Before heading out to the sun-soaked shores of southern Spain, a group of friends decided to take a basic course in Spanish to get a head start for their Hispanic holiday.

Eager to learn some common, everyday phrases and questions they signed up for a beginners’ course to learn Spanish in Bedford. Rather than the teacher visiting one of their homes for the lessons, they decided to choose a more casual venue and opted to go to a local café to have their group lessons. This made the style of learning much more interactive as the teacher taught them the Spanish way of ordering food and drinks while they ordered their own snacks and beverages during the lessons. They learned how to describe people and their features by pointing out customers in the café. They translated the menu in order to learn the names of different fruits and vegetables, breads, cakes, drinks and popular international dishes.

 

Having a native Spanish speaking teacher was an added bonus as it allowed the group of friends to hear the correct pronunciation of words and they were able to pick up the dialect with ease. Practising conversations with each other in such an animated environment was invaluable as a training technique for genuine situations they might find themselves in when they visited Spain.

Armed with their new language skills and a pocket Spanish dictionary, the friends headed to the airport for the start of their exciting summer holiday with the promise of sun, sand and sangría!