Retirement in Puerto Vallarta - Living in Mexico Spanish? ¿Donde esta el baa±o? ¿Como esta usted? That pretty much sums up two years of high school Spanish considered a college preparatory course almost 50 years! Sure, why would anyone ever need to know the Spanish have never met a Mexican, and even less thought of going to Mexico? My, how times have changed!
Having lived in Houston for 25 years, we found that Mexico was only two hours and had very intriguing qualities to offer. In 1984 we bought a condo in Mismaloya, south of Puerto Vallarta, and visited semi-annually to Vallarta for 13 years before buying a villa in the foothills of the Sierra Madres overlooking Banderas Bay and El Centro, the downtown PV.
When we moved to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, known as PV or Vallarta by the residents, ten years ago, our Spanish vocabulary consisted of about five words. Fortunately, a few taxi drivers, restaurant servers and more, and some caddies spoke, or at least understood some English. To survive here, it is imperative to understand and speak some degree of Spanish. During our first month of Vallarta, we purchased text books, manuals, dictionaries, and hired a tutor to come to our house twice a week.
We have worked diligently for almost six months, learning Spanish words, paraphrases, tenses, etc. then we would have a chance to communicate with the locals. To help our learning process, we watched TV in Mexico, which had about five channels, CNN, Mexican shows aimed at sixth grade, and American movies subtitled in Spanish. We would then turn off the volume and try to understand the movies by reading the subtitles. Not much fun, but the price you had to pay for living in paradise where the daily average temperature during the "high season" from November to May is 73 ° F with virtually no chance of rain!
We spent that first summer back in the States and their return to PV, we are lazy and discontinued our studies. Satellite TV is available from Vallarta and we had five channels of Mexico, but has 350 channels of the United States. Fortunately for us, the tourism boom in Vallarta was just beginning to happen ten years ago.
During the last decade, there have been thousands of new houses and tens of thousands of new condos, new hospitals, a new campus of the University of Guadalajara, new airport, new marine terminal, etc. built in Vallarta . Tourism was, the greater the obligation to speak English by the local population. If we could understand and speak English, they could get higher paying jobs where interaction with tourists is an event routine. Jobs such as waiting tables, cadets, taxi, police, an internship at the receptions in hotels, offices, hospitals, airports, etc. and management positions in stores and other businesses could pay three times more than the construction work, daily work, cleaning, etc., where there is no need for English speaking. The difference in wages was so obvious and so important that during the past decade, most of all young generations of people in Vallarta are English classes at school and to understand and speak English. Even those who have not had a day of English classes have a good understanding of "Espanglish" and we have absolutely no problem communicating with anyone in Vallarta.
Almost all educated Mexicans in PV, such as doctors, lawyers, engineers, architects, bankers, nurses, teachers, etc. are fluent in English. In fact, the majority of these people seem to prefer speaking English with Americans and Canadians. traditional music in restaurants, bars, hotels, and even dental offices are the popular American songs. American magazines, newspapers and books are available throughout the city, while ten years ago, they were virtual.
Posted on February 21, 2010.
