Total Immersion: Yes, I Speak Español

By Andrea Sachs
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 24, 2008

"Cuando Brenda llegue, vamos a preparar los panques," said Bety Ochoa, using a patient kindergarten teacher tone on me. "Now you say it to Brenda."

She pushed the phone toward me, across the kitchen table, as Brenda waited on the other end. I let the foreign words take shape in my mouth, then swallowed them down. They were not coming out. At least not yet.

Normally, I would not hesitate to mangle the Spanish language. If I were in a classroom in the States, talking about a stick figure named Brenda who planned to bake muffins once she arrived home, I would spit out that phrase, proper accent be damned. However, Brenda was a real person, the 21-year-old daughter of Bety, my homestay host in Mexico City for four days. I wanted to make a good impression on the family and knew that my broken Spanish was hardly charming. Yet, if I wanted muffins, and new friends, I'd have to speak.

Learning a foreign language in its native country is more than just a crash course -- it's survival. Immersion programs combine classroom sessions with homestays and cultural outings, so that you are all-consumed by the language. You eat it, read it, drink it, speak it, even sleep it. (Spanish words were woven into my dreams.) If you regress into your American self, you will get lost or left behind or order the wrong kind of salsa. So, you need to talk local, as best as you can.

To be sure, language immersion vacations can be intimidating. Take my case: I took Spanish in middle school. I was a sassy cutup and, at the end of the year, barely knew more than the menu at Taco Bell. Then I switched to French.

Despite my beginner status, I signed up for nearly a week's worth of classes through Spanish Abroad, a Phoenix-based company that sends students to schools around the world. I chose chaotic Mexico City for its ease of travel (less than five hours nonstop from Washington) and unflagging energy. The capital sways to a soundtrack of loud talkers, honking cars, pulsating music and the occasional street protest, complete with bullhorns.

To further my education, I opted to live with a local family, the Ochoas, a single mother and her college-attending daughter. (The company arranged the homestay, too.) Instead of holing up with CNN and room-service french fries in the hushed quarters of a four-star hotel, I watched morning cartoons in Spanish, ate rice and fried plantains, and lived in a cramped two-bedroom apartment where children played loudly in the courtyard below and a man sold bread at strange hours. This was authentic Mexico.

For the scholastic portion of my trip, I attended classes four hours a day at International House Mexico in La Condesa, a neighborhood of fading elegance near one of the capital's main thoroughfares. The classroom was on the second floor, a small square space with a few desks and chairs, a blackboard covering a wall painted the color of a harvest moon and an energetic teacher who flitted about like a hummingbird.

"Perfecto!" Laura Pavila exclaimed after I told the class in Spanish how my father is tall and thin, has green eyes and little hair.

Each week the class size grows or shrinks, depending on the comings and goings of participants. During my visit, the other students included Fabian from Zurich, Johannes from Vienna and a New Yorker named Sharon. The Europeans were learning Spanish so they could better communicate with their Mexican girlfriends; Sharon, who has Mexican family members, once had a firm grasp of the language and was hoping to retrieve, restore and expand her skills.

"This is the best way to learn. You really retain it," said the Brooklyn jewelry designer, who had signed up for three weeks of classes, two in the city, one in Playa del Carmen. "After being in class, I really feel like speaking the language."

At the end of the first week, Pavila told me in English that we should be able to hold short conversations in Spanish, as well as speak and write about ourselves and other people. In addition, we would know several present-tense verbs and time expressions, plus other odds and ends such as the various uses of "mucho" and "muy."

The lessons, at times, reminded me of children's activity placemats at family-friendly restaurants. For one exercise, we had to circle Spanish words in a puzzle with an entertainment theme (fútbol, cine, tenis); another required us to design the family tree of an imaginary brood. (I unfortunately married off a brother and a sister.) The word games were elementary, but I had to remind myself that I had the language abilities of a preschooler and that these new words, verb conjugations and expressions were the building blocks on which I would climb toward proficiency. Plus, I have to admit, it was fun to fill in blanks, read aloud and write on the chalkboard. As they say in Mexico: Me gusta. I like it.

Outside class, we had two types of homework. One was on paper and barely demanded more than 10 minutes a day; the other was field trips with no restrictions or parental supervision. In other words, we were told to goof off.

"Here I teach you grammar and vocabulary, but you can learn that in any country," said Pavila in English. "The most important thing is to learn the culture. Take advantage of the city: Go to a restaurant or a shop. Try to get involved."

* * *

Mexico City is the largest urban area in the Western Hemisphere, and one needs to be careful before plunging into its fast-moving current. The city has thick pollution, maniacal drivers and a bit of a rap sheet: I received numerous warnings about rogue taxi drivers, for example. But with my amiable homestay host by my side (she leading the way and pointing out the sights while I took notes and soaked it all in), I felt almost at home.

On my first day, Bety put us on a bus. She was teaching me how to take myself to school. However, we purposely missed the stop and continued on to downtown, the throbbing heart of the city. We walked down a wide boulevard lined with Mexican designer shops toward the National Palace, the regal offices of the president. Along the way, we stopped at window displays for impromptu vocabulary instruction: pato, duck; ballena, whale; libros, books.

Bety was just wrapping up her history lesson on Independence Day and the eviction of Spain when we stumbled upon a mass gathering at El Zocalo, the main plaza and site of much fomentation. Three men on a raised platform were trying to rally the crowd with impassioned declarations. I couldn't understand a word of what they were saying but got a sense of their gripes from a pamphlet handed to me by a small, wrinkled woman. In short: They wanted the government to ban pirated goods sold by unauthorized merchants. Bety was hardly sympathetic.

"All of these people should be working, not protesting," she said in English, as we stepped around four teenagers sprawled on the sidewalk. "They should be studying, not sitting around."

Mexican Politics 101 was now in session.

* * *

I fell into a routine pretty fast that optimized my education. In the morning, a quick run down busy Avenue Insurgentes, skirting vendors selling bread and freshly squeezed juices, and catching snippets of conversations as I raced by. Eat breakfast (cereal, fruit, bread and jam, dulce de leche) with my host family. Attend class. Then, venture out for some unstructured lessons.

Because of the city's tangle of streets, Sharon and I were frequently asking, "Dónde está . . ." in our quest to find such attractions as the Zona Rosa, a leafy barrio lively with restaurants and shops, and the crafts market at Ciudadela. We soon mastered the words for "left," "right" and "straight ahead." At El Bajio, we questioned the waiter about the ingredients in the white sauce that drenched our chile en nogado (milk, cheese and nuez de castilla, or walnuts). At Sanborns, mini-Targets that are on nearly every corner, we flipped through fashion magazines, learning the words for "belt," "bracelet," "skirt." And during dinner with Sharon's 32-year-old cousin, a city resident, we learned the secret language of young hip urbanites, such as "¿Qué ondo?" ("What's up?")

Just by looking, listening and opening my mouth, I was shooting up the learning curve. Matriculating in Mexico City did for me what Spanish class in the United States had never accomplished: It made me comfortable speaking Spanish.

On my final morning, standing in the kitchen after breakfast, Bety turned to me and said sadly, "We never made the muffins." I looked back at her and replied with confidence, "Cuando Brenda llegue, vamos a preparar los panques."