Chiriquí Chatter

As I mentioned in “How do you say this in Spanish?” one of the most limiting things an English speaking individual will encounter on moving to Panama or any other non-English speaking country is not speaking that country’s language. For Panama and most Latin American countries you need to learn some Spanish.

If you are contemplating a move to one of these countries knowing some Spanish before you get there will allow the move to be more enjoyable and less frustrating. There are many PC language courses on the market. If you read their propaganda each one is the best. Luckily the Internet has a lot of resources that are free. Some are demos of the commercial products and others are unique to the Internet.

The good thing about the online demos of the commercial products is that you can try it before you buy it. By going through the demos and the other resources on the Internet, you will have a little foundation before you get here.

You can start off learning some basics, which can be considered as survival Spanish and then progress to a higher level of conversational Spanish. One important thing to understand is that Spanish is a little different in each Spanish speaking country you are in. Therefore many word usages in Mexico, Costa Rica or other parts of the world may not be the same as that used in Panama. I mention this because whatever source you use to learn Spanish, you may need to make some adjustments when you arrive in Panama.

Now to use the Internet, a search on Google for “Online Spanish Lessons” will provide you enough resources to keep you busy for a long time. Here are a couple sites, from that search.

Learn Spanish Today is a commercial product that has a good online demo. The pronunciation in this demo is very clear and being able to hear and recognize words in Spanish is important. You cannot learn Spanish just by reading a book. You have to hear it.

http://www.word2word.com/coursead.html#spanish has a list of several Internet websites for learning Spanish. Your Google search will produce many more. Each site will have something on it that you can learn from. You will like some better than others.

Even after you get a fair handle on some conversational Spanish, you are going to run into situations when you need a word you don’t know. There are several small hand held translaters on the market. Do some research before you plop your money down for one. As I mentioned in a previous entry, I use a translator on a Palm Pilot type product. You can get an inexpensive unit with the translation for a little over $100.

Another Internet resource for learning Spanish is some of the online chat areas. Now the limitation here is that you are not going to be able to hear the words, but you are going to get to practice writing them. Also you are going to run into several slang phrases that are not going to show up in a formal course. The first site I used was http://espanglishchat.com/. This site’s charter is to have speakers in either English or Spanish help each other learn the respective language. You are going to find some excellent people to learn from and some that are less so. When you get tired of playing the roll of Spanish student, you can go into the role of English instructor.

If you find that your are being more of an English Instructor and you want to put yourself into a strictly Spanish speaking environment, then you might want to try www.latinchat.com. While you may find a few people that speak English here, the majority is going to only speak Spanish. Now the good thing about being in this environment is that you have to increase your speed in reading and understanding the other person’s sentence and quickly responding. A Google search for “Spanish Chat” will give you other websites to try.

Don’t forget that there are translation tools on the net that can help you in translating sentences. The problem with using them on chat sites is that most people make some spelling errors when they type and translation software is pretty unforgiving. I have also used a PC product (Logo Trans) from LogoMedia and it is pretty good. However, don’t be naive enough to think that a piece of software is going to do good translation. While it is better than nothing, it is still pretty rough around the edges.

Lastly there is the obvious possibility of taking Spanish lessons either before you come to Panama or after you get here. If you have a community college that offers Spanish where you live, that might be a good option. Once you are here, there plenty of places that want to teach Spanish to Gringos. Like all things, some will be worth the money and others won’t. It is always to get an unbiased opinion from someone you trust before you pay for one of these courses.

I took a couple of months lessons from Darío Quiroz here in David. He teaches English classes and on occasion will take on individuals for Spanish lessons. I Paid $5.00 for each hour of instruction that I took from Darío.

If you want to enjoy Panama you should plan on learning some Spanish. You will find that the locals appreciate your learning their language and will think more of you for it. Don’t think you are too old to learn. It is no hill for a climber.

Tags: Spanish Lessons