Isla de Mezcala, Mexico
Posted by scott in Leg 2, tags: E-learning, Island, Knowledge, Lake Chapala, Mexico, School, Spanish language, United States
School is over! Finished my last class on Friday. I’m still in town and will hang out here for another couple days. Need some time for all my new Spanish knowledge to sink in. The apartment I was staying in wasn’t available past today so I had to get a motel room. 
Overall I’m glad that I stopped to take the classes but I am kind of disappointed that my vocabulary is still pretty weak. Not knowing words kind of hinders ones ability to form sentences. I’ll keep practicing using some online courses I found and hopefully get better. I definitely know about hundred times more than what I started with so that’s good at least.
Went to a place called Isla de Mezcala today with Beata, Sarah and a guide from the school (and one of his friends). The island is about a 15 minute boat ride onto Lake Chapala, the largest fresh water lake in Mexico. The structures on the island consisted of some old officer’s quarters, a church, an infirmary and a prison. The island was abandoned for a long time so a lot of the original structures fell into disrepair. It didn’t help that people kept stealing the doors and windows either. Restoration didn’t begin on the island until 2004 so there’s still lot’s of work to do.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_c.png?x-id=5b7267e0-b910-409b-b25f-7a2569f0f96a)
Entries (RSS)
there you are……..been a while since your last post. all is well here, sorry I missed your call. what a fun trip to the island via boat, that’s neat. hang in there son, you’ll pick up the spanish I’m sure, keep practicing. be careful and hopefully talk to you soon.
Wonderful! What an adventure!
Congratulations on finishing the Spanish course. I took a course in German one year before a church visit with a sister church in eastern Germany. I was only able to talk at the level of a two year old in German and the other adults there could talk in a two year old level of English so we suffered through. All the teen agers in our group could chatter like magpies in English and German since the Americans had taken German in school and the German youth had been talking English in school and off course had access to movies and TV and music in English to help. It was very frustrating to have taken a course and still only be able to say words and hand gesture to get information. I hope your immersion in the culture will speed your ability to speak. Don’t get discouraged, but I found that the German I was taught in the course was High German and the area I was visiting spoke “low” German. There will probably be areas were dialect will still be a challenge as you move along. At least you will begin to understand signs and menus and won’t order an egg on your pizza!! B Harkins
Thanks! Yeah I heard there are three dialects in Mexico and I’m close to being in the places where it changes from what I was taught. Maybe it’s good that I don’t know that much.
Knowing more words (nouns/adjectives) has helped a lot. If someone happens to mention one of the few I know sometimes I can pick out what they are saying and respond (like a two year old).
I took an online course in Spanish after years of trying to communicate with my hispanic customers. It advertised that one can learn to speak it in three weeks. Had 220 pages of words and sentences plus all the words given in english and then followed by a Spanish personM that gave correct pronunciation. In less than three weeks, I have been able to communicate quite well with natives in Mexico. go to http://www.spanish-is-easy.com