Favorite Things

Now that my sojourn in Guatemala is coming to an end, I can reflect upon the pros and cons of my experience. I hope others will take the time to go to a language school. Compared with tuition in a college or university, the value is very good. As I have written in other posts, immersion truly is the way to go, but there are some conditions to consider.

Overall, the cheapest way to learn Spanish is to move into an environment where 24-7 Spanish is spoken without fail, to pay a family to include you in their lives, or at least their meals and to give you a safe place to stay, shower, study. And, you should avoid touristy traps like the people who sell on the street, and restaurants that can blow your budget in one sitting. I heard about these things, of course, not necessarily lived the experiences myself :-)

My best friends for learning can all be purchased in the cities of Xela and Antigua or wherever the school might be located. My favorite things were a notebook - cuaderno, a good pen - lapicera, little white cards - tarjetas, a mechanical pencil and refills, an eraser I call an accountant´s eraser because my accountant friend gave one to me years ago and you can replace them over and over, and a good dictionary - McGraw-Hill VOX latest edition of the compact Spanish and English dictionary (3rd ed. at this writing). In four weeks, I went through one cuaderno and am well into my second, two pens, and as you can see in the photo, the third one is out of ink, six packets of targetas and I will need more to finish out the rest of the past and future tenses and ongoing vocabulary. Tarjetas are for making your own flash cards. I heart tarjetas. I bought three dictionaries along the way, one of which was apparently a very early proof and full of errors, and one that was too compact and abridged. I gave the second one to the PLQ library and threw the first one away.

If these items were helpful to an adult learner, it is a sure bet that they would be good for little gifts for a teacher. In my experience, my teachers loved good pens, rubber bands, tarjetas, different colors of highlighters, notebooks, waterproof folders, mechanical pencils, and erasers. Of course, they could buy these things, but just like in our country, teachers here are woefully underpaid and overworked, and with the money exchange in our favor, these things are cheap. Most of these items are available in any librería in the city. Not all carry tarjetas, so it is better to check with the librerías near a language school. (Librería is a book store, and biblioteca is a library.)