Alejandro Fernandez - Trans-Americas Journey

Language is hard, be it your own or (God forbid) someone else’s. However, without language we’re reduced to charades which is embarrassing and hard and imprecise. This means language is essential–especially for non-mime travelers.

As followers of our Journey know, we have been slowly but surely chipping away at the Spanish language over the past year or so. First, there was Pimsleurs and we listened to lessons in our truck which we found mildly useful in a non-visual, purely audio way. The price tag can be a problem, however and the haphazard hopscotch through the rules and principles of the language gave us a headache. Rosetta Stone? Too much repetition. Too much repetition.

Then we spent five weeks attending the IMAC language school in Guadalajara where we made some progress despite being frustrated and limited by the strict “no English” policy. Our adorable teacher did end up in a music video for Mexican pop superstar Alejandro Fernandez thanks to us, so something good came out of it.

Lately we’ve become aware of a new type of Spanish language learning program designed for travelers. It’s called Bueno Entonces (which basically means “Well, then” in Spanish) from a company called General Linguistics (which does sound like a made up James Bond movie type of company name, but whatever). You can take each lesson on your computer, iPad, iPhone or iPod and, after quickly previewing the first level of lessons, here’s what we like:

lots of cheeky attitude (make us laugh and this whole process sucks a lot less)
snappy musical interludes
plenty of hysterical (one-sided) flirting between David and the teacher, Jimena
a concentration on JUST the type of language and grammar skills a traveler would need in order to be understood and respected in a Spanish-speaking country
color-coded graphics that differentiate verbs from pronouns from adjectives in a given sentence at a glance
arrows (behind and ahead) indicating whether a verb conjugation is past or present or future tense
a simultaneous English translation of the lesson at the bottom of the screen which makes it easy to grasp how Spanish sentence structure differs from English sentence structure
rapid fire speech–this is the reality on the ground in any Spanish speaking country where people talk like the world is about to end and they only have 18 seconds to say what’s on their minds

Take alook at what the heck we’re talking about in this video.

We will be spending more time with our Bueno Entonces Spanish language program and we’ll report back as we learn more. Until then, saludos!

In the meantime, you can try Pimsleur Spanish I and Spanish II audio-only programs for $460 dollars at Amazon, or spend $149 on the audio and visual (and entertaining) Bueno Entonces program.

Buy Bueno Entonces, Now 30% Off, only $147.

Learning a new language is hard. If you don’t know what we’re talking about then you never learned a second language OR you’re one of those freaks who love to conjugate verbs, gobble up new grammar like it’s gummy bears, can’t wait to wade through new vocabulary and says things like “Next, I think I’ll learn Swahili…”. Yeah, we’re talking about YOU Megan.

Anyway, we’ve just completed five weeks of Spanish language immersion classes at a school in Guadalajara called IMAC. With the help of our teacher Saray (pitcure a 23 year old Spanish-speaking Julie McCoy after a few double espressos), we learned four new tenses, a ton of new vocabulary and more grammar rules then we remember ever learning in English. Right now it’s all a muddle of Spanglish in our heads.

Why did we choose to torture ourselves at IMAC as opposed to any of the other language school options in Guadalajara like CEPE or the Harvest Language Center? Well, after fairly exhaustive comparative research, it became clear that most language schools are essentially the same and you’re just not going to know which one works best for you until you’re sitting there in class. Also, IMAC was offering a two-for-one special.

Conicidentally, near the end of our course, the “Travel with Val” program on NY1, a local news station in our hometown of New York City, aired a segment on IMAC.

So, did we learn how to comprehend, read, write and speak Spanish? This post is in English, isn’t it? Seriously, we know a LOT more about speaking, reading, writing and understanding Spanish then we did five weeks ago–and certainly more than we did after graduating from our weak high school Spanish classes. Karen’s two big take-aways from two years of high school Spanish are that she knows all of the words to Cielito Lindo and she can remember that her “Spanish” name was Ramona. Thanks, public school.

However, it’s going to take a heck of a lot more than five weeks to get us speaking with confidence, but we’re on our way. Our skills are WAY better than this guy’s…

We have to say, we came up with what must rank as the best gracias por todo gift a Spanish language student ever gave their 23-year-old female teacher: access to the set where Alejandro Fernández–a singer almost inconceiveably huge in Latin America–was shooting his latest music video. Many thanks, also, to our friend Pepe Homs, an executive producer at Cedro Films and co-owner of the awesome Casa del Atrio in the city of Queretaro, for making dreams come true. Again.

Trust us when we tell you that Alejandro Fernández is hotter (and more universally appealing) than a cross between Justin Timberlake, the Jonas Brothers, Frank Sinatra and Barry White. Oh, and he’s about to embark on an eight city, month-long tour of the US in the spring so check your local listings.

Where are we headed next? Don’t you know not to ask us that by now? All we can tell you with any certainty is that wherever we go, they’ll speak Spanish when we get there.

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How you can support the Trans-Americas Journey:

If you are interested in learning Spanish, check out our Amazon store for our personally recomended Spanish language learning products and resources.

Listen to and buy Alejandro Fernández’s new Album, Dos Mundos (Two Worlds) – Two albums produced and released at the same time. One is a pop album (Evolución), the other contains traditional ranchera and mariachi music (Tradición).

Or, Shop at the iTunes Music Store.

Note: If you purchase any of these products from the Amazon or iTunes links above, you help fund on our Journey just a little bit, without paying a penny more. As they say, muchas gracias.

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