Learning Español From a Beautiful Local in a Beautiful Location!

For a short time during our afternoons in Mexico, we met with Marcela by the pool for our Spanish classes and throughout the two weeks we were the only ones who seemed to want to learn, or at least brush up on the language. Marcela, young, beautiful and bubbly (and who had eyelashes to die for) was so good to adapt the “lessons” so to give us words and phrases that we could use in normal everyday life. Although we were only supposed to have classes for thirty minutes two days a week, she met with us nearly every day and extended our 30 minutes to an hour. Quite often the other pool staff -- Paco, Orlando and Jessica broke into our lessons and would off the cuff ask us questions in Spanish as a little test. On one of our first days, one of them asked me “Como esta el bano”. I had no idea where the bathroom was but told him in my best Spanish to take a right and continue on straight. I was using the little Spanish that I already knew and guessed that the bathrooms were at least in that vicinity. (Actually, I learned that this was pretty close to where they were located.)

Many of you may remember language classes in school and think that the proper way to learn a language is to spend hours conjugating verbs but Marcela taught us words and phrases that we could immediately use. And, since we used them daily; they were easier to remember. At our age, we need all the help we can get! We also picked up some of the local slang thanks to Marcela. Our lessons were meant to be fun and not what is called a “proper way” to learn a language but it worked for us. We used what we’d learned as often as we could and I know the staff had a good laugh at our “gringo attempts” during our stay but it was fun and we enjoyed it immensely!

Whenever we travel abroad, Steve and I try to get into the culture of a country because we believe that you can’t really get to know a country without knowing the history and at least a little bit of the native language. We’re now trying to absorb Spanish through online courses. Our poolside lessons were an extremely helpful re-enforcement and learning the local words and slang helped too. Our current on-line lessons are Scottish formulated so the Spanish is “Spain oriented” – not the Mexican Spanish that we need for our current trips. But I love my on-line lessons because I get my very much-missed Scottish accents from the instructor and student during the lessons so I have the best of both worlds! Our lessons with Marcela were exceptionally fun and entertaining and since we were able to immediately use the (local) Spanish to get us around plus order food, we were feeling comfortable in every day situations.

This blog is dedicated to Marcela and her pool colleagues. We had the most wonderful time learning from her and are continuing on as best we can. When we meet up next time, I promise that we’ll be more proficient in Spanish!

My next blog will be about our final Mayan low-lights and high-lights. We had one really horrible tour and one incredibly fascinating tour complete with a traditional Mayan meal and tour of a Mayan home. Thanks for bearing with me during this Mexican part of our travels.