Nov 6

How to speak Spanish. You don’t know or speak the language of the country you are moving to, What happens?

Amazing discoveries things happen. New horizons. New adrenalin. Travel is an experience and as such is a great teacher. A few years back we moved down to Central America. We only spoke English.

Itching for new discoveries. New culture. Cut-offs weather. Especially after growing up with cold Canadian winters. Freezing your back side at -40 is not my idea of a great time.
Absolutely foreign concepts to many of our Latino friends.

Discovering a new way of life. New ways of thinking. Has been one of the greatest benefits of learning how to speak Spanish.

All of the small things. Even those that are fluent in the language, such as Dave Clark, explains in his discovery.

“Where I currently live in the western U.S., there are many rest homes and assisted living centers nearby where elderly people go to live.

Within about a four mile radius of our business, there are around five facilities with one right next door to our building.

In the assisted living facilities, the people that live there are semi-independent as they usually have their meals cooked for them, entertainment planned, and rides to go places.

On the other hand, usually in rest homes, elderly people need more constant care, both physical and medical.

Both rest homes and assisted living centers are usually very costly.

When I lived in Latin America, I asked a lot of the locals if there were “rest homes” in the area.

It took me a while to even figure out what the word for “rest home” was, because not many Latin Americans were familiar with them.

After asking many local friends, I finally found out that the word for “rest home” is “asilo de ancianos”.

So basically, translated directly, it would be called an “elderly asylum” or “elderly shelter”.

In all of the areas of Latin America I lived in during two years, I only saw one rest home.

Since I lived only in the mid-size to smaller pueblos, rest homes may have been more prevalent in larger cities.

Now let’s explore some of the possible reasons why there aren’t as many rest homes in Latin America.

Their culture in regard to elderly family members is very different from our culture here in the U.S. Older family members will customarily live with their children in the same house.

The reason this happens, according to my observation, is that family ties are very strong, and often the elderly person is not financially independent.

In talking to some Latin Americans themselves, they seemed to have the mentality that parents take care of their children when they are younger so that they will, in-turn, take care of them when they get older.

In the U.S., people seem to have more of an independent attitude.

As soon as teenagers get old enough, or get married, their parents will gently, or sometimes not so gently, push them out the door.

When people become elderly, they often want to stay in their own homes or live in a rest home so they don’t burden anyone.

Compared to Latin America, few elderly people in the U.S. live with their children.

As you can imagine, homes could start to fill up fairly fast in just a few years as children get married and grandparents are also living in the home.

As I have mentioned in the past, there is usually a great attitude of respect among family members in Latin America, especially from children to parents and grandparents.”

 

Like Dave, we re-discovered what family was again. We re-discovered the real value of possessions other then money or what money can buy.

Many potential opportunities jumped out because of the difference in culture and the globalization where people can now live. We are part of the baby boomer generation. Soon we will be in need of assisted living accommodations.

A move back to Canada.

Not in this life time…

Small things like no arthritic pain because of the cold, walking on the beach, wearing flip flops and cut-offs during winter months, outside, for hours on end say no. We will continue to enjoy and treasure our new found friends and experiences as we continue our journey of how to speak Spanish.

New adventures are calling.

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Sep 21

how to speak spanish

The Oxford dictionary is the final authority on the English language People respect it a great deal whereas individuals all over the planet are utilising this when they have an interest in learn how to speak english.

The Oxford dictionary is over 100 years old.  It was founded in London in 1857.  A society of word experts believed the dictionaries of the time were lacking. Their plan was to begin from square one. They had no idea what they had begun.

In 1879 Oxford University press began work on what would become the Oxford dictionary.  At that time it was known as being New English Dictionary.  They would break it into four volumes with a total of 6400 pages.  It would go back as far as 1150 AD.  The goal was to finish the work in a decade. It is a good thing that this dictionary exists as we see parallel publications depending on whether or not someone is concerned with how to speak spanish.

Five years into the creation of this early version of the Oxford dictionary they had only reached the word ant.  Clearly they were behind schedule.  One problem was the constant evolution of English.  They had to keep track of new words as well as the new meanings of old words.  That’s not easy while looking at seven centuries of language. The Enlish language is so important and as mentioned above many follow the example set by this dictionary and the context is relevant when connected to how to speak chinese.

For four decades work on the Oxford dictionary continued.  Many new editors joined the project.  The dictionary had expanded from the original concept of four volumes to 10 volumes.  It covered 400,000 words.  It quickly became the ultimate authority on the English language.  40 years later the initial mission was accomplished.

It wasn’t even in people’s hands before the editors began revising the Oxford dictionary.  It reached 12 volumes with a supplement in 1933.  1957 was the next major change.  A new supplement was finally finished and published from 1972 through 1986 in four volumes.

In 1982 the task of bringing the Oxford dictionary into the modern world began.  The editors began transferring it from paper to electronic format.  It took $13.5 million to accomplish this.  Five years later the task was finished.  The result of this electronic transfer was a second edition published in 1989.  It includes 20 volumes each with a little over 1000 pages.

The Oxford dictionary later was published on CD-ROM, and is now available online.  What an interesting journey from concept to the present.

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Jul 7

I cannot help smiling when I browse the internet or I visit a book store and I see one of those language guides that say something like:”Learn Japanese in 7 days”. Learning a new language like learn to speak spanish is a project that takes a lot of time and we are all looking for various ways to reduce this time. But still, 7 days ? Regardless of my opinion, if you are looking for methods that reduce the learning time of a new language to a week or two, you’d better stop looking because there are no such methods, not for normal people that don’t suffer from any diseases (like autism, because autisms present a bigger learning capacity of words and numbers). There’s no easy way to learn a language, and there’s certainly no fast way.

Learning a language online is a really good option. Of course, a real life course held by a teacher can be useful also, but such a course requires you to go to certain locations and most of the times you can’t decide your own schedule. It’s hard to go to such a class when you don’t feel well, you don’t fell like learning or you have other more important things to do. In case of online learning like learn spanish fast, this aspects are no longer relevant. When you feel like learning you can simply click and continue the lesson you started yesterday.

You should try to divide your learning session in a couple of small parts over a longer period of time because it’s better to learn for one hour each day for 5 months than to learn 6 hours a day for one. It’s proved that too much information at once will cause the braid to overload and actually stock nothing. Don’t underestimate this aspect: if you have fun while you’re learning you will be surprised of the result.

We all love to find amusement in things we have to learn. If we thing something is amusing, then our brains will response by assimilating that information fast. For busy people that are already stressed enough from work, playing a language game for 15 minutes during a break can be the optimal solution. Of course, you will learn the language in a longer time, but the learning process will be easier.

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Apr 14

 

Have you ever felt in your mind that you have the urge to learn how to speak, write and understand Spanish even just for the thrill of it? But as you can see, there are many reasons why you need to go head-on with this is this really crosses your mind. Spanish is considered by many as their second language no matter where they are or whatever their origins were. On the TV set, you can see many programs that are made in Spanish and fortunately, some of them are being dubbed in your own respective languages. Spanish-speaking soap operas are quite popular today and it’s beneficial if you can understand it and learn how to speak it in the “conversational” way. So, are there any conversational way on the Net that can help you learn Spanish. As a matter of fact, there are more than you can handle but the top 3 here are the most popular. Try to see and individually check each one of these software.

Rosetta Stone

According to this Rosetta Stone review, this software makes use of the well-appreciated and well-presented audio-visual technique. The process of learning Spanish can be intuitive and at the same time, interactive and that is why, when you want to learn Spanish the “conversational” way and not the conventional way, like an old school where you stare constantly at an old Spanish teacher, Rosetta Stone should be your best pick.

Synergy Spanish

Well, here is another best pick and according to a Synergy Spanish review site, this program aptly called Synergy Spanish can also help you learn Espanol the “conversational” and interactive way. It’s just the same as Rosetta Stone but it will sort of give you a “test drive” first before finally making the purchase to make sure that this is what you really need to learn Spanish.

Learn Spanish Like Crazy

Now, this has got to be the most controversial Spanish-learning software of all, in a personal point of view from this writer. Well, for one thing, learning Spanish like a crazy dog for this writer can only mean one thing. This has got to be the fastest way to learn Spanish….like crazy. Well, according to this Learn Spanish Like Crazy review, it is and it will make a bilingual speaker out of you and you know why, it’s because it will teach you how to become and sound like an authentic Latin American. With this software, you don’t need to memorize anything while on training, there is not even some drill or exercise. Upon using this, it will get right down to business.

So, what kind of software you want? Do you still feel a little bit lost in trying to choose what is best for you? Well, you can follow any of the links above to get to its site and know more about them and you can also get to learn more options for learning Spanish the easy and convenient way.

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