Guest post by Brenda at Brenda and Roy Going To Mexico

When we first came to Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico it was supposed to be for only six months to get away from the cold Alberta, Canada winter. I tried to learn some common words that I thought that we would need to survive. I just did this by finding free stuff on the web. I tried to learn how to ask for essential things, words for foodstuffs, simple things like that. Other than that I bought a small English/Spanish dictionary to take with us.

When we liked it so much here that we decided we wanted to retire here, we returned to Canada for 3 months to sell everything we owned, property, possessions, etc.. Needless to say this was a very busy time and I had no time for learning Spanish. The area we lived in, in Canada had no Spanish speakers to converse with. I purchased a verb book, a larger dictionary and a course of CD’s called Visual Link Spanish. With our time constraints in Canada I had very little time to use it there so we returned here still knowing next to nothing of the language.

After we settled in here, I began to use the above mentioned course and also free stuff online. The Visual Link Spanish is good for beginners like we were and I learned a lot from it.

This went on for awhile and then I finally found a class that I could afford in San Carlos and began attending twice a week and then three times a week. Unfortunately, the only good thing about these classes was the price! The teacher was not a native Spanish speaker and not very good at teaching. I finally quit after a few months as there were so many errors in her papers and she did not correct any of our homework, so it was pointless to do it as we never knew if it was right or wrong.

After quitting these classes I was again on the hunt for affordable learning opportunities. I am afraid that I also slacked off for awhile and just stumbled along on my own.

I did find a fellow who lived close to me and I went to him twice a week for a few months. He was much better. We would talk in Spanish for the whole hour of the class and he would get me to write him stories in Spanish and then he would correct them. I went to him for a couple of months and then we left for 7 weeks to do a house sit in the Baja. When we returned it was in the middle of our horrendously hot summer and I again slacked off for a few months.

This spring I again attempted to contact him but he was too busy with his job to do any teaching. I did manage to find someone else now and have been going to her for the last month or so. We speak Spanish for the whole hour of the class, I write her a story and she corrects it. This is going well.

I have to say that my Spanish will probably never be fluent. I have a memory problem in that I do not retain things well, so I just stumble along as best I can. I will continue to try to learn but for me it is a very slow process.

Visual Link Spanish will teach you Spanish FAST! Guaranteed!

We love it here in Guaymas. We don’t miss much of anything really other than not seeing family and perhaps the odd comfort foods from north of the border.
I take a painting class two evenings a week, spanish class one afternoon a week and for the winter I was volunteering at a local orphanage once a week with a bunch of other ladies to teach some of the children English. This is finished now as most of the other ladies are “snow birds” and many of the have headed back north for the summer now.

A typical day here consists mostly of the same things that it would wherever you are living. Shopping, errands, paying bills, cleaning house, playing on the computer, taking photos of the area, reading, etc.. A pretty normal existence it just so happens that it is in Mexico instead of in Canada. We go for walks on the beach sometimes, and attend events locally also.

Blog:

http://brendandroygoingtomexico.blogspot.com/

Photos:

http://community.webshots.com/user/brendamaa

http://community.webshots.com/user/brendamaa1

http://community.webshots.com/user/brendamaa2

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brendamaa/