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This is a great place to learn Mandarin, they only hire full-time teachers, they are very serious about teaching Mandarin!
An international group of locals and expats who meet twice a week to socialise, practice their Spanish or English and exchange tips on Barcelona.
Don't watch TV in your hotel, meet the locals (Barcelonians and expats). Socialise and get all the insiders' info you could never get from a guide book. Every person is a walking, talking, up-to-date guide book. Ask and we shall answer!
The group meets at least twice a week. For all the details check out their website: www.englishoasiscafe.com
This is a very professional and friendly Spanish school. I enrolled when I first got to Barcelona and it was great! The teachers and staff are nice and experienced and my classmates were from all over the world, so I met lots of interesting people as well as learning a new language! I definitely recommend it to everyone.
You can find them here:
Calle Rocafort, 104
08015 Barcelona
0034 93 426 98 22
info@barcelonaspanish.com
www.barcelonaspanish.com
Viva Spanish School is a gay-owned Spanish language school in the capital of Nicaragua. The school was muy buena and the owner has all of the scoop on gay activities in Nicaragua.
www.vivaspanishschool.com
505-270-2339
Just a tip about buying a ticket and recognising the train. This site is ace for planning times reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/e.
Worth writing down the journey details and the Romanian for 'first-class ticket' and handing it over - no English spoken at the train station when I was there. But the Lonely Planet guide came to the rescue.
Once you have found the platform watch out. The noticeboard flagged two separate trains - one to Targa Mures and one to Bucharest. The Bucharest train stops at Sighisoara.
But the trains appear to arrive joined as one - late. So it can be confusing.
What seems to happen is that the first-class carriage is always carriage three.
If you are on the same train as me be prepared for 50 year-old rolling stock in first class.
The scenery is fantastic. Ranging from the awesome pollution of Copsa Mica to shepherds and their flocks.
Str. Garii 1-3
If you intend on staying in Beijing for a few months, try learning Mandarin at the Hutong School. It is situated in a beautiful courtyard in the middle of a hutong area. They give you all sorts of support, have apartments to stay in, organise trips, it's a great way to live in Beijing!
It's a phone translation service that makes travelling in China much easier. You sign up online for a certain number of minutes and then add credit when you run out. All you need is a mobile phone, which you can pass to anyone you need to speak to and they can interpret what you want to say. Best part is it runs 24 hours a day so it can be really useful when it's 3am and you've realised you've lost the address of the hotel you're staying in.
Using it with international roaming can be a bit pricey (as you're using a UK network's roaming rates) so I'd recommend getting a Chinese SIM card which means it's a local-rate call from anywhere in the country.
Last time I checked they were about to introduce a SIM card delivery service but might be worth checking first. We bought our SIM cards at Beijing airport.
Lots of great web guides are written in German or English. This one is written in Danish.
On this site Danish readers will find all the information needed for a great trip to Berlin. Bring your children, your friends, your wife, your parents, yourself.
Having had the experience of being let down so many times before in various countries, and found that word-of-mouth works in general, I'm passing on a top tip for a competent, lively and professional young teacher of Spanish (or 'Castellano' as they call it there) that I had recently in Buenos Aires. Her name is Marina and she gives classes to all levels (she dragged me up a couple!) in cafés or apartments. She usually does an initial interview to size up the level and then takes it from there. Speaks good English. Great teacher. Catch her at marinita.peruani@gmail.com and habla, habla, habla!
Why not get friendly on your trip by learning a few key Swahili words!
I visited prisons in Kenya in 2005 and addressed the prisoners there in regards to their human rights and court cases.
To cut the tension (which one will need in this current political climate) start your introduction with 'mambo vipi'! The prisoners loved it because they thought it was funny coming from a Mizungo (white man). Basically, it means 'whats up?', but it worked everytime and had them rolling on the ground!
Far from the madding crowd, yet only 30 minutes from central Florence is San Giovanni Valdarno, a delightful, small medieval town in the heart of Tuscany, unstressed by tourists and traffic, where it is still possible to savour the taste of Italian daily life. Il Sillabo is a gem of a school, family owned and operated, that really makes students feel at home. Extra classes in History of Art, Drawing and Painting, Italian Literature, as well as fantastic food and wine.
Il Sillabo - Italian Language & Cultural Centre
Via Alberti 31
San Giovanni Valdarno (AR), Italy
tel +39 055 9123238
email: info@sillabo.it
www.sillabo.it
Make sure that you know a certain amount of French and where your destination is because you will have to fend for yourself. Be very exact because certain places have similar names. Don't get tricked by taxi drivers.
Also, if you decide to go to Monaco, or any other city for that fact, please take the train because I took a very scenic six-hour walk there and my feet didn't thank me. Besides, you will see more than I did because I was on a tight schedule, but I still managed to see a reasonable amount.
For people who follow F1, if you want to visit David Coulthard's restaurant, it is called Knights of The Round Table at the Columbus Hotel. The Food is wonderfully exquisite and the prices are very very reasonable.
Learn Spanish at a farmhouse in Navarra at an informal, relaxed Spanish language house party with unlimited food and wine, gentle walking and opportunities to chat to the locals.
0121-711 3428,
www.pyreneanexperience.com
A hostel close to the centre of Granada, the Bearded Monkey is friendly and lively without being dominated by hard-partying backpackers.
Arranged around a central courtyard lit with twinkling lights, the (public) bar sells local beers, decent food and its own compilation CDs, as well as running DVD nights from the owner's great selection, for a small donation.
Check the noticeboard for good value Spanish lessons by local teachers (Anjelica is recommended) and trips to the nearby Lago de Apoyo, where the Bearded Monkey has a cabin, the Monkey Hut, with terraces running down to the lake - an excellent swimming spot.
Avenida 14 de Septiembre, opposite the bomberos (fire station).
We are a group of people who practice English every Friday at a coffee shop in Buenos Aires. It's an easy going and informal meeting, free, just for fun.
We have been meeting every Friday for over 6 years to practice our English. All are at a level that enables us to speak English fluently, which is a requirement to participate.
We like to chat about ordinary things but travelling is our favourite subject. Every Friday, foreign travellers who are on holiday in Buenos Aires and are interested in meeting "porteños" visit us. This kind of exchange and sharing of cultures and points of view means learning and developing for all of us. Tourists, backpackers, expats are all welcomed. If you are in Buenos Aires learning or practicing your Spanish, you can join us for dinner afterwards. At dinnertime we are free to use any language we choose. If you are interested in participating e-mail us for further details.
Stunningly located between the Eifl and the sea, this deserted quarry village was inaccessible by car until the 1980s, when it was regenerated to provide residential Welsh courses.
www.nantgwrtheyrn.org
Welsh Language and Heritage Centre, Nant Gwrtheyrn, Llithfaen, Pwllheli, Gwynedd, LL53 6PA
Tel: 01758 750334
Volunteer Bolivia offers tours of Cochabamba department, home stays, Spanish classes and volunteer work. They are extremely professional, they have the best teachers in Cochabamba for Spanish. My family was very nice and helpful and became a second family to me. They work with small organisations so their volunteer work is specialised and you will be the only gringo there. To have a "real" experience of Bolivia, there is no one better than Volunteer Bolivia.
www.volunteerbolivia.org/
342 Calle Ecuador, Cochabamba, Bolivia
Tel: +591 (4) 452 6028
info@volunteerbolivia.org
Il Sasso is a language school offering courses in Italian for adult learners at all levels and of all ages. Classes are small and fun.
The teachers, all local, are excellent. I have been there three times and the highlights have been: meeting students from all over the world, staying with a local family and having wonderful food, enjoying the local music and wine festivals, going on visits to Montalcino, Sienna, Cortona and Arezzo, and simply living in such a beautiful place.
For me it has been the best way of getting to know a part of Italy well.
Il Sasso, Via di Gracciano nel Corso, 2
I-53045 Montepulciano (Siena)
Tel.: 0039 0578 758311
Fax: 0039 0578 757547
E-mail: info@ilsasso.com
Nearest station: Chiusi.
Nearest airports: Pisa, Florence, Rome.
There is a specialist foreign language college in Shaoxing and many people study English so in term-time at least there is a good
chance of finding someone to give you directions although none of the taxi drivers speak English so a good phrase book with Chinese characters is essential.
"'Ark at ee!", "Gert Lush", "They's me daps mind", "'Ow bis me babber?" The dialect is being reclaimed by the locals with confidence. If a word finishes in 'a' then 'wl' is attached. Idea becomes 'ideawl', Asda 'Asdawl'. A Bristolian dictionary is available for any left struggling to comprehend. Cheers drive.
On the buses, in the streets;
www.thatbebristle.co.uk/dictionary
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