Conversational Spanish

In preparation for my trip to Argentina this fall, I looked in to getting some Spanish Lessons. I eventually found an on-line school called Varsity Tutors who offer Conversational Spanish. I called them and found that it cost $269.00 for what I thought was an hour each week for a year; each lesson is one-on-one with your tutor via their education platform on-line.

Sign me up!

Except that, now that I’m two classes in, I find out that it’s actually $269.00 each MONTH! That makes it over $3,200.00 and I simply can’t afford that.

I’m really bummed. I was having fun with it and just knew that it would work for me. My tutor was a black man who was born in New York by parents who had immigrated from Ghana. He had spent 2-4 years in Korea where he met his wife and moved to her homeland where they now live in the Philippines with their son.

I bought the textbook my tutor had recommended for class, and still have that. I can assign myself homework each week, eventually making my way through the entire book. And – since I own it, I can repeat it as often as necessary to make sure it sticks around in my head. I also bought a set of flash cards (201 Spanish Words and 201 Spanish Phrases) so I can practice with those on our Weekend Get-Aways. Bryan might be persuaded to quiz me with them each night.

I also reached out on Facebook and found a young girl right here in Palmer who is willing to meet with me for lunch once a month to help with any difficulties I may encounter. This will be invaluable, no doubt – but won’t happen until spring when she gets home from college.

In the meantime, I also found a group of people who speak Spanish and want to get together once a month just to keep practicing together. To that end, I set up a Meet-and-Greet at the Black Birch Bookstore in Wasilla this Saturday at 1:00. There’s no agenda or any kind of requirements to attend other than that you speak the language. I’m hoping the group will meet every month, either there at the bookstore or somewhere else if need be.

So, While it’s not as great as I thought it would be – I still have hopes that by the time I find myself down at the opposite end of the world, I just might be able to actually speak to a few people.