Living in Peru : your everyday companion

By Larry J. Pittman 

Add to del.icio.us |

this is interesting... I am the same way, but my husband hasn't just handed the phone business off to me... yet.
I am working on the situation, but still a bit shy, making mistakes, and sloooooowly making some progress.
I'd like to know about other people's experiences with the different Spanish schools in Lima, anybody?

This experience is not unusual. To overcome it, think on how babies learn to speak: they do not start with grammar, they just listen and repeat and speak. Any inteligent adult understands what a baby says, irrespective whether the tense (and grammar) is wrong.

Suggestion: Try not to be shy, just open up and speak. Yes, of course you will make mistakes. Listen at how others speak and copy it (just like babies do), and like children, do not feel embarrrased.

If someone is foolish enough to mock at your mistakes, explain the method you are using to learn and ask them whether they would mock at a child learning! (obviousluy not) tell them they would obviously explain and correct his mistake. Ask them to bestow you with the same courtesy! 

Regards

I have to say "lo siento".  I came here a year ago with the same idea as the author.  My US border-Spanish just wasn't up to it.  Thanks to the wonderful people here in Peru, I'm doing much better and answering the phone all by myself!!!!!

G'day Larry, Rob here from Sydney Australia.

Your story has certainly given me some hope. I don't live in Peru but I am married to a beautiful girl from Lima and we travel to Peru as often as possible to visit our family. Everytime I come to Peru I promise that I will try to speak better Spanish next time, but next time always comes too soon and my Spanish never improves. My wife speaks perfect english so we don't use Spanish at home and that is part of the problem. I think I'll have to ask her to speak Spanish around the house so that I can work at improving.

And to you Fernando, your advice is excellent. I never thought about it like that. I guess as adults we always try to do things the adult way and we forget that children are the real experts when it comes to learning. They spend the first few years of their lives doing nothing but learning, so maybe we should start learning from them for a change.

Regards,
Rob... 



  

Hi,

.. I saw the interview to Carsten Korch through: http://lahabitaciondehenryspencer.com/ site, and that's how I arrived to this site, is a pretty cool one!! :).

I'm a peruvian but sometimes I have trouble over the phone also, is true that we tend to speak faster over it! but you can always ask to speak a little bit slow to understand better people would always make an effort.

I lived a year in Paris as an interchange student, and there I notice some other thing: in Peru most of the people tend to use the telephone not just as a tool to exchange information ( you "have to" ) but also      "just for calling" . Have you noticed it? dont you find yourself sometimes at the end of a conversation thinking "what was it for?" ..sometimes that's annoying cause you already have trouble talking and so you want to make the most of it, but sometimes is a pretty nice feeling to realize that someone just cares for you in someway , I am glad to be back :).

Hi,
Just my guess: (Peruvian) people speak faster on the phone because each second costs.