Why Talk About Moods at All? If verbs are the engines of language, moods are the gears. In English we barely notice them, but in
First Day, First Impression The jasmine outside Colegio Santa Clara smelled sweeter than courage. I clutched a folder of birth certificates, vaccine cards, and two
I learned the hard way that “¿Diga?” can sound like “Digga” to untrained ears, and that a single dropped “s” over the phone in Santiago
Written by a decade‑long expat who has napped on Caribe Tours buses between Santiago and Santo Domingo, clung to motoconchos in Puerto Plata, and squeezed into Bogotá’s
If I’d received a dollar (or better yet, a peso) for every Spanish blunder I made during my first year in Santiago, I could have
Written by an expat who traded morning social‑media doomscrolling for crinkled copies of Diario Libre and a bottomless cup of café Santo Domingo—and discovered that
I used to believe language lived in books alone, until a broken bus radio on the Autopista Duarte introduced me to the magic of voices
Why Melodrama Makes Words Stick Better Than Flashcards I used to tape flashcards above my stove—“otra vez” near the toaster, “cobrar” by the coffee pot.
Why First Messages Matter More Than Perfect Grammar Think of your opening line on a language‑exchange app as a handshake. Too limp—“Hi” with nothing else—and
Saturday Morning, To‑Do List in Hand, Zero Intention of Studying The plan was simple: grocer, pharmacy, laundromat, and bakery before noon. No flashcards, no textbooks—just