Do you want to know the best way to learn Spanish in Tenerife? Have kids. No, really! Just have a couple of kids and pop them into a local guarderia until they are old enough to enrol in the Spanish state pre-schooler programme and Bob’s your uncle – in no time at all they will be coming home with garbled messages from the teacher that you are going to have to interpret.
You’ll be learning Spanish nursery songs and sooner or later a magical spell about a frog’s bottom that heals all bumps and bruises (Sana sana colita de rana si no sanas hoy sanaras mañana). There will be books about Pepo, Pablo, Lua or Tico and possibly a class log in which you will have to make a long entry describing your family life and including photos and colouful doodles. In Spanish, of course.
Your little one will start correcting your Spanish pronunciation. “No! Not ‘otra vez, otra veh’!” Thanks son, you’ll say between gritted teeth doing your best not to remind him that it was only yesterday he asked you to sing ‘Oh Flower of Iceland’.
Other mothers will rush up to you in the playground and gush a great spurt of words all over you. If you are not to drown, you must get a sprinkling of Spanish vocabulary to hang on to like floats in a swimming pool. Once you’ve gotten used to picking words out of the raging torrent, it will get a bit easier. Instead of floats, now you have stepping stones to help you wade through the conversation.
Your Spanish/English dictionary will become your best friend because as soon as your child progresses to reading comprehension homework you will hear questions like “What does ‘chiflado’ mean?”. (Though I suspect that she was taking the mickey on that one!) After a wee while of this your mother tongue will be Spanglish: “Right! Now I am enfadada. Get to bed!”
So there you have it. Forget the expensive language courses. Rip up the timetable for your Spanish course at the Cultural Centre. Just get pregnant and you’ll be speaking Spanish in no time (well, in about five years actually.).
You are perfectly correct, but there’s a way to avoid all the labour and messy nappies. Find a village where local inhabitants don’t speak English. There I learned most of my Spanish with a neighbour’s kid – as mum was poking her in the nose at 18 months to teach her the word “nariz”, I was picking Spanish up the natural way too.
Yes I agree also . There is no better way to learn. Grandchildren are useful in that respect too.
I’m happily beyond the messy nappies and I agree it may be an extreme method of language immersion. I admit I do have the occasional fantasy of running off alone to hide in some faraway village never to hear the word MUUUMMMMYYY again.
There is no better way to learn a language than total immersion but few people have the time or inclination. We always advise those looking to start a new business in Tenerife (or Spain for that matter) to pick up as much as they can as fast as they can and mix locally as much as possible.