Likes and Dislikes Archives -

Our Favorite Methods To Learn Spanish

15 February 2017May 1, 2020HeatherLife in Valencia, Likes and Dislikes, Spainconversation exchange, culture, family, intercambio, language schools, learning Spanish, school, Spanish, Valencia, work life balance4 Comments

Updated 1 May 2020.

We get asked a lot – how’s your Spanish? (current status: B1/B2) Which is inevitably followed by, how are you learning? So, we thought we’d give an update on our progress, our experiences, and share our favorite methods to learn Spanish.

We arrived in Spain in July of 2016, and began our journey to learn Spanish (Castilian/Castellano). We’re from California where there are lots of Spanish names for places, streets, Latino owned businesses, Latino radio and TV stations, and lots of Spanish speakers. We were familiar with a few basic words, and some pronunciation, but were starting from knowing near-zero Spanish. So how do you learn Spanish in a hurry – at least enough to get by? Continue reading

First Impressions

9 September 2016April 1, 2017HeatherCalifornia Expat, Likes and Dislikes, Spainarchitecture, bocadillos, culture, dislikes, family, likes, medication, persianas, pharmacy, shopping, tapas, Valencia, wine4 Comments

Plaza Ajuntamiento view from above — The view from our apartment in Valencia

We moved to Valencia about 2 months ago, so I thought I’d share some of my first impressions, both the good and the not so good. Keep in mind that we’ve only lived here for a short time, and much of that time has been spent finding an apartment, and setting up our household. We’ve been eating out a lot during this time, and since it was summer, TJ was not in school and we were working hard to try and keep him entertained. (Note: We now refer to our home in San Jose as “Home Sweet Home” and our apartment in Valencia as “Home”. It just makes it easier in conversation so we can distinguish one from the other). Continue reading