tr1950

Would you recommend a language school either in Antigua or Quetzltnango and would you choose one city over the other for homesaty and Spanish learning?

hopefulist

I'm sure there are excellent schools in both towns but they're not my cup of tea for language study. Antigua is lovely but it's flooded with English speakers, visitors as well as locals so not a great immersion environment; I don't trust myself to not cheat. Quetzaltenango is the 2nd biggest city in Guatemala and lacks Antigua's charm; in the winter it's really cold. I had great experiences in Honduras at schools in Copán Ruinas, Utila, and La Ceiba, linked below. This summer I'm planning to spend a couple of weeks in Nebaj studying and volunteering. That's just my 2 cents' worth. Keep us posted and please tell how you liked where you end up. Happy trails!

www.nebaj.com
www.ixbalanque.com
www.ca-spanish.com

tr1950

Thanks for your reply. I still am interested in more info about language schools in either Antigua or Qurttzaltenango. By the way, after Guatemala, would you recommend visiting any places in Mexico right above? I am a lover of nature and history. Many thanks,

hopefulist

Here are a few websites you can search for information about schools in those places:

http://www.123teachme.com
http://guatemala365.com/
http://thorntree.lonelyplanet.com/ca...iCountryId=222

The search engine on the last one doesn't always work so you might want to read through a bunch of pages - your question comes up quite often and some of the regulars on the forum will harp at you if you ask a question without looking for previous posts 1st.

I haven't been to southern Mexico but there are some wonderful places I'd love to visit. We did enjoy Belize and there's a really interesting cultural mix there you won't find in Mexico or Guatemala.

Hope you find just what you're looking for! Happy trails!

kwil

I went to language school in Antigua at Centro Linguistico Maya but it was about a decade ago. It was great one-on-one for, I believe, four hours a day. It came highly recommended at the time. I didn't do the homestay.

There were many English speaking students but, at least then, many were European and seemed to take their studies more seriously and would try and use thier spanish outside of class.

Jeff_Costa_Rica

Hopefulist and Kwil raise a good point about intensive lanuage study abroad, and I agree, having studied French in France. What you get out the experience depends primarily on you and your effort, more so than on the program, teacher or loaction. If you spend all your out-of-class time hanging out with your classmates, speaking English, you'll come away with very little. And that's what a lot of students do. But if you do the assignments religously and make a real effort to interact with local people in Spanish, and not be embarrassed by the mistakes you make fumbling through a conversation, you'll make tremendous progress. On that level, it doesn't matter where you are.