La Casa de la Ardilla

In Mexico, when you are a teenager between 12-15 years old, we study the "secundaria" and we receive instruction for about two years of the most basic english skills. There are few schools that teaches another language different from english. My name is, what color is this?, what time is it? are the day to day lessons. Sadly, not everyone is interested in learning the language. Con la globalización, la modernidad y la economía, cuando te conviertes en un adulto productivo, descubres que necesitas hablar un segundo idioma para lograr un ascenso en tu trabajo, un aumento de sueldo, una promoción, o mayores beneficios. That is exactly what happened to me to improve my living conditions, to grow in my job and to find new opportunities of employment. Speaking, writing and understanding a second language has been the most powerful tool or asset to compete for a higher paycheck. No, I do not make that much money of course, but it feels great to write it down th...

Many mexican (or latinamerican) families have a family member or close relative living permanently in the USA, Canada or few other countries. So, many of this families are use to listen or to learn a second language. This is the beginig for so many mexican people to start thinking in a second language; because of curiosity, because is something natural in the family, perhaps, because want to imitate to those relatives from abroad. In my case, My aunt use to come to visit us to Mexico. She lived in the USA since mid 60's. It was normal for us to grow listening my cousins speaking in english at home, in Mexico every summer vacations. Been sayd this, what about native english speakers? do you have a family motivation to speak a second language, in this case, spanish? Somebody close to your family is proficient bilingual? Does this member of the family is or was an inspiration or motivation for you? Food for thoughts. Your wannabe farmer living in the c...

  V.S. CASAR                    V.S.                  CAZAR Ok, as I told you before on facebook, I am not a teacher, I am not a professional of the education, teaching, or language field. I am just a native-spanish-speaking-wannabefarmer living in the concrete jungle playing to encourage people like you who is trying to practice and gain confidence learning a second language, in this case, learning or practicing SPANISH. Of course there will be fellow spanish speakers who could benefit from what I share in this blog, facebook or youtube and that is the purpose of this, to share... thats it. Today i want to share with you fellow native english speakers the use of S and Z in words such as CASA ,  CASAR and CAZA ,  CAZAR . From the begining, CASA is my home; mi casa; and CAZA, is the hunting sport? activity? you name it please. CASAR is the term that re...