Thinking about learning Spanish? Colombia is the place!

Miércoles 07 de Octubre de 2009 16:57

If you want to improve your Spanish, or want to learn it from scratch, consider Colombia as number one choice.  Aside from meeting other few foreigners you will be in contact with our culture and traditions at all times. Colombia is still an unspoiled paradise where the locals are eager to meet foreigners and share with them  our identity... in Spanish.

I just want to give you a few reasons why Colombia is an excellent place to learn how to speak Spanish.

• Only 2% of the people in Colombia speak English. We were away from tourism for so long that, until now, it was never a priority. It is a hasle for most tourists; very few restaurants have menus in English and even front office staff at many "five-star" hotels don´t speak the language either. Thus very few people will speak to you in any language other tahn in Spanish
  
• Colombia is not loaded yet with language schools. Different from cities such as Quito, Antigua, Barcelona, loades with Language Schools and students who end up speaking their native languages among them, in Colombia you will find few, but excellent, Language Schools. Most of them are in Bogota, Cartagena and Medellín´s main Universities thus you will be in contact with local people at all times.
  
• According to a lot of people in Colombia we speak the best Spanish. I can not say if I agree with that, there are differences in the regions, there are over 60 indigenous dialects and even older and younger people speak differently. However, I have heard from foreign friends, that our accent (regardless the region) is the smoothest, that it is like a song.
  
• But really, the main reason to come and learn spanish is because the country is so wonderfull, so magic, so authentic - just check out www.colombia.travel to get a glimpse. Believe me it is worth.

A few language schools you can check out:

• Nueva Lengua www.nuevalengua.com
• Universidad Javeriana http://www.javeriana.edu.co/javeriana/vice_acad/intercambio/documentos/prog_extran.html - all info in Spanish :s
• High Technology in Learning http://htlidiomas.com/index.php (also only in Spanish!!!)

Apparently you will start learning or imporving your Spanish skills even before you arrive...

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