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Expat_2003living in Kansas City, MO
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| TOTAL VIEWS: 109,082 | | | PUBLISHED CONTENT: 246 | | | FAVORITED BY: 9 | | | CONTENT PRODUCER SINCE: 05/17/2005 |
Doug Bower is a freelance writer and book author. Some of his writing credits include The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Houston Chronicle, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Associated Content, Transitions Abroad, International Living, Escape Artist, and The Front Porch Syndicat Education/Experience: high school Interests: writing Motto: Never Give Up! URL |
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Could not learning Spanish as an American Expat in Mexico kill you?
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Companion animals seem to fare worse than working animals. From my very ignorant and subjective Gringo observations, it seems the cows, bulls, goats, sheep, horses, and burros are never seen roaming t...
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If you plan to retire to Mexico you need a realistic picture of what to expect.
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Have you ever wondered what some of these slick and mendacious online magazines are leaving out when they tell you all your troubles will be over if you take their "how-to-move-to-Mexico" course (fo...
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When I finished my book, "The Plain Truth about Living in Mexico," I sent queries to a number of publishers. On a lark, I queried McGraw-Hill. To my utter shock and awe, they wanted to look at the com...
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More and more retirees are choosing to learn Spanish and doing so by taking a Study in Mexico vacation. This is such a grand idea that I hardly know where to begin
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I love birds. I always have. I had them when I was a child; and, from time to time as an adult, I have bred them in numbers I am too embarrassed to admit
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When we moved to Mexico, the issue that troubled us most was accidentally making some cultural blunder. We were afraid we would do something to offend everyone we met. You can only read so much materi...
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Abstract: The future of Washington
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If you experience the rare honor of an invitation to someone's home, dress casually but neatly. Men should wear a nice shirt and slacks; women should wear a dress, a skirt and blouse, or a pantsuit.
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Gringo tourists have to be constantly reminded that just because they've secured a new mortgage on the house back home to afford vacationing in Mexico, this does not entitle them to commit all manner ...
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If you don't speak Spanish well enough, the very first problems you will encounter when trying to deal with Mexican hotels will be when you try making a reservation in an area of Mexico outside the Pr...
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One thing I notice when I am on the west coast of Mexico is that in restaurants, many of the owners will take dollars if the patron hasn't bothered to change his money into pesos.
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How can voter apathy be fixed?
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From the Olmecs, the Teotihuacans, the Aztecs, the Mixtecs, the Casas Grandes culture, and Mimbres culture to modern day Mexicans, pottery has been a predominate influence in the lives of all Mexicans...
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The largest cultural event in Guanajuato is the International Cervantino Festival. It is held for 3 weeks each October. This is a festival that celebrates the arts. Each year, the festival features on...
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But, the point is, if a Mexican city wants to woo the American, Canadian, Australian, and anyone else who is not fluent in Spanish, then those within the service and tourist industries should get on t...
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Let me begin by saying that there's nothing wrong with the hotels in Guanajuato's Historic District, specifically. I've been in all of them when I was researching my new book, A Walk Through Mexico's ...
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What is consciousness?
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Should the CIA be cut some slack and seen as a pawn of political machinations?
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My friend's perception of Mexico was it was so utterly corrupt that I could not possibly stand living in it. I might add that the Minuteman Anti-Mexican groups also wrote me scathing emails with point...
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We wanted to not only see San Luis Potosi, but also take some time to do some much-needed shopping. When we moved to Guanajuato, we wanted to live in a mostly pedestrian town so we would not have to h...
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We pulled into San Luis Potosi about 2:00 p.m. after a very pleasant run on one of Mexico's fine bus lines. I love Mexican buses. Mexico did what I am convinced no other country on the earth has ever ...
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The next morning, we popped up and prepared for a day to explore a place we'd never been before. I had been hearing nothing but good things about this town and my time spent in it would not find any c...
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The Plaza de Armas is ringed by shops, both big and small, some eateries, and of course, the magnificently grandiose La Catedral.
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A too-often neglected little town in the state of Guanajuato, which is easily accessible from the city of Guanajuato, is Silao.
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I had never been to Tonalá, Jalisco, Mexico, before this week. I had an appointment with the Queen of Tonalá.
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The one thing in the world that never puts me to sleep is the subject of Mexican churches. It's become a passion of mine since moving to Guanajuato, Mexico, and I never tire of visiting the scores of ...
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It wasn't to take place for another 25 days. That was the plan anyway. Something had happened. They weren't to take action until December 8th but a spy came on the 13th of September to inform them tha...
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When we retreated to a bench to watch the church from which the funeral had expelled us to see a covey of Gringos walking into the church with cameras, short pants, and halter tops.
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On the Dolores Hidalgo map, which you obtain from the tourist's office, depending from which direction you are coming, the Templo de la Tercera Orden.
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I wanted to find some shopping venues that would not have necessitated walking down to "Ceramic Avenue" or "Pottery Lane".
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Hidalgo was a rascal. He was known by his peers as el zorro or the Fox. It turned out that he was not only the father of Mexican independence, the father (priest) of the local Parroquia church, but wa...
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This morning I wanted to hit first the museum that was actually Miguel Hidalgo's home. It was in this place where the insurgents would meet for their "Literary Meetings" and where the plot of the insu...
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Just as in the city in which we live, Guanajuato, while sitting in the plaza trying to enjoy the evening you will be hounded almost endlessly for donations to something or another. Usually, young peop...
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We were on a slow bus going apparently nowhere fast. For once we had gotten up at the mutually agreed time. We had gotten ready and arrived at the Guanajuato bus station to head out to Dolores Hidalgo...
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Perched on a bench in the large square plaza in the center of town. I am on the side of the plaza facing directly in front of The Parish church of Nuestra Señora de los Dolores.
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This was, I suppose, going to be church day for us. So, we finished our ice creams and headed for church number two, Templo Calvario.
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Both Americans and Mexicans have their different cultural ways of calling on someone at home.
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Something we didn't plan on when moving to Mexico, a thing that would have most certainly kept us away from here, was that we are currently being Cyberstalked.
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This time of the year also brings the onslaught of unwanted puppies and kittens
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Some readers think I am opposed to "progress."
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I have the very worst luck with getting wrong-number phone calls, no matter what country I live in. Believe me, when we moved to Mexico, the problem didn't get any better.
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It is very interesting to note how someone responds to what I've written about Gringolandia and its inhabitants, Gringolandians.
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The literature that exists in book form and especially in online newsletters and magazines presents to the "Move-To-Mexico Wannebee" Mexico as an Image and not Mexico as it Really Is.
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The Gringolandia infection is spreading.
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A couple of years ago, an American lady came to Guanajuato to learn Spanish. She enrolled in one of the most expensive schools in town.
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The chief problem for most Americans who want to learn Spanish but who don't succeed is the Affective Factor.
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Sometimes I marvel at how my wife and I arrived in Guanajuato, Mexico, with so little Spanish and with so few cultural skills.
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I cannot begin to imagine what life must be like in isolated little enclaves where the inhabitants have only one another for socializing.
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Do Mexican Bus and Cab Drivers pose a danger?
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Though a conservative, I read liberal points of view. I do so for two reasons. One, their views help me refine my own.
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I've noticed lately the tourists that make their way to central Mexico (Guanajuato) tend to be either the loosey-goosey backpackers or the tourist elite who tend to have a lot of experience in coming ...
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Most folks, when they set out to study a new language, begin by enrolling in Spanish I at their local Junior College.
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If you haven't been following my articles plastered all over the Internet, what I've been writing about with much alacrity is how life for the American expat in Mexico basically falls into two classif...
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One of the chief complaints of students, young or old, who seek to learn Spanish is that what they hear is "machine gun Spanish.
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Exactly how the brain stores language, spoken and understood speech, has not exactly been known.
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I've been wondering lately about the word "terrorism" and its various definitions.
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Passive listening would be the direct opposite of how we are taught to approach the learning of math, history, or science.
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Spoken fluency in a second language is not learned but acquired.
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The place most worth considering where instruction in how to learn a second language abounds just might surprise you.
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Let me first say that whether or not I am actually insane could be debated
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Without the language, your social involvement is severely limited to only those who speak English.
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Maybe the most important aspect of Stephen Krashen's theories of second language acquisition is The Input Hypothesis.
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My wife and I met with a woman a few years ago when she was contemplating moving to Guanajuato.
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Dr. Krashen explains that this idea, The Monitor Hypothesis, shows how language learning (grammar) affects language acquisition.
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Georgi Lozanov, a Bulgarian psychologist, introduced what he undoubtedly thought an original and brilliant premise:
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Let me say right off the bat if you find this article entertaining, you really must come back and look at the "reader's comments" that will undoubtedly follow in the next few days.
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When I was setting up an interview with a Mexican friend, he asked what I wanted to discuss.
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What got me started on an Intercambio jag was learning how Mexicans in the tourist industry on Mexico's Gold Coast learn English and achieve an amazing level of proficiency.
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The tragic event in Eloxochitlan, Mexico, in which a mudslide took too many bus traveler's lives on July 5th, 2007, reminded me...
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A most bizarre philosophy of education called "Discovery Learning," based partly on the educational ideas of Rousseau, Pestalozzi and Dewey, led to The Silent Way Method of Second Language acquisition...
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Living in a Mexican town that is probably the most provincial in the entire country can have many advantages.
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It has been the Prime Living Locations such as the Lake Chapala area, Puerto Vallarta, San Miguel de Allende, Cuernavaca, Mazatlán, and others to which Gringos have been attracted
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This method of second language instruction was a further development or evolution of The Direct Method.
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Most, if not all, Americans who decide to move to Mexico to "get away from it all" seem to do so based on the merits of at least two books.
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We've been holed up in the house pretty much now for two weeks and counting. We venture out between downpours. Such is life in Central Mexico during the rainy season.
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Realizing that The Grammar Translation Method of second language instruction did not work to impart spoken proficiency in the target language, in the late 1800's, The Direct Method surfaced in languag...
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The grammar translation method of second language acquisition is virtually the only method used in most language courses taught in classrooms all over the world. It is also known as The Classical Meth...
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I've been thinking about this lady in San Miguel de Allende. I don't know her well. I've never met her, actually, but we have corresponded.
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Tell me how anyone would learn what "No manches" or "¿Quién va a hacerlo, Buey?" means in a classroom where you are learning how to conjugate estar and ser?
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The Australian aborigines, who believed their world was sung into existence, have associated a song with every geological item in the wilds of Australia.
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What I am often tempted to say, but I don't, is, "Well I can see that you've amassed a vast Spanish vocabulary using whatever method you use.
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Mnemonic memory training is a memory system that allows you to store information in and recall it from your long-term memory, and, in the case of learning a new language, your speech center.
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You get home from your year abroad in Mexico and starting going through all those home study courses to reinforce your year of Spanish in Mexico
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I was standing outside the walk-in-closet-sized store where my wife loves to shop. It is also the neighborhood gossip center.
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I was in a bus with my wife heading back to Guanajuato from Texas.
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Almost without exception, the private language schools and universities in Mexico use the translation method of Spanish instruction.
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If you are planning what seems to be the "in thing" with more and more middle-class Americans, a study Spanish vacation in Mexico, then there are some things you can do to maximize the experience.
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I asked the question: Why would someone from Chihuahua City speak so disdainfully about the people of Guanajuato?
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When my wife and I first came to Guanajuato, we did a Study Vacation and stayed with a Mexican family. Our experience was wonderful
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Going to the host country of the target language has always taken on a sort of mythical quality.
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If you have successfully completed at least The Learnables and The Pimsleur Spanish, Learning Spanish Like Crazy courses, you are ready for the formal study of Spanish (i.e., grammar).
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There are two additional courses that I recommend.
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What do we know so far
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So just where did this hideous stereotype about adults learning foreign language originate?
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The Horse, as I wrote previously, is spoken fluency
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Think about this very seriously for a moment.
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Yes, there are conversation classes.
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This article is about language learning methods.
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Why should an American learn a foreign language in the 21st century?
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Foreign language learning is not something that happens overnight;
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It is not an exaggeration to declare that the United States of America could be the only country in the world where one can graduate from high school and even college without taking one course of fore...
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Recently, I read a book written by a Cultural Analyst specializing in Mexican culture.
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There is a great restaurant in town where I love to eat steak.
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You and your business partner have been working your tails off trying to get a bunch of modern, Mexican-style duplexes off the ground.
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To be honest with you, I don't see why more Gringos in Guanajuato aren't getting ripped off when trying to rent, or God forbid, buy a house on their own
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The simple answer is if you are a Gringo, Mexicans perceive you as having riches galore.
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I wish someone had written a more reality-based expatriation guide we could have read during our research phase before moving to Mexico.
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It is always a treat to receive letters from readers who read what I crank out.
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If I had my way, I would require every American to come to Guanajuato for a month or two to engage in a Study Abroad program.
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In my never-ending quest to discover just what to call American gringos who move to Mexico and create Gringolandias (expats, fakepats, colonists?), I offer yet another confusing yet interesting dilemm...
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No amount of denial will make the dual-price system in Mexico go away.
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