At Four Flags Journal we LOVE our subscribers. We do our best to provide good information for you but it works both ways. Many of you report to us what is happening in the country and area where you are. We have published beautiful stories from subscribers about community, interesting history in some areas, and even descriptions of everyday life, like applying for residency, buying a vehicle and related subjects. They may seem mundane to some, but these are the things that people who are considering moving south want to know about.

As you know, we report that you can live here without speaking a lot of Spanish. Most people here in the cities have taken classes in English in school. Although they may tell you they don’t speak English, often they understand.

In the case of this reporter, I had done quite a bit of “book learning” in Spanish, including private lessons. It really didn’t seem to help a whole lot. Too much grammar and I didn’t want to spend years learning. I wanted to speak Spanish NOW!

As our longer-term subscribers know, when my attorney got worried about my Spanish as my citizenship hearing drew near, I tried a new course. It is almost all audio. My Spanish took a leap forward. My theory is that it is because the way we learn a language naturally is by audio–hearing and saying. That’s what this course did. The instructor says it in English, you try to say it in Spanish and then you hear it spoken correctly in Spanish. I breezed through the citizenship hearing and am now a bona fide citizen of Argentina.

Here is our point. It is so easy to learn, why not become a Spanish speaker? Why not live in South America without limitation? All you have to do is be persistent. That’s honestly all it takes. It isn’t difficult at all. I try to work on Spanish every morning. I do miss some days but my goal is just to be persistent. Don’t look at the big picture–a whole language to learn! Overwhelming! But just today’s lesson. That’s all. No stress. And if it goes badly (not likely) no problem. Tomorrow it will go better. The designer of this course says all you need to speak Spanish is to learn 130 words. One Argentinian reassured me that the average native Spanish speaker here uses 97 words. That may be a bit of a stretch, but at any rate, you can do it!

Occasionally we hear from a subscriber who is also working on the course and we cheer when that happens. Here is an email comment from one subscriber this week. We think it will encourage you as it did us. And we quote:

“Oh, by the way, I am working on my Spanish (with the Synergy Spanish that you recommended) and it is coming along pretty well. My biggest problem is when someone speaks to me, it just doesn’t seem to register. Of course I don’t have a whole lot of exposure to listening to it, either. I have to get used to the rhythm and tempo of the language. But I am speaking up a storm of very simple and basic sentences which I try out on one of the cashiers at the local supermarket who speaks Spanish. Unfortunately it is only a few fleeting minutes as she rings up my groceries — but it is practice. It’s a lot more than I could have dreamed I could do only a few months ago.”

This subscriber’s challenge is the same as mine. I can talk up a storm–but when they speak, they could be speaking Greek for all I know! I complained online and a friend sent me a link and said, “Here, try this.” It is Daniel Estulin talking about the number of people who die in the United States every year–from taking a proper dose of a legally-prescribed pharmaceutical drug.

Estulin speaks slowly and very clearly. He’s perfect for the person struggling to understand spoken Spanish. At the start I understood very little of what he said but I kept listening, day after day. Gradually I started almost miraculously “hearing” words that I did not recognize before. Athough I don’t have all of his vocabulary yet, I do understand the whole speech. And it is painless. Some people tell me that Spanish television has a similar effect for them. In my case I benefit from listening to the same thing over and over rather than hearing something new all the time. It is like discovering treasure when one day he makes a statement and I suddenly realize what it was that he said. It’s just that the words run together as they speak and are not easily recognized. But as in most things, practice makes perfect. Here is the video of Daniel Estulin. If you are a Spanish student in our group, see what you think.

We can each find our own way in how we learn. If you have children, and you plan to move to South America, this would be a perfect project for the family. You can sign up for the Spanish course here. In fact, you can even try some free lessons first to see if you like it. You will have that option on the web site. For sample lessons or to sign up for the course click here: How To Speak Spanish

We hope you will remember to let us know how it is going. And if you are not already learning Spanish, why not join us? After all, we are all in this together!