Spanish teacher/school recommendations?

Local to Lakeside, please.

I am somewhat hearing impaired. This makes it necessary that I find a Spanish teacher who speaks with clarity and not too fast. We interviewed with the Ole' Mexico school and I liked the young fellow very much but could not understand him, either English or Spanish, to learn from him. We've done three books of Warren Hardy and are working on the fourth, which is mainly the subjunctive. Hardy is great for grammar but what we need now is conversational and vocabulary building and practice hearing the language when spoken by others.

We have studied with Sra. Lulu, the teacher at the LCS who teaches Warren Hardy. Same problem, the combination of weak English and the tendency to speak Spanish too rapidly for me to hear and comprehend.

Perhaps there are others in this group who can recommend teachers for us to check out. Although we have made great progress and have a decent working knowledge of the 7 verb tenses, we need to move this thing to the next level where we can speak it more comfortably and hear it better.

Thanks.

I went down Wednesday to take their brief test - as I am also looking for a spanish teacher who speaks with clarity and not too fast - to build my vocabulary -

So at Ole - he got out the flash cards, and first flash card was an elephant - which is probably a word that I will never need to say in Spanish at Lakeside (even though a cognate) - and I had mentioned that I never use the informal Tu - as the people I converse with is are all uds (my maid and store clerks etc.) - so 5 minutes later he is asking me for the tu form for verbs to determine what level I should be at. So real mixed emotions about benefits of going to their classes.

In you are into self study, the practice makes perfect series (dorothy richmond) is really good for vocabulary to include the book on verb tenses. A nice supplement to the Warren Hardy materials. All available on Amazon - or at least were last year.

I did try Lina a few years back - she was really into having us learn by speaking mythology - but she did speak clearly and slowly - and tried Naomi (large classes) - but I am really not into listening to others speak incorrectly as pronunciation is one of my problems -

So I am also looking -

Just one remark, when you learn any language you always think people are speaking very fast and you get stuck on words you know or recognize and byt he time you translate in your mind the speaker is at the end of the sentence.
Try to listen without trying to understand it first see how many words you know in the sentence without necessarily trying to translate or understand, eventually it falls in place and one day you just understand it.
Practice one sentence at a time.
When I learned languages I used to go to language labs where you could listen to the same sentence over and over, first you only recognized a few words and then you can pick more and more-
Having a hearing problem is a major handicap but not recognizing words in a sentence is also a problem when you can hear.
A word by itself is not pronounced the same way as a word in a sentence and it is easy not to recognize a word you know because it is in a sentence or because the speaker speak it faster. .

Mainecoon have you tried a movie in Spanish with Spanish subtitles? I find that it really helps you at first get the words you are missing. I do it for Argentinian or Spansi movie as the accents and pronunciation is different and it is more difficult for me to get it.

How about the language school in San Antonio? They have the ability to tailor learning to your specific needs.

http://www.escint.com/
https://www.facebook.com/escint

They are at: Independencia #153 San Antonio Tlayacapan, 45915 Chapala, Jalisco
766-2493

wouldn't hurt to call them (they all speak English there as well) or to stop in and talk with them.

Yes Bridgett, we have Telecable. Same problem, speaking too fast for me to catch more than isolated words. I am told that someone like me has to hear and speak slowly before one can go faster. That is the source of much of my frustration.

Saege, we were looking for them. Can now follow up thanks to you!

Mainecoons wrote:
Saege, we were looking for them. Can now follow up thanks to you!

Good! They are super nice people that work there. Tell them Sasha sent you! Most of them know me pretty well.

brigitte wrote:Just one remark, when you learn any language you always think people are speaking very fast and you get stuck on words you know or recognize and byt he time you translate in your mind the speaker is at the end of the sentence.
Try to listen without trying to understand it first see how many words you know in the sentence without necessarily trying to translate or understand, eventually it falls in place and one day you just understand it.
Practice one sentence at a time.

Excellent advice brigitte. When I was in my active phase of learning Spanish I would use this site Spanish Pod. What you can do is download the podcasts in mp3 form and use a free sound editor like Audacity to slow down the podcasts if they are to fast or incomprehensible. What is also nice is if you have a portable MP3 player, you don't have to be stuck at your computer while learning the language.

Mainecoons, I am not speaking of Telecable, get a movie in Spanish with subtitles for deaf people. This mean you will have all the notes door creaking, man tossing etc notes but you will also see and hear the dialogue at the same time.
You first watch it reading the subtitles and reading the dialogue and you can turn off the subtitles and try to hear what you can then back with subtitles.
I still do that with certain movies that are tough to understand, it is tedious but it works, you will know what sounds you cannot hear.
I am learning a Maya language and I have a dvd with people from various villages saying various things and the tape will say "can you hear the differenve between this and that "?and I am absolutely incapable of hearing it so I know there are certain words I will never get as I cannot differenciates the sounds.
There are just a few of those and I will have to go by context and guess at the word. This is what we do in our own language when we cannot hear clearly. Because I cannot hear the difference, I will never be able to say it properly either as you correct your pronunciation by hearing yourself....

You cannot stop telecable to relistening to what you did not understand, that is the difference.

My hearing is beginning to fade with age too. So I went to the Costco hearing aid store and they gave me a hearing test and suggested that I get hearing aids, which one day I guess I will have to do.

Maincoons, have you contemplated hearing aids? And if so what did you learn? You know, will they help you ?

Signed getting old and not accepting it very well :)

I already have two of the powerful ones that use #13 batteries, Pete. From Costco.

I can hear the words, I just can't process them at that speed.

People told me very good things about the Rosetta Stone program so I went out and got the Latin Spanish version - Levels 1, 2, and 3.

So far it hasn't done a thing for me. I guess the next step is to install it on my computer.

LOL! And don't forget to plug the kumputar in!

I learned my Spanish by dating lots of cute chicas.It didn't hurt that I was only eighteen.

We call this the Dictionary in the Bed Method, it works a whole lot better when you can hear and spend a whole lot of time in bed...

viajero wrote:I learned my Spanish by dating lots of cute chicas.

Nothing like a long haired dictionary. ;-)

I took some group classes for a while, then that got dreary so went private. After a while I found that reading a novel, which was originally written in english and translated to spanish worked quite well. Spanish subtitles drive me nutz, because they are so often wrong. However i did try it FWIW.

Dictionary in Bed Method doesn't work. Pronunciation is too muffled.

It's great to have fun and learn at the same time.

I have yet to find a problem with Spanish subtitles on Spanish movies. Plenty of problems with English or French movies with Spanish subtitles , I agree lots of problems but I have never seen problems with the dialogue being written at the botton of the screen, why should there be a problem, it is the same language.

Axixic wrote:Dictionary in Bed Method doesn't work. Pronunciation is too muffled.

Why because they're biting the pillow?

Is that it? I was wondering what was wrong with my accent!

brigitte wrote:I have yet to find a problem with Spanish subtitles on Spanish movies. Plenty of problems with English or French movies with Spanish subtitles , I agree lots of problems but I have never seen problems with the dialogue being written at the botton of the screen, why should there be a problem, it is the same language.

Sorry, I meant spanish subtitles on english movies. You're right.

brigitte wrote:Is that it? I was wondering what was wrong with my accent!

I have never heard a French accent while making love, your Hound Dog is a lucky dog indeed.

Axixic wrote:Dictionary in Bed Method doesn't work. Pronunciation is too muffled.

Besides, all you learn to say is: ¡ay Dios mío!

I do not think the Dawg ever heard a French accent either, he always complains that I am the only French woman he knows who does not have a sexy French acccent!

I don't know if it's a matter of hearing impairment. The difficulty in clearly hearing words is very common amongst native English speakers who are learning Spanish. I think I've been through every possible plateau and issue with learning Spanish. I can't explain it, but I know that if you spend enough time you will hear every word. That is the difference between what I call intermediate-advanced and first stage fluent. I can even remember the day (!) it happened to me. I turned on the TV (It was televisión española and Ana Blanco was giving the news) and about 5 minutes into the show I realized I could hear every word including prepositions. It was like a switch had been flipped. When you get to that stage you really start learning because you can HEAR. And there is no doubt in my mind even Maya you will hear if you spend enough time.