Amazing discoveries things happen. New experiences. New vitality. Travelling is a wonderful teacher. A few years back we moved down to Central America. We did not speak Spanish.

Yearning to discover the unknown. New ways. Tropical climate. Especially after growing up with cold Canadian winters. Freezing your back side at -40 is not my idea of a great time.
Absolutely foreign concepts to many of our Latino friends.

Discovering a new culture. New ways of thinking. Has been one of the greatest benefits of learning how to speak Spanish.

All of the idiosyncrasies. Dave Clark, fluent in Spanish, explains in his recent discovery.

“Where I currently live in the western U.S., there are many rest homes and assisted living centers nearby where elderly people go to live.

Within about a four mile radius of our business, there are around five facilities with one right next door to our building.

In the assisted living facilities, the people that live there are semi-independent as they usually have their meals cooked for them, entertainment planned, and rides to go places.

On the other hand, usually in rest homes, elderly people need more constant care, both physical and medical.

Both rest homes and assisted living centers are usually very costly.

When I lived in Latin America, I asked a lot of the locals if there were “rest homes” in the area.

It took me a while to even figure out what the word for “rest home” was, because not many Latin Americans were familiar with them.

After asking many local friends, I finally found out that the word for “rest home” is “asilo de ancianos”.

So basically, translated directly, it would be called an “elderly asylum” or “elderly shelter”.

In all of the areas of Latin America I lived in during two years, I only saw one rest home.

Since I lived only in the mid-size to smaller pueblos, rest homes may have been more prevalent in larger cities.

Now let’s explore some of the possible reasons why there aren’t as many rest homes in Latin America.

Their culture in regard to elderly family members is very different from our culture here in the U.S. Older family members will customarily live with their children in the same house.

The reason this happens, according to my observation, is that family ties are very strong, and often the elderly person is not financially independent.

In talking to some Latin Americans themselves, they seemed to have the mentality that parents take care of their children when they are younger so that they will, in-turn, take care of them when they get older.

In the U.S., people seem to have more of an independent attitude.

As soon as teenagers get old enough, or get married, their parents will gently, or sometimes not so gently, push them out the door.

When people become elderly, they often want to stay in their own homes or live in a rest home so they don’t burden anyone.

Compared to Latin America, few elderly people in the U.S. live with their children.

As you can imagine, homes could start to fill up fairly fast in just a few years as children get married and grandparents are also living in the home.

As I have mentioned in the past, there is usually a great attitude of respect among family members in Latin America, especially from children to parents and grandparents.”

Like Dave, we re-discovered what family was again. We started to remember some of the things money cannot buy.

With more and more countries opening their borders to immigration new opportunities continue to pop up. We are the next generation to retire. Because time does not wait our generation will soon require facilities which provide assisted living.

Are we moving back to Canada.

I don’t think so…

The enjoyment of watching kids break up a pinyata hanging over a tree branch, or the firecrackers at New Years is pulling hard. We will continue to enjoy and treasure our new found friends and experiences as we continue our journey of how to speak Spanish.

The future is waiting to be explored.

how to speak chinese

The Oxford dictionary is the final authority on the English language People respect it a great deal and people all over the world are using it when they are concerned with english lessons.

The Oxford dictionary is over 100 years old.  It was way back in 1857.  A society of linguists believed a more complete dictionary was needed. Their plan was to begin from square one. The project was much larger than they first thought.

The development of the Oxford dictionary had taken a big step in 1879 when the society made an agreement with the Oxford University press to begin work on a new dictionary of the English language.  The name was to be the New English Dictionary.  It would contain 6400 pages in four volumes.  The plan was to cover the language from 1150 AD to present.  They thought it would take 10 years to complete. It is a great matter that this lexicon endures as we see contemporary issues depending on whether or not a person is engaged with how to speak spanish.

By the five year mark this precursor to the Oxford dictionary had words up to ant.  The schedule needed revising.  One problem was the constant evolution of English.  Words kept changing even as they wrote their entries, so they were constantly revising.  And they had seven centuries of words to examine. The Enlish language is so important and as mentioned above many follow the example set by this dictionary and the context is relevant when connected to how to speak chinese.

For four decades work on the Oxford dictionary continued.  Many new editors joined the project.  The dictionary had expanded from the original concept of four volumes to 10 volumes.  It had over 400,000 entries.  It quickly became the ultimate authority on the English language.  40 years later the initial mission was accomplished.

Immediately they set about revising the Oxford dictionary.  A supplement published in 1933 expanded the dictionary to 12 volumes.  1957 was the next major change.  A new supplement was finally finished and published from 1972 through 1986 in four volumes.

In 1982 editors decided to bring the Oxford dictionary into the computer age.  The editors began transferring it from paper to electronic format.  They spent over 13 million dollars to make this happen.  It was a 5 year task.  The electronic version led to a second edition published in 1989.  This printed version is 20 volumes containing a total of 22,000 pages.

The Oxford dictionary later was published on CD-ROM, and is now available online.  What an interesting journey from concept to the present.

Nowadays, thankfully, online language learning programmes have stepped in to offer courses and software that are specifically designed to give you a proper grasp of real conversation skills and vocabulary that you’ll be able to use in day-to-day life, whether that’s in a business situation, or in a social setting. If you want to learn Spanish, it’s much more satisfying to come away from each lesson with a few more useful phrases committed to memory than struggling repeatedly with grammar rules and dated, irrelevant roleplays like you might have done at school.

So why not get started right away? Get stuck into this list of short Spanish phrases, for example. All of them are very handy in Real Life situations, and if you take a little bit of time to master them, you’ll give yourself a great boost, which will keep you motivated and eager to build on your knowledge. The more practice you get, the more you deepen your knowledge of the language, which makes learning all the complicated grammar and pronunciation rules so much easier.

No hablo español – I don’t speak Spanish.
 

Believe it or not, this is the most useful sentence you can learn in any language! It’s particularly useful if you’re going to be travelling – all travellers have experienced the despairing feeling that comes with a native speaker pouring forth what sounds like gibberish, but it really does give you a tiny sense of accomplishment if you can interrupt the person by explaining that you don’t understand in their own language. It actually earns you a lot more respect from the native speaker, too! They will appreciate a tourist making the effort to speak basic Spanish words and phrases, and will very often then go out of their way to help you if you show that you’re trying. So, for that reason, try to learn a few “common courtesy” words:
 

Hola – Hello

Por favor – Please

Gracias – Thank you

¿Cuánto? – How much?

Perdón – Sorry

No entiendo – I don’t understand

¿Habla inglés? – Do you speak English?

Online language sources can provide you with a really solid foundation if you want to learn Spanish, giving you the confidence to start speaking whatever you’ve learned on a daily basis. And that’s the Top tip: you want to learn to speak Spanish? Then start speaking Spanish! It will surpise you just how fast you’ll be able to build up your range of vocabulary and phrases if you actually put in the effort to practice them. Give it a try – and start learning Spanish today!
 
 

Many people think that if you didn’t learn a language as a child, it’s better to learn it online. Of course, a real life course held by a teacher can be useful also, but such a course requires you to go to certain locations and most of the times you can’t decide your own schedule. It’s tough to actually go to these classes when you are already in a hurry. If we are learning online like how to learn spanish, we have nothing to worry about. Online classes offer infinite flexibility and we can simply continue yesterday’s lesson tomorrow.

You should try to divide your learning session in a couple of small parts over a longer period of time because it’s better to learn for one hour each day for 5 months than to learn 6 hours a day for one. Learning bit by bit will allow information to be remembered and understood easier and you won’t have to worry about tiredness or over-solicitation. Remember all these tricks because if you don’t you risk trying to learn the wrong way.

Learning and having fun at the same time is a real treat. Anything that is fun can be learnt in 10 minutes, like word puzzles. If you don’t have a lot of free time and you don’t feel like starting an online course just yet, those 10 minutes of play during your lunch break will do all the difference. Of course, you will learn the language in a longer time, but the learning process will be easier.

Have you ever felt in your mind that you have the urge to learn how to speak, write and understand Spanish even just for the thrill of it? But as you can see, there are many reasons why you need to go head-on with this is this really crosses your mind. Spanish is considered by many as their second language no matter where they live or what their race is. On the tele, you can see lots of programs that are made in Spanish and fortunately, some of them are being dubbed in the language that you’ve been accustomed to. Spanish-speaking soap operas are now very popular nowadays and it’s helpful if you can comprehend it and learn how to speak this elegant language in the fun and convenient way. So, are there any conversational way on the Net that can help you learn Spanish. Actually, there are more than you can handle but the top 3 here are the most popular. Try to see and individually check each one of helpful Spanish-learning software.

Rosetta Stone

According to this Rosetta Stone review, this software makes use of the well-appreciated and well-presented audio-visual technique. The process of learning Spanish can be intuitive and at the same time, interactive and that is why, when you want to learn Spanish the “conversational” way and not the conventional way, like an old school where you stare constantly at an old Spanish teacher, Rosetta Stone should be your best pick.

Synergy Spanish

Well, here is another best pick and according to a Synergy Spanish review site, this program aptly called Synergy Spanish can also help you learn Espanol the “conversational” and interactive way. This learning Spanish helpful tool is just the same as Rosetta Stone but the thing about this is, it will make you go for a “test drive” before making your purchase final to make sure that this is what you really need to learn Spanish.

Learn Spanish Like Crazy

Now, this has got to be the most controversial Spanish-learning software of all, in a personal point of view from this writer. Well, for one thing, learning Spanish like crazy for this writer can only mean one thing. This has got to be the fastest way to learn Spanish….like crazy. Well, according to this Learn Spanish Like Crazy review, it is and it will make a bilingual speaker out of you and you know why, it’s because it will teach you how to become and sound like an authentic Latin American. With this software, you don’t need to memorize anything while on training, there is not even some drill or exercise. Upon using this, it will get right down to business.

So, what have you chosen? Do you still feel a little bit lost in trying to decide what is best for you? Well, you can follow any of the links above to get to its site and know more about them and you can also get to learn more options for learning Spanish the easy and convenient way.