This is the kind of stellar deal I was looking for

It's been a year since my last Spanish class, and while I attempted to take classes twice a week while I was working at an office job in Barcelona last year, the attempt lasted little more than a month. The job proved to be too unpredictable as far as hours were concerned, and I could rarely make it to class by the 7:45pm break, let alone the 6:30pm starting time.

So now that I am working mostly from home and can manage my own time again, I am back in the classroom 2 hours a day, four times a week, practicing the subjunctive tense and common phrases I don't use but should. The bad thing about reaching a level of proficiency where you can handle basic communication (as long as it doesn't get too technical) is that you tend to get stuck at that level. I'd like to be able to have a phone conversation where I don't have to process what the person has said until after they hang up.

But I didn't have much money to spend. I've attended five different schools over the course of three and a half years and none of them were cheap. Sure, some schools are cheaper than others, but I don't have the 100+ euros per week that even the cheapest courses charge. Somehow, in my search for discounted Spanish class, I came across a course advertised as "nearly free Spanish lessons" at a well-known language school in Barcelona's centre, International House. (In fact, I likely typed that exact phrase into my preferred search engine, so kudos to the SEO manager, your search terms work).

This is the kind of stellar deal I was looking for: 40 euros for eight hours a week for three weeks. I had to take a verbal test for placement to sign up, with no guarantees the class would be held. But here it is, the end of the second week and I am more than happy with my cheap-o class. It is a teacher-training course, so a new teacher rotates from the back of the classroom every 20 minutes or so. Some of them are good, some of them suck, and honestly, if I were learning some of the things they cover for the very first time, I might be a bit lost. But it's all review for me and if I don't like a particular teacher, I just tune out for 20 minutes until the next one takes the front of the class.

And finally there is me, the perfectionist, who won't speak if she doesn't know the correct way to say something. Which, of course, isn't a good thing and I should know that making mistakes is just part of learning. Which is why I am back in the classroom, to try to push through some of that.

But at least I can pride myself on a good accent. One big secret to sounding more fluent (perhaps more fluent than you actually are) in any language is to imitate the accent. While my limited vocabulary clearly shows I'm not a native speaker, no one can ever place me as an American.