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guanajuato tagged articles (0-50 of 63)

  • Spanishing In Guanajuato - I've been in Spanish classes for the past two weeks. It's been great. As a non-native Spanish speaker, it is important to refresh your Spanish by having a professional correct your mistakes.
  • Living In Mexico: Sugar And Spice But Not Always Nice Part 3 - To be honest with you, I don't see why more Gringos in Guanajuato aren't getting ripped off when trying to rent, or God forbid, buy a house on their own. It never occurred to us to move here without as much Spanish under our belts as possible.
  • Learning Spanish: Financing Your Spanish Education - A couple of years ago, an American lady came to Guanajuato to learn Spanish. She enrolled in one of the most expensive schools in town. This school is good, by the way, and I always recommend it to people who want to come study Spanish in Guanajuato. This poor woman was a rank beginner.
  • Living In Mexico And Taking Spanish Classes – Why? - The wife and I walked downtown from our East Guanajuato Barrio today. On the way back, I stopped in one of the local Spanish Schools. I wanted to talk with the guy in charge to see about making an appointment to talk about taking classes again.
  • Guanajuato: Too Many False Expectations - A friend of mine told me about a conversation she had with a person she knows in one of the Mexican Prime Living Locations on the west coast of Mexico. This area, one to which many Americans flock, had become too expensive for her to continue living there. When my friend asked her where she might want to move, Guanajuato was her first choice. But, she lamented; she couldn't live in Guanajuato because she doesn't speak Spanish. Three years ago, while sitting in one of Guanajuato's plazas and doing nothing much but watching the tourists, a lady from San Miguel de Allende approached us and asked if we lived in Guanajuato.
  • Learning Spanish Part Twenty-four: The Acquisition-learning Hypothesis - Dr. Stephen Krashen's foundational principle in his theory of Second Language Acquisition is called "The Acquisition-Learning hypothesis." In this idea, a distinction is made in that wonderfully exciting and gaiety-galore world of linguistics and language pedagogy between learning a language and acquiring it. "The acquired system" is the means through which spoken fluency is acquired. I can recall scores of students who come to Guanajuato, Mexico (where we live), who have told me they would pay any amount of money to have the spoken fluency of a Mexican child being packed off to his or her first day of class in primary school.
  • Living In Mexico: Sugar And Spice But Not Always Nice Part 4 - You and your business partner have been working your tails off trying to get a bunch of modern, Mexican-style duplexes off the ground. You've poured too much money to think about into hiring Mexican workers to build this duplex complex. You all have not only hired locals to do all the work, tolerating the cultural problems when Gringos and Mexicans work together, but in the end you will have an upscale duplex to offer as modern housing to the Mexican people. One evening you two think you deserve a treat. You go to a restaurant in Guanajuato you've yet to patronize. You get there, you begin walking upstairs to the dining room where the Mexicans are sitting, only to be stopped by a waiter.
  • Mexico As A Concept And Not A Reality Part 2 - It has been the Prime Living Locations such as the Lake Chapala area, Puerto Vallarta, San Miguel de Allende, Cuernavaca, Mazatlán, and others to which Gringos have been attracted.
  • Living In Mexico: Where Did That Bus Driver Go? - Gringolandians, those living in Gringo enclaves, live such isolated and bizarrely separate lives from the Mexicans in the same town that they have on more than one occasion called me an absolute liar for the things I've reported happening in the Mexican city where I live. One thing with which they take particular exception is what I've written about buses.

  • Learning Spanish Part Eleven : Taking Classes In Spanish - If you have successfully completed at least The Learnables and The Pimsleur Spanish, Learning Spanish Like Crazy courses, you are ready for the formal study of Spanish (i.e., grammar). I know this is very costly. I know because I’ve paid the price myself for these courses. But what do you want?
  • Living In Mexico: Sugar And Spice But Not Always Nice Part 5 - There is a great restaurant in town where I love to eat steak. It is cheap, though they don't offer the best cuts of meat. However, the steak is tender, comes with a load of sides, and is cooked perfectly for my tastes. It is a popular place and listed in all the guidebooks. I've even referred people to it. The ambience is 20th-century jazz and very classy. The location is also perfect and easy as pie to find.
  • Living In Mexico: Confessions Of An Insane Gringo - Let me first say that whether or not I am actually insane could be debated. However, my personal pendulum tends to swing toward the yes column. So, there you go, my first confession. The second confession is that I totally get that more than a little umbrage has been garnered as the result of my insane rant about Gringolandia and her citizens, The Gringolandians. Ok, I get why these communities end up coming into existence. It's easier for people to have a refined and well-developed gringo infrastructure. It is easier living in an enclave where you don't have to learn the language so you could live with the locals.
  • Learning Spanish Part Sixteen: This Time Do It Right! - I've been thinking about this lady in San Miguel de Allende. I don't know her well. I've never met her, actually, but we have corresponded. She told me that she's tried learning Spanish. She's spent money she didn't have to attend classes that yielded little in the way of spoken fluency in the language. Her experience? It's very typical.
  • I Was Just In The Middle Of A Dream - I was dreaming. I was eating Carnitas. They were very good Carnitas. The waitress was about to bring me another heaping plate of deliciously fatty, artery-clogging Carnitas when I heard tom-toms. The drums had a driving beat that if you weren't dreaming; the sound would make you want to murder someone to make them stop. You might even devise a hideous homicidal act in your head that, though you would never carry it out, would make you feel immensely better (I need therapy). I wasn't dreaming anymore. At 9:00 am, the two teenage boys across the alley were washing the family's car.
  • Mentor For Hire Services Eases Your Move To Mexico - Sometimes I marvel at how my wife and I arrived in Guanajuato, Mexico, with so little Spanish and with so few cultural skills. Somehow we managed to survive some pretty severe bumps in the expatriation road.
  • How-To Conquer Central Mexico In Your Next Vacation - I've noticed lately the tourists that make their way to central Mexico (Guanajuato) tend to be either the loosey-goosey backpackers or the tourist elite who tend to have a lot of experience in coming to strange and new places.
  • Learning Spanish Part Twelve : Total Immersion Courses In Mexico? - Going to the host country of the target language has always taken on a sort of mythical quality.
  • Learning Spanish Part Twenty-Five: The Monitor Hypothesis - Dr. Krashen explains that this idea, The Monitor Hypothesis, shows how language learning (grammar) affects language acquisition. This is, according to Krashen, the useful outcome of learning grammar. It acts as a "monitor" of spoken language. Krashen postulates that this monitor brings refinement and correctness to speech. It acts to correct errors in speaking the second language. He also suggests there are three kinds of people who use The Monitor Hypothesis to one degree or another. There are those who consistently use the monitor to correct their speech. There are those who never learned grammar or choose not to use grammar to monitor their speech. Then, there are those who use their deliberately learned grammar in an appropriate manner in the monitoring of their speech. An extrovert, for example, tends not to use his deliberate learning of the grammar of the second language in actual communication events.
  • Learning Spanish Part Twenty-Three: Language Learning Versus Language Acquisition - In the field of second language acquisition, Stephen Krashen, Ph.D, is a name that rises above the academic din that usually begins when the subject of Language Acquisition versus Language Learning is brought up. The noise becomes even more deafening when someone, such as myself, would dare to report how the theories of Dr. Krashen have affected his personal adventure in trying to achieve the highest possible degree of spoken fluency. Without at least one Ph.
  • Learning Spanish: The Natural Order Hypothesis - In second language acquisition research conducted in 1974-75, 1980 and 1987, it was postulated that the acquisition of grammatical forms followed a natural and predictable order. How this happens is contingent upon multiple factors. The learner's age and the learner's circumstances seemed not to be a significant influence on this natural order. Dr. Krashen makes the point that this does not mean some sort of curriculum should be devised based on this order. Krashen's entire point seems to be that there is a difference between the conscious learning of grammatical structures and the unconscious acquisition of speech, no matter the language. Acquisition of speech is far more important in the empowerment of someone who wants to speak the language—spoken fluency.
  • Learning Spanish: The Affective Factor - The chief problem for most Americans who want to learn Spanish but who don't succeed is the Affective Factor. Plainly put, this means the emotional issues; that is, adults become freaked out at the thought. The fear of getting put on the spot and embarrassed is just too much to bear. I've talked to plenty monolingual American and Canadian expats in Mexico who do not learn Spanish. They are, therefore, forced to live in the various Gringolandias because they are too fearful of learning Spanish. They self-perceive the problem as their "advanced years" or, as one cantankerous old coot put it, "I have too lousy of a disposition to learn Spanish.
  • Learning Spanish Part Nineteen: The Audiolingual Method - This method of second language instruction was a further development or evolution of The Direct Method. World War II rose up and slapped the U.S. government in its linguistically challenged face, waking it to the need and definite lack of language competency to deal with the other nations of the world. Apparently, the U.S.
  • Learning Spanish Part Two : Some Solutions - “Foreign language learning is not something that happens overnight; it takes a commitment of time and money. U.S. schools compound the problem by waiting too long to start foreign language instruction. According to ACTFL Professional Programs Director Elvira Swender, U.S.
  • Learning Spanish: Intercambios - What got me started on an Intercambio jag was learning how Mexicans in the tourist industry on Mexico's Gold Coast learn English and achieve an amazing level of proficiency.
  • Puffy Wet Lips - There's this guy who lives across the street from us who we have renamed Wet Lips. When we are in a really lighthearted mood, we refer to him as Puffy Wet Lips. This gomer is in his late 60's to early 70' and has a body like Mr. McGoo and lips like Angelina Jolie's. I mean they are two huge puffy red and unnatural things that look like a pair of slugs. I keep waiting for them to take off in a race around his little head at any moment.
  • Living In Mexico: Gringolandia Denial - I cannot begin to imagine what life must be like in isolated little enclaves where the inhabitants have only one another for socializing. In areas like Guanajuato that still have such few Gringolandians, the "Social Incest" (as the southeast Asian locals used to say the Americans there committed) must be incredibly horrid.
  • Cyberstalking Is A Worldwide Problem - I live in a medium-sized central Mexican town called Guanajuato. Guanajuato is the capital of the state of Guanajuato. We moved here in 2003 for a multitude of reasons. We wanted to learn Spanish, live in a better climate than in America's Midwest, and find a place where the cost of prescription drugs and health care in general was cheaper. It had become too expensive to keep funding my chronic and unrelenting incurable illness while living in America.
  • Living In Mexico: It's The Rainy Season And I'm Bored - We've been holed up in the house pretty much now for two weeks and counting. We venture out between downpours. Such is life in Central Mexico during the rainy season. Really, there has not been as much rain as we had last year by mid-June.
  • Not Knowing Spanish And Living In Mexico? A Dangerous Mix - If you happen to have an interest in expatriation and are targeting Mexico as a possibility, here is some of the banter you most certainly will read on the forums: "To Learn Spanish or Not To Learn Spanish, That is the Question!" I fall, of course, on the "You've got to learn Spanish" side of the fence.
  • Learning Spanish: Begin By Listening - Part 5 - To maximize our brain's ability to store visual and auditory impressions in the target language, we must constantly, each day, create an atmosphere in which we are hearing and seeing the language we seek to acquire in an immersion situation. This is not only possible to do in a country in which the target language is not spoken but is being accomplished all the time. Mexicans living and working in the Mexican resort cities have learned English and continue to learn it without the advantage of living in America or in any country in which English is the main language. Though extremely advantageous, it is not absolutely required to live in the country where the language you seek to acquire is the predominate language.
  • Learning Spanish Part Eighteen: The Direct Method Of Language Instruction - Realizing that The Grammar Translation Method of second language instruction did not work to impart spoken proficiency in the target language, in the late 1800's, The Direct Method surfaced in language instruction. The need for a system that worked to teach spoken competence is what drove those to create The Direct Method. What it entailed was methods of language acquisition that were more closely related to how first (native) languages were acquired. The main goal was to teach how to think in the second language and move as far away as possible from the harmful grammar-first approach. It did not seek to make constant references to one's first or native language, as does The Grammar Translation Method.
  • Learning Spanish Part Twenty-Two: Suggestopedia - Georgi Lozanov, a Bulgarian psychologist, introduced what he undoubtedly thought an original and brilliant premise: "… students naturally set up psychological barriers to learning - based on fears that they will be unable to perform and are...
  • Living In Mexico: Everyone Loves The Theater! - If you haven't been following my articles plastered all over the Internet, what I've been writing about with much alacrity is how life for the American expat in Mexico basically falls into...
  • Learning Spanish: Begin By Listening - Part 2 - The place most worth considering where instruction in how to learn a second language abounds just might surprise you. Africa is the place where more people are multilingual than anywhere else in the world. Thousands of her people speak multiple dialects, different languages in which they conduct all manner of business, multiple native tribal languages, and colonial languages. These Africans have done so without the availability of a classroom, textbooks, workbooks, CD's or cassette recordings, or teachers.
  • Learning Spanish Part Twenty: The Silent Way Method - A most bizarre philosophy of education called "Discovery Learning," based partly on the educational ideas of Rousseau, Pestalozzi and Dewey, led to The Silent Way Method of Second Language acquisition. It also enjoyed the support of psycho-babblists (psychologists) Piaget, Bruner, and Papert.
  • Learning Spanish Part Seventeen: The Translation Method Of Language Instruction - The grammar translation method of second language acquisition is virtually the only method used in most language courses taught in classrooms all over the world. It is also known as The Classical Method. This method was developed over centuries to teach classical languages. Latin and Greek were seen as important "dead languages" to learn in order to read ancient texts, understand the origins and basics of the grammar and vocabulary of modern languages as well as the influences Latin and Greek had on them. Literally, you learn through the memorization of grammar rules and lifeless vocabulary (not taught in the context of real life speech) how to translate and read a piece of written text. Latin and Greek are still taught this way today, the same way as they have been taught for centuries. So are most modern languages.
  • Want To Succeed At Writing? You Need A Platform! - When I finished my book, "The Plain Truth about Living in Mexico," I sent queries to a number of publishers. On a lark, I queried McGraw-Hill.
  • Mexico As A Concept And Not As A Reality Part 1 - Most, if not all, Americans who decide to move to Mexico to "get away from it all" seem to do so based on the merits of at least two books, a handful of websites, some seminars (in the Guadalajara area), and a host of chat rooms and forums whose themes are how wonderfully cheap, relaxing, easy, and convenient it will be living in Mexico. These sources also paint a picture of the Mexican people that is, for lack of better words, a picturesque, pastoral heaven-on-earth population of saints who have been sitting around all their lives just waiting for the opportunity to serve the first American who comes their way.
  • Living In Mexico: Fight Well, Love Better - Though a conservative, I read liberal points of view. I do so for two reasons. One, their views help me refine my own.
  • Heading Back To Spanish Class--Again! - I am 19 days away from starting my Spanish classes-again! When the wife and I first moved to Mexico, we enrolled in Spanish classes. In fact, we took about four months of classes and after I completed them, I am proud to tell you I could say the following: Hi! My name is Doug. Hi! What's your name? Can I have a cheese sandwich? Which way is the bathroom, please! I took Spanish in high school, college, and for two years before moving to Mexico.
  • Learning Spanish Part Ten : Even More Horsing Around - There are two additional courses that I recommend. In fact, they are so effective that these, along with The Learnables, I credit with helping on my road to a high degree of spoken fluency.
  • Learning Spanish: Begin By Listening - Part 6 - Most folks, when they set out to study a new language, begin by enrolling in Spanish I at their local Junior College. This is not the way to begin. In fact, the formal learning about the language in a course at the JuCo is about 5 years away from where you are at if you've had no experience at acquiring the target language. You begin by listening. You need this exposure to grow accustomed to the sounds of the language.
  • Want To Be Fluent In Spanish? Watch Cartoons! - I've enjoyed my return to Spanish class here in Guanajuato immensely. It's been a little strange because basically one ends up taking classes mainly with other Americans with a few other nationalities thrown in for good measure. I haven't been around my fellow Americans in so long that it's taken a bit of getting used to. In the last five years, I have actually forgotten social cues and topics of conversation within polite company. But, it's been fun, informative, and actually a confidence booster. It's been an encouragement to notice just how advanced I've become in my Spanish. While living in Mexico fulltime and in Mexican neighborhoods has had a linguistic impact on my Spanish, I have to stress the point that you still have to put in the hard work in the language to become fluent.
  • Learning Spanish Part Nine : Still Looking For That Horse - What do we know so far? We found the best approach to language learning is to learn Spanish the very same way you learned your native tongue.
  • Want To Retire Or Work In Mexico? You'd Better Read This! - Let me shoot straight from the hip. No fancy introductions to this article, no witty sayings, no clever expressions, no wildly used adjectives.
  • There's No Reality, Only Perceptions - It has occurred to me lately just how the filters through which we see and read events determine how we evaluate and react to them.
  • The Gringolandizing Of Mexico-pt 1 - The literature that exists in book form and especially in online newsletters and magazines presents to the "Move-To-Mexico Wannebee" Mexico as an Image and not Mexico as it Really Is. I found an excellent example of this in an email featuring a popular living-in-Mexico magazine that appeals to the potential expat to Mexico. And, let me emphasize the point is to attract potential expats to Mexico who have lots and lots of money to invest in real estate. This is the draw.
  • When Gringos Attack - I thought I would write another article about a subject that's been near and dear to my heart since the wife and I moved to Central Mexico. We are here in the Colonial City of Guanajuato, where we've lived for more than five years and counting. It has been interesting to say the least.
  • Learning Spanish Part Three : Why Acquire A Second Language? - Why should an American learn a foreign language in the 21st century? What and where is the need? If we are not connected in close proximity to our International Neighbors, as are Europeans, then why should Americans learn another language? Why should Americans learn Spanish? Spanish is the most commonly spoken foreign language by America’s largest immigrant group. It is the dominant language of our closest foreign language neighbor—Mexico. It is the primary language spoken in more than 21 countries. It is spoken by more than 300,000,000 people.
  • Learning Spanish Part Six : More On Conversation Classes - Think about this very seriously for a moment. If you have children, just think what degree of spoken fluency your child had when you first packed him off to first grade. Think of all he could understand and say before he ever started his formal education. When your child was 6 years old, he or she had already achieved a high degree of spoken fluency and you didn’t have to enroll him in a “Total Immersion” course in order for him to achieve fluency.

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