Escuela Bellavista. Learning Spanish is easier among friends!

Why study Spanish in Bellavista?

- We are certified professionals

At Escuela Bellavista all of our professors are certified and specialize in teaching Spanish as a foreign language! Lidia, Boris, Yuri, Vanessa, Cathy, Catalina, Jenny, Italo, Sebastián, Cristina, Mauricio, Piedad, Fernando and Jarka have worked together for more than 21 years.

- You are part of our Family

At Escuela Bellavista we want you to feel like you are part of the family. We strive to create a warm and friendly environment in every classroom. We are known for our small group classes of no more than 6 people per group. This allows us to offer personalized attention to each student ensuring their understanding and success in the language.

- Our personalized teaching method

Our classes are adapted to the student's level and his interests. We prepare our own lessons so that we can bring additional personalized materials to our students. Our teaching concept incorporates both written and oral exercises to help the student understand and learn more efficiently.

- Free Activities to practice your Spanish

If you are practicing, you are learning. Our courses include weekly extracurricular activities that are free of charge for all of our students. We offer salsa classes, excursions to different points of interest in Santiago, and after school grammar courses all designed to provide the student with opportunities to connect what they have learned in the classroom to real life situations in Chile.

- Spanish conversation policy

The classes are in Spanish and Spanish only. Students are encouraged to practice their conversational skills by speaking only in Spanish to each other and to their teachers. The extra curricular activities and the mid-day break are oriented to practice Spanish in everyday situations. This policy has been proven to be an excellent method.

Keep reading about this school at Escuela Bellavista.

Queda prohibido - Pablo Neruda (poem in Spanish)

Pablo Neruda's great poem, with music and images related to it. It's really nice! He is one of the greatest poets in Latinamerica!!!



Check out more poems on Youtube.

Study Chile. Language programs in Chile

Study Chile is an educational agency who provides educational services in Chile to students from all over the World. We provide immersion cultural programs, language programs, volunteering programs and any other tailor made programs at the most important universities in Chile.

Study Chile owners have a high respect and interest for education, cultures and languages. They have had the opportunity of living, working and studying abroad where they didn't just learn a language but also different cultures, a deeper knowledge of themselves and what they were capable to do or not. They have had some local experience in hospitality and tourism for international students, too. All partners truly believe in providing high quality standard services for every one interested in living an unforgettable experience abroad.

Why choosing Study Chile?

Study Chile is operated by people who have lived, studied abroad and extensively traveled many countries. We know what it feels like being away home. We are a professional team whom will assist the students throughout the whole study abroad experience, since they first contact us until the last day of the program when they get back home. Our staff will assist you in all cultural, academic and living aspects and continuously encourage you to go beyond your goals.

Check it out on Study Chile.

Chilean Cuisine

Chilean cuisine stems mainly from the combination of Spanish cuisine with traditional indigenous ingredients, with later influences from other European cuisines, particularly from Germany, Italy, France and the Middle East. The food tradition and recipes in Chile stand out due to the varieties in flavors and colors. The country's long coastline and the Chilean peoples' relationship with the sea adds an immense array of ocean products to the variety of the food in Chile. The country's waters are home to unique species of fish and shellfish such as the Chilean sea bass, loco and picoroco. In addition, many Chilean recipes are enhanced and accompanied by wine, owing to the fact that Chile is one of the world's largest producers of wine. The countries inmense geographical diversity allows for a wide range of crops and fruits to be present in Chilean food.

Major Crops

Throughout Chile and South America you may find fruits and vegetables that have been cultivated for ages. These agricultural products are appreciated and heavily implemented onto several cooking recipes. They have also been exported around the world as important agricultural commodities. Among the most known are the following:

• Olives: Although originating in Europe Azapa olives from Arica are considered a variety originating in the northern region and are widely recognized in Chile.

• Chirimoya: a peruvian fruit native to the subtropical regions of the Andes mountains, it is widely consumed and produced.

• Maize: Recognized in Chile and Peru as choclo, and in English speaking countries as corn. Maize was a staple diet that prospered in three empires Mayas, Aztecs, and in closest proximity to Chile the Incas. It was also cultivated in varying systematic methods by the Atacameño. Through trade and travel, Maize brought and eventually embraced by the Mapuche and using it towards their culinary arts.

• Lúcuma: A subtropical fruit of Andean origin, native to Peru it has grown well for centuries in southern Ecuador and Chile's northern coast. The fruit is very nutritious, having high levels of carotene and vitamin B3. The lúcuma is exported all around the world. It is an important flavor for gelatin desserts such as ice cream.

• Ugni molinae: is an endemic shrub native to southern Chile. The Mapuche Native American name is Uñi, and Spanish names include Murta and Murtilla ("little myrtle"); it is also sometimes known as "Chilean guava". It was used among the Mapuche before the arrival of the Spaniards. It is an ingredient used for marmalades and liquor.

• Potato: Featured heavily in dishes such as cazuela, the potato native to the Americas, was widely grown in Chiloe Archipelago. The potato is a fundamental product in a wide array of dishes.

• Quinoa: grown as a crop primarily for its edible seeds and originated in the peruvian Andean region of South America, where it has been an important food for 6,000 years. Certain varieties of Quinoa are harvested in Concepcion, Chile, known as the Catentoa, and the Regalona is abundant in Temuco, Chile.

Seafood

An elemental characteristic of Chilean cuisine is the variety and quality of fish and seafood, due to the geographic location and extensive coastline. The Humboldt current causes a supply of seafood that gathers along the Pacific coast perpendicular to Chilean waters. These include squid, soleidae (sole), albacore, codfish, hake, corvina (salmon), batoidea and tuna. Seafood such as abalone, prawns, clams, crabs, shrimp, oysters, lobsters, percebes, picorocos, and eels are also fished in large amounts. Congridae or in Chile known as congrio can be deep fried in batter, or seasoned and baked. It may also be made into a stew: this popular dish, called Caldillo de congrio, was praised in an ode by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda.

To keep reading about this topic, visit Wikipedia.

CUECA CHILENA. Traditional dance video!

Check out more videos of Chile on Youtube.

Escuela Fronteras to learn Spanish. Check it out!!!

About the classes

• Max 6 students

• Curriculum created by teachers with a degree on Linguistics from Univesidad Católica de Chile and a diploma of Teaching Spanish as a Foreign Language.
• Standard Spanish classes, beginner to advanced. 7 levels
• Private customized courses (Latin American Literature, Chilean poetry, Business Spanish, Medical Spanish, Latin American Culture, Latin American Music, Arts, etc.)
• Group + Private (30 hours per week)
• All class materials included
• Authentic course books (not photocopies)
  
• Help sessions

Your course schedule follow either the morning or evening schedule and will look like the following:

Schedule	Classes Monday - Friday
09:00	First period of class
10:30	First break
10:45	Second period of class
12:00	Second break
12:15	Third period of class
13:00	Lunch
14:00	First period of class
15:30	First break
15:45	Second period of class
17:00	Second break
17:15	Third period of class

Basic level students:

Although students can start any Monday all year long, we recommend lower level students start at the beginning of the three week program.

2009
1-Jun, 22-Jun, 13-Jul, 3-Aug, 24-Aug, 14-Sep, 5-Oct, 26-Oct, 16-Nov, 7-Dec, 28-Dec

2010
18-Jan, 8-Feb, 1-Mar, 22-Mar, 12-Apr, 3-May, 24-May, 14-Jun, 5-Jul, 26-Jul, 16-Aug, 6-Sep, 27-Sep, 18-Oct, 8-Nov, 29-Nov, 20-Dec

Flexibility

• Evening and Saturday classes. If you are studying, working, volunteering or doing an internship and cannot attend 4 hours of class per day we offer evening and Saturday private classes. We are open until 9 pm during the week and from 9 am to 1 pm on Saturdays so you can make the best out of your experience in Latin America.
• Out of school study. We know that sometimes you do not have the time you would like to study Spanish. Therefore we have teachers available to visit you in your home, hotel or office and bring the class to wherever you are.

Learn more about this school at Escuela Fronteras.

Great way of learning Spanish. Bueno Entonces review from Facebook

by Preproduction

This is absolutely one of the most fun language lessons I have ever seen. It is like a very entertaining TV show, with intelligent conversations and good acting. Complete refreshement after all those boring podcasts that we are used to.

I am looking forward to more of it! Great work:)

Check out more on facebook.com/buenoentonces

Pics of Chile from Flickr

Check out more pics on Flickr.

Chilean Spanglish Spoken Here: A Rooster from the Glue

Spanglish is a funny language. Spend enough time here in Chile and you end up pretty fluent in the Chilean variant, which I call Spangli-shilean!! (Get it?) See? Right there you need to be on the inside track to cachar la onda…

At our most recent Chile spouses’ dinner, our resident comedian Eileen Shea had the Spanglishilean speakers roaring with laughter—and many of the newcomers scratching their heads—with a story about a guy from work.

I asked her if I could post it here at Cachando Chile, and we ended up getting our chuckles while playing linguistic ping-pong with it for a few days until we finally came up with this version. Test your own level of Spanglishilean (and have a little bad translation fun) with this doozy:

****************

There’s a rooster of the glue who told me his worse-is-nothing had improved herself and brought a baron to light at 3 in the morning.

The uncle said his creature may not have arrived with a hard roll under the arm, but he waits he was born standing up, like he was. What it will be, always that he doesn’t convert to a bad duck or a spear. He hopes he will finish at least his medium learning and perhaps make himself a frog, like his co-father, helping the microphone operators who drive like testicles.

The wedding was very happy they had a man for the end, since they already had 3 women. His wife doesn’t have any hair on her tongue and said that now that they have a man, she’s going to close the factory and go back to selling broken underpants on the microphones in the center of James, where they live in their half water.

Maybe it was big-footed of my part, but I asked the crazy man what wave, and he said his half orange and the snotty were passing it pig. I’m going to take her some cardinals—they enchant me because they are meat dog.

****************

So, how’d you do? ¿Lo cachaste al tiro? Congratulations!
Consider yourself a fluent Spanglishilean speaker (I dare you to put that on your resume!).

To read full article, go to Cachando Chile.

The Original 911: Once de Septiembre in ChileThe Original 911: Once de Septiembre in Chile

For most people in the world, September 11 is remembered for the bombing of the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers in 2001. For Chile, however, the memory of that day goes back much farther and much deeper.

On September 11, 1973 Chile’s military forces overthrew the government of President Salvador Allende, the world’s first democratically elected socialist president. The military, led by General Augusto Pinochet, would remain in tight control for the next 17 years.

I wasn’t here on Chile’s Once de Septiembre—nor was I, by the way, in the US for its September 11. I arrived in Chile in 1991, a year after it had returned to democracy, to learn Spanish in preparation for anthropological field work that would take me into the world of the families of the detained and disappeared. My experience with the women who used folklore to protest the disappearance of their loved ones, who danced the Cueca Sola and who sewed patchwork arpilleras will wait for another time.

Today I will concentrate on September 11, 1993, twenty years after the day that changed Chile forever. A day that I was in fact present. The following is the entry from my field notes for that day… as is, without further interpretation or benefit of the 16 years that have passed since that date:

Saturday: 11 de SEPTIEMBRE de 1993: 20 AÑOS DEL GOLPE

What a day! The (in)famous “Once de Septiembre” marked the 20th anniversary of the golpe militar, and there has been a lot of commotion over the event. Things do not feel stable here, although no one believes that there will ever be the possibility of another coupe. There will be presidential elections in November and all the various factions are battling it out in many diverse ways. Pinochet has been doing and saying very strange things, which riles up the left and incites them to violence, which is scorned by the right, and the majority in the middle are rather confused.

I had every intention of participating in the various planned activities for the 11th:

•Ecumenical Liturgy in the San Ignacio church downtown near Los Heroes metro stop and just 1 block off Alameda
•March past La Moneda in homage to Allende, with plans to lay a wreath beneath the window of the room in which he died.
•Romería (March) to Cementerio General up Avenida La Paz
•Memorial Service in Cemetery at Allende’s tomb and ‘Patio 29′

To read complete article go to Cachando Chile

CHILE - In Close Contact. Check out this video!!

Nice pics of the country!! Many tourists show Chile is alive!




Go to Youtube to watch more about Chile.

Public transport in Santiago de Chile

For tourists, it is very important to have the information on how to move from one place to another in an unfamiliar city. In this article there is general information of the transport system of Santiago - the capital of Chile.

From the main airport of the city there are several companies that offer shuttle bus, minibus or taxi, more info here: http://www.aeropuertosantiago.cl here you will find prices and the different options for how to go to the city.

Taxis: All taxis have meters and charge from a base rate, that increases as the number of meters traveled. They run 24 hrs.

Metro de Santiago: The city of Santiago has an extensive underground network, consisting of 5 lines. The hours of operation are Monday through Friday from 06:00 am to 11:00 pm. Saturdays from 06:30 am to 10:30 pm., Sundays and holidays from 08:00 am to 10:30 pm. The tariff system is buy ticket Unitarian Multivia Card or Card Bip, whose value changes according to time travel. These can be purchased at all ticket offices of the metro network. (www.metrosantiago.cl)

Urban Buses: There is a large interconnected network of public transport and with these you can access all sections of the city of Santiago. (www.transantiago.cl). The ticket is paid in automatic collectors with a special card (tarjeta Bip.) The automatics collectors are mounted on each bus. This card can be loaded at the box offices of Metro de Santiago, Servipag and Centers and authorized locations. In the center of Santiago has stops properly marked, and its hours of operation are:

Normal Hours: 5:30 to 1:00 pm., Monday through Sunday.
Evening Services: 1:00 pm. until 5:30 pm. (At this time are kept in operation night services only).

More info on public transportation, visit Total Chile.

Bueno Entonces video. Quick and fun way of learning Spanish

Go to Youtube to watch more Bueno Entonces videos.

Chile, Chile Lindo. Beautiful Country

Check out these images on a video!!!



And more videos of Chile, go to Youtube.

Vibe won a trip to Argentina thru a Bueno Entonces contest. Check out her experience and reviews

Day 5 or 6 in Buenos Aires. Yeah, it's like that.

Ok, so... I’m having a hard time being coherent today because yesterday essentially spilled over in today and well, suffice to say that there’s a never ending supply of places to go out in this city and it never stops. I haven’t even made a dent in it, nor have I done many of the touristy things... I did see the big metal flower that opens and closes and is the place to hang out underneath and drink a mate in the sun. I also went to Malba which is a gorgeous art gallery and it has a great cafe.

Winetasting last night, and after that we went to a restaurant that’s so underground that it’s only open once a week and only twenty people know about it and the food is thai.. the best thai I’ve ever had.

Read full text at beadventuresinba.blogspot

Websites for an overview on visas and work permits in Chile.

The embassies and consulates listed below will be able to provide more detailed information:

U.S. Embassy in Chile, www.usembassy.cl
Av. Andrés Bello 2800 - Las Condes, Santiago, Chile
Tel: (56-2) 232-2600; Fax: (56-2) 330-3710

British Embassy in Chile, www.britishembassy.gov.uk/
Avda. El Bosque Norte 0125, Las Condes, Santiago, Chile
Tel: (56-2) 370-4100

Canadian Embassy in Chile, www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/chile
World Trade Centre Building, Nueva Tajamar 481, North Tower, 12th Floor, Las Condes, Santiago, Chile
Tel: (56-2) 362-9660 ext. 3340 and 3341; Fax: (56-2) 362-9393; stago-cs@dfait-maeci.gc.ca

Embassies of Chile in English speaking countries:

Embassy of Chile in the USA, www.chile-usa.org
1732 Mass. Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20036
(202) 785-1746; embassy@embassyofchile.org
Consular Section: Tel: (202) 530-4106 and 530-4107; Fax: (202) 530-4145; consulado@embassyofchile.org

Embassy of Chile in the UK, www.echileuk.demon.co.uk
12 Devonshire Street, London, W1G 7DS, U.K.
Tel: 44-20 7580 6392; Fax: 44-20 7436 5204
embachile@embachile.co.uk

Embassy of Chile in Canada, www.chile.ca
50 O'Connor Street, suite 1413, Ottawa, Ontario K1P 6L2, Canada
Tel: (613) 235-4402 ext.117; Fax: (613) 235-1176

Check out more embassies at Transitions Abroad.

One semester of Spanish

Review: Learning Spanish in a Buenos Aires way

I was recently contacted by the folks at Miniature Studios about their new Spanish language learning product Bueno, entonces.

[Disclaimer: Miniature Studios did provide me with free access to the product in exchange for this review, but otherwise there was no payment for this review and there are no affiliate links in this post.]

Ever since my days implementing digital technologies in higher education I’ve been very interested in multimedia-based approaches to learning. There are different learning styles and some people learn better in ways that are different from others. Of course, language learning always requires a high degree of personal interaction to achieve any level of proficiency. But language tapes and computer-based approaches serve as useful starting points.

Bueno, entonces is a series of animated videos that replicate a one-on-one Spanish class.Unlike most learning Spanish resources online, Bueno, entonces is designed specifically for the person who wants to live in Buenos Aires, or at least have an extended visit to Buenos Aires and have a good time.

And the good time aspect is an intentional part of this approach in learning Spanish. Not only does Bueno, entonces adopt the local pronunciation and use of vos rather than tu, there’s a bit of Argentine slang that is covered in a humorous way.

Keep reading the review at buenoentonces.com/blog

Map of Chile

Check out this and more maps at national-anthems.net

The General Linguistics Method for Teaching Foreign Languages

Created by linguists, teachers and students from a half-dozen countries, General Linguistics developed Bueno, entonces… to incorporate all the best elements of the software and audiobook language learning methods like Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone that have been around for decades.

We mixed the comprehensive learning material of the audiobook courses with the addictive, fun and universally beloved format of a television show to create the Bueno, entonces… series. Each of the 30classes is 30-40 minutes long, proven as the perfect length for a language course - long enough to cover vocabulary and grammar topics but short enough to keep you interested the whole time. The challenging fast pace and edgy, entertaining style of Bueno, entonces… will keep you coming back for more.

Learning Spanish doesn’t have to be boring and monotonous. Bueno, entonces… infuses a witty, engaging storyline into the learning process - and by following along you absorb more Spanish, morequickly than you ever thought possible. By the end of the 5-week, 30-class series, you
will be speaking and understanding native conversational Spanish!

Bueno, entonces… incorporates the following 5 principles to make learning Spanish fun, painless and effective:

1. Make The Classes Interesting & Engaging With Wit and Charm.

If you are not engaged, you are not going to learn or remember anything. Learning doesn’t have to be boring — remember your favorite teachers? Well, wait until you meet David & Jimena…

Read more about the Method at buenoentonces.com/blog.