Costa Rica Travel Posts

Learning Spanish in Costa Rica

By Patrick Brunelle ⋅ November 17, 2011 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

Costa Rica is a popular destination for people who wish to learn Spanish. Americans top the list of people who go to Costa Rica to learn Spanish, followed by Canadians and then Germans. Some language schools partner up with post secondary education institutions to offer courses that are recognized by them. Other Spanish schools try to blend tourism with education. And the last group pushes volunteering with a side dish of Spanish classes.

Most people come to Costa Rica for two to four weeks to either learn, or master this romantic language. Often mixed in with the classes (which usually last between three to four hours a day), are local cooking classes and dance lessons. The most common dances here are the well known Meringue and Salsa dances, as well as the lesser known dance called Cumbia where dancers bounce up and down following the beat of the song. Cumbia originated in Columbia and has infiltrated Costa Rica.

Many of the language institutes in Costa Rica also have more than one location. This is due to people wanting to study near the beach (Pacific Ocean usually beats out the Atlantic Ocean), but also wanting to learn about the culture and integrate within a community, which is not possible at the beach. This is why you will also see a location within the Central Valley. Some of the activities that students enjoy most involve intercambios, where they get paired up with Costa Ricans who are learning English. This is one of the reasons why many of the language institutes also offer English classes at night for Costa Ricans.