South American Adventures

Taking flying leaps into the unknown

Spanish classes in Santiago – medicine for mental constipation

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When I landed I felt like a new born in the world. People around me were making strange noises and I had no idea what was going on because my basic Spanish is not enough. Just like with a new born people smiled every time I tried to string together a sentence….”aww how cute” they must be thinking. Well let me tell you, it is rather frustrating when you have these things you wish to communicate across but you are unable to do so….mental constipation!! 😀

This Monday I enrolled into Spanish classes at Ecela. Ecela came recommended by Sid my local hombrito who is an Ecela alum and by now a native spanish speaker….but still a gringo in the eyes of the locals :). The classes are great with very friendly and young teachers. The group sizes are around 6 per class which is fantastic. Moreover, there is a good mix of ages. The facilities are also of satisfactory standard and they offer various ‘after-school’ activities such as salsa, cooking, wine tasting, horseback riding and other excursions.

Total cost for 5 weeks (20 hours/week) is $950 this includes a 10% discount for enrolling into 4+ weeks and another 5% for knowing an alum (see costs). Thus, the hourly rate is $9.5. Compared to London this is a reasonable price where group classes (size 10+ students) cost usually £14+. The LSE has a good deal for alumni students. I paid £215 for 40 classes (45 minutes each). For those interested you can view it here. For those interested in learning Spanish but need to remain flexible in terms of location (due to work for instance) I can recommend learning Spanish over skype. Claudio, from Uruguay gives great 1-1 lessons for $10/hour. He is really a great guy. You can contact him here.

Hasta luego mis amigos!

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Author: Miklos Grof

Miklos is the CEO and co-founder of Fundacity. Fundacity is making startups investing easier. Fundacity already supports all the notable accelerators in LatAm in their startup selection and management and they are expanding rapidly across Asia-Pacific and Europe. With the recently launched Fundacity Investments Clubs it seeks to simplify the startup investing process in emerging markets and make it accessible to more people. Miklos has unique and extensive experience in start-up formation, business development and venture financing. He has raised and evaluated investment offers in venture capital from angels and VCs from three continents for a variety of deals. He thrives at launching businesses and making sales in new geographies. Miklos currently serves as a financial advisor and mentor for various start-ups including Taggify (an online contextual advertising company based in New York and Buenos Aires). At Taggify, Miklos advises on fundraising, financial reporting to the board of investors, tax filling and cash flow management. Miklos completed his MsC in Finance at the London School of Economics and previously worked in corporate finance at PricewaterhouseCoopers in London, fund sales at UniCredit Vienna and economic research at Erste Bank Budapest. He is a Chartered Accountant with the ICAEW, Institute of Chartered Accountant England and Whales and is quinti-lingual. He is passionate about startups and entrepreneurship and spends his free time engaging with the startup community.

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