Learning the "sweet Spanish" of Costa Rica in a fairy tale setting

You get off a plane in San Jose, Costa Rica, and get picked up by someone who has been expecting your arrival. You are driven to Santa Ana, "the most beautiful little town," and meet the family you're going to live with.

The day classes start, you are driven up a mountain to go to the school class. It's a perfect 70 degrees up there every day. The Spanish you learn is "very sweet." That is, it's simple to understand and learn.

This is how my brother, Michael, describes his two-week Spanish immersion program in Costa Rica with Centro Linguistico Conversa. Now I'm thinking of going.

It surprised me that he chose to do it. Spanish was his worst subject in school. He's a skilled numbers guy who works in tech and has taken a fair number of accounting classes.

But as he moved up in management, he thought Spanish would be a good skill. He signed up for a class at New York University. Partly for fun. He wanted to see if he would be any better at learning the language than during his high school days.

He signed up for an entry level class. And found he was getting "destroyed" in class!  That Thanksgiving, he flew to Central America.

He had never been to that part of the world. He was impressed by its beauty. Mountains. Nice pink houses with fences, off narrow paved roads. "It looked like a fairy tale."

But it was an uncomfortable start. The family he was assigned to didn't speak English. He was nervous. He thought, "What did I get myself into here?'

Tell me about it. I feel like that on the first day of practically every trip I take.

But immersing yourself in a foreign language adds an extra element, as Michael discovered. "I was having a tough time understanding anything. I didn't realize how bad my Spanish was."

The first day, he hopped on a bus San Jose to poke around. He returned with a big pineapple pie and a bottle of wine. The family, including a six-year-old girl and and pudgy little 3-year-old boy, went from reserved to "jumping up and down," he says.

Each day he went up the mountain to classes in a little hut with a gorgeous view. And each day he brought something for the little ones waiting at home. They would get so excited over the daily surprise.

His "Mama Tico" - Tico is the name for a native Costa Rican - sat down with him at night, interested in helping him learn Spanish. Like a mother hen. (Madre gallina in Spanish?)

He started to pick up the language. At the end of two weeks, he realized he was understanding almost everything people said. "We were talking about things, about feelings. I couldn't get over it. I thought I wasn't good at languages."

The final assessment? His solo trip was, "very pleasant and very intense. And, I did learn Spanish."

Photo: by joiseyshowaa

Comments

[Dominique]

I've always wondered what it would be like to take a language immersion class.
When we went to the Basque Country a few years ago, I attempted to teach myself a little French with a CD class. Between what little French I managed to teach myself, and some memory of my rusty high-school Spanish...we got by. I could read a lot of the signs in both languages and understand a bit of spoken Spanish. The French...I never did get the hang of understanding the spoken language.
I guess the language immersion goes on my list of things I'd like to do someday. Thanks for sharing your brother's story.

[boldlygosolo]

Dominique,

Be sure to go to the "language study" category on the blog and read the other entry about immersion, that one about studying French in Paris.
About the Costa Rica entry... I was talking to a friend at work yesterday and now am thinking about Colombia as a possible place to take an immersion class. I want to go somewhere where it's not too touristy. I don't want the locals to be able to switch to English to speak with me. I'd like to have to try to make myself understood in Spanish the entire time! That's what happened when I went to Ecuador - but there, I wasn't taken classes. I think a combination of classes and speaking to locals would be a real and very production Spanish language education.

Ellen