up all of its conjugations and write sentences with it. I find repetition is the best way to learn new words and verbs, and every day my vocabulary gets a little bit bigger. It’s exciting!
Expanding your vocabulary and understanding of grammar is one thing, but speaking and listening are crucial elements of learning a language. Here in Springfield, I have no native Spanish speaking friends, and thus my immersion opportunities are low…or are they? Despite the lack of direct personal contact, I’ve been immersing myself as much as possible in other ways. I read the local Hispanic newspaper (also good for vocabulary), listen to Mexican internet radio at work, and try to watch as much TV in Spanish as possible. I can grab bits and pieces of everything right now, and usually comprehend the gist of what is being said, but there is so much room for improvement and every day is exciting as the improvements are becoming tangible.
Posted by Coby 
