The time is rapidly approaching when I too might need to explain away the hot flushes so I've made a note of 'tengo sofocos' for future reference :-)

SM

Hi Everyone,

Could anyone please help with translation of a letter I have recieved
from the Direccion de Consumo regarding a shop in Tenerife who sold me a Camera at a vastley inflated price after lieing about it's reccomended retail price, I have tried useing cross translation dictionaries but just cannot find some of the words I need to translate.

Mike [England]

Mike, if you want to PM it to me I will have a look for you, though I won't promise to be absolutely correct

Has anyone tried, considered, know anyone who has done the 2 / 3 week compressed Spanish course where you go to Spain and attend a college for the 2 or 3 weeks - lodging with a Spanish family etc.

Typically you do 3 hrs tuition a day and do evening things to try and get to appreciate everything thats Spanish.

Yes, I know you will not be fluent in this short period of time but this type of crash course helps provide the foundations and offers the repetition that we all need in whatever we are trying to learn.

My case was a bit different as I am living in Spain, I had the basic idea of grammar as I had completed the first Official Language School course in Spanish, but I went for a one week intensive course in Santander. I chose to have lessons in the morning and in the afternoon. I stayed with a Spainsh family and found it really useful. Having that base helped, and I would recommend this type of intensive course for someone who has a basic, if only theoretical, knowlege of Spanish.
I would also chose a location away from the Costas, where it's all too easy to do your three hours but then spend the rest of the time speaking english. Santander was good for that purpose.
At the end of my week I found that it was easier to express myself and very much easier to understand what was being said. Staying with a Spanish family is one of the best things about the course, the family was used to students so spoke correctly, not too fast and had the patience to wait for me while I tried to construct phrases in my head. It was a good way to practice without the embarrasement of being slow, not having the vocabulary or getting things wrong.
To sum up, I reckon that these intensive courses in Spain are very good if you have a basic knowlege of Spanish, for example if you can get the gist of written spanish and can exchange pleasantries. Many people have asked me how can one learn Spanish if the teacher doesn't speak English. It is actually quite easy, and probably quicker aswell.

Thanks for such a detailed and positive reply. It gives us encouragement to pursue this type of learning.

Chris

Hi,

I think that these intensive 'immersion' courses really are the best way of all when it comes to trying to learn another language. I go to Cuba primarily for the dance training where we too live with a local family and have classes in 'survival' Spanish as part of the deal. It's amazing just how much you pick up. Even if you haven't got the grounding in the grammar you do pick up enough to get by when you have no option but to try and make yourself understand and be understood. You also get up to Grade A in sign language pretty soon too :-) But seriously, in even just a few lessons and with the compulsory opportunity to practice because my family hosts didn't speak English I could get by in shops and bars etc and also in negotiations with taxi drivers by the end of three weeks. I would expect to have acquired a much bigger vocabulary and reportoire of usfeul conversation stuff if I'd been doing daily classes.

SM

My friend has installed a Spanish Lessons program on my PC. Its basically a set of ten lessons that you simply listen to. No texts books or anything complicated. Michael starts with some very basics and gradually builds up to full sentences. I have found it to be the best Spanish course yet. I'm not sure if this is it below, because I don't have the original software, but I think this is the copurse, although on my PC its called 'Michael Thomas Spanish Classes'

The Michel Thomas courses are the best.

Do you know before you start to learn Spanish Michel tells you OVER 2,000 everyday words that are essentially the same in English as they are in Spanish I'm on CD 3 out of the 8 and it is fantastic I can't stop listem¡ning to them.

I like the fact you are working along with 2 other students as well on the course the guy is a genius

Get them !!!!!!!

Michel Thomas is very good, isn;t he. I'm pleased there is someone else using the same course.

Senor Thomas' voice is so easy to listen to and as you say the fact that he has two 'students' there with him really does help. I can just sit in my armchair with dimmed lights and close my eyes and listen and repeat in my head what I am listening to and the words do sink in.

I never know that so many spanish words were basically the same as english. It really is a good foundation to a Spanish Language course. The tutors 'soothing' voice is so easy to understand and the way he talks has a strange effect that it is so easy to pick up words and sentences and repeat them back.