Language Background 

I started learning Spanish six months before coming to Costa Rica. I wasn’t planning on studying abroad, but when I decided to study abroad, I had only had about three months of Spanish experience, and the only Spanish that I had learned was from Duolingo. Before this, I studied French for nine years, but I decided that I wanted a change. While Duolingo can be very helpful for learning a language, it’s nothing compared to talking with people and using a language in real life settings. So, I knew coming into my program that it would be a struggle at first, but in the end, I would learn so much from the experience.  

This is my roommate with our dinner. This is traditional Costa Rican food, and it was at a dinner with our host mom and her children. We were able to talk to her and her kids a lot and practice our Spanish. 

Classes 

Of the four classes that I’m taking here, one of them is a Spanish class and the other are classes in English. This allowed me to not have to fully understand the language but still take classes here. My favorite class has been Spanish, and this is because I was able to learn so much and be able to start practicing right away. The Spanish class was an intensive one where in the first month of me being here, I took it every day for three hours each day. It was very intense, but it was worth it because it allowed me to learn a semester's worth of Spanish in one month. This was very helpful coming here, and every day when I went home to my host family, I could say more, and we could have better conversations. I was really able to see myself grow and learn more, which is very encouraging in this type of situation.  

While we did have a lot of presentations and homework, it was all very beneficial for our learning. We even had field trips where we would go to surrounding areas and go to markets or museums so that we could practice our Spanish more.  

Restaurants and Grocery Stores 

Going to restaurants and markets is also a great way to learn and practice a language more. Reading menus and packaging can really help to instill words into your brain as you can see pictures of things and understand the ingredients going into them. Often, smaller things like food are easy to forget the words for. But ordering and paying for things helps me with smaller interactions. A lot of language learning focuses on conversations and things that you would say to friends or family members, which is also very important, but having these smaller interactions can really help to solidify things in my mind and make me more confident. While I struggled a lot at first with buying things and ordering, it has gotten a lot easier over time, and now I can even have conversations with the people taking my orders.  

This is one of my favorite meals that I’ve had here so far. It’s pancakes with lemon and blackberry sauce on top. There are a lot of really good restaurants here, and going to restaurants is a great way to practice speaking Spanish. 

Walking Around the City 

Exploring the city is one of my favorite things to do. Part of it is that I live in a beautiful city with a lot of history and interesting things going on, but it's also a great way to learn about language and culture. While exploring the city, I go to museums, the central market, and parks. They all have different things and are interesting in their own ways.  

When I go to museums, it’s great because I can read all the information in Spanish and see what I understand. Sometimes I have to get out a translator app on my phone, but then I’m learning new words and about the history and culture of the country. The museums here are all really nice and fun, too. My favorites are the Children’s Museum and the National Museum of Costa Rica.  

The central market is also a great place to learn more. I go to the market to buy fresh fruits and vegetables. Everything is so fresh, and the vendors are very nice. I talk with them a lot, and sometimes they recommend new foods or recipes for me to try. There’s also a lot of new foods that I’ve never tried before, and art to buy. I can always find something new that I wasn’t expecting to find.  

Parks are another one of my favorite places to go to. Sometimes I’ll just walk around and read all the plaques and signs in the parks. They share a lot about history and have some interesting stories on them. 

This is at a park in the city. I had a picnic here with my friends, then we watched the sunset. All of the parks here are so pretty, but this one is my favorite. I like going around it and reading all the plaques in Spanish to learn about the history.  

Other times when I go to the parks, I have picnics with my friends, read books, or do homework. In general, the parks here are very nice and taken care of. This makes them a comfy place with lots of space to relax. I recently bought the book El Principito, and reading it has been great for learning Spanish. It can be really difficult at times to understand everything that’s going on but using a translator fixed all of the issues I run into.  

I went to an art and music festival last week. I was able to practice a lot of Spanish by talking with local artists. 

Talking with my Host Family 

And finally, by far the best way to learn a language: talking with people! I mainly talk with my host mom. I live with her and my two roommates, and sometimes, our host mom’s kids will come over, and I talk with them, too. We try to only speak Spanish in the house, and we do pretty well with it. My roommates and I all want to learn Spanish, so we are doing as much as we can here to make sure that it sticks with us. So, all the house interactions and meal conversations are in Spanish. The only time we use English in the house is if someone doesn’t understand something. Every day when we come home from school and have dinner together, we each talk about our days and ask each other questions about what we did. It’s great practice for all types of situations, and we learn so many new words this way.  

I’ve had an amazing time learning Spanish so far, and I’m excited for it to continue once I get back to the United States. I want to be able to continue my learning and further my Spanish knowledge.