Should I do a Spanish immersion program in Guatemala?  

Hey, Jeff, random question for you:  I want to supercharge my language learning! Should I do a Spanish immersion experience in Antigua, Guatemala?  

Why, thank you for asking.  Yes, you absolutely should!  

I’m a fan of language immersion programs.  If you can’t live in a country long term, an immersion experience is the next best thing to improve your language skills quickly. 

I’ve been studying Spanish since 2014, poco a poco, little by little, as they say. I’ve reached a point where I can say pretty much what I want to say in Spanish now.  And even though my syntax may not always be how a native speaker might say it, they can understand me and I can understand them.  On the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference) scale, I’d say I’m a solid B2 and can even edge into C1 territory from time to time. (Or, unfortunately, screw up and lapse into B1 or less.) 

I’m going to write a future post about my thoughts on the best language acquisition strategies based on my personal trial and error experiences (I’ve also studied Arabic and some German) as well as conversations with dozens of other language students.  But this post is just about my recent 2.5 weeks in Guatemala learning Spanish and having fun. 

And if you’re an adult language learner, having some fun is important. If not the whole point. Otherwise, why bother?  No one is forcing you to learn a foreign language. 

Fortunately, it’s hard not to have fun in a Spanish speaking country hanging out with other language students and interacting with native speakers. 

I’ve now done three two-week language immersions in the last few years.  The first was in Heredia, Costa Rica and the last two in Antigua, Guatemala.   I plan to keep doing them, hopefully every year or so.  Ideally during the North American winter monthsIt was, no joke, like 9 degrees, and the streets here still filled with ice and snow, when my daughter dropped me off at DCA airport at 630am for my flight south.  Barely six hours later I was enjoying 72 degrees in Guatemala City. .  

In the future I’d like to try programs in Colombia and maybe in the the easy to say, fiendishly hard to spell town of Oaxaca, Mexico. But for this trip, I returned to the same Antigua language school, Maximo Nivel (“highest level”) that I used before in 2024.  Maximo is one of probably a dozen or so language schools in Antigua.   And Antigua is a great town:

In my experience, language schools operate pretty similarly. You choose how many weeks you want to stay – most students are there between one and six weeks – and then you pay a per week tuition along with weekly room and board with a local host family.  The family provides you a daily breakfast and dinner. You can do what you want for lunch. Most students enjoy eating their way through Antigua’s many restaurants. I sure did.

One can skip the host family and stay in a hotel on your own dime, but then you lose out on lots of language speaking opportunities and the fun of getting to know your family.¹

In South or Central America, none of this should be particularly expensive.  In Guatemala, it’s downright cheap.  A standard plan in Antigua of 20 hours of Spanish classes a week plus room and board with a host family costs around $300 per week.  That’s not a typo. The language learning value and fun per dollar is fantastic.     

So how was my experience?  

I arrived on a Saturday afternoon, got picked up at the airport by Maximo (included in their program fees) and was driven to my family in Antigua. I had asked to be within walking distance of the school and they put me in southern part of the city, a relatively quiet zone, and about 15 minutes walk to school.  Perfect.  

That night, I strolled around the town in shirt sleeves, just because I could, then returned for dinner at 7pm and met the other student staying in my house, Rhonda, a 60-something Canadian, halfway through her own 6 week immersion program.  In past language experiences, I’ve lived with other students whose Spanish was so basic they could barely converse.  Happily, Rhonda, though still at a beginner level, was enthusiastic to practice with me and the family. 

The next day, I hiked to Pacaya Volcano with a small group from Maximo.  One of Antigua’s main charms is that it is picturesquely surrounded by volcanoes, both active and dormant. Volcan Pacaya erupts periodically, but usually in a Hawaii-volcano style with languorous, slow-moving lava that is fun to watch rather than an “oh no, run for your lives” Vesuvius-style eruption. 

At present, Pacaya offers hot spots from its last eruption in 2021, but whereas a few years ago tourists could roast marshmallows or even cook pizza over the emerging heat and steam, now it is just a good spot to lightly warm your hands.  Our marshmallows remained unroasted and I eventually tossed mine to a delighted local dog following our group.         

Every Monday at the school there is a great sorting of current and arriving students into that week’s classes according to various students’ language proficiency.  I don’t like to brag, but I will anyway – I was placed into the advanced class with three other students:  Laura from Germany, Daniela from Canada, and Francisco, an American mid-westerner.  I’d say Daniela, born in France, but having lived in Canada for most of her 70 or so years, was the best of us. She had a fine accent and could read out loud as fast as a native speaker.     

While some students arrange for only one-on-one private lessons, most attend group classes from 9am-1pm M-F.  That sounds like a lot of hours, and maybe it is, but the teachers are good at keeping classes fun and interesting.  Our first hour was mostly talking about what we did yesterday, plans for the future and various day-to-day topics with our teacher, Alma, tossing in corrections as needed.  

Next we’d review homework, explore grammar constructions in more depth, and then read about and discuss various current day topics – immigration, euthanasia, modern medicine advances (light topics!) and so forth.

Many students supplemented the morning group classes with another hour or two of private lessons in the afternoons.  Having tried extra private lessons in prior immersion experiences, I declined this time, preferring freedom for the rest of the day.  Instead of afternoon private classes, I supplemented my group lessons with unstructured conversations while walking around the town, going to the gym, getting a haircut, shopping, trying out new restaurants, and hanging out with my host family or their live-in staff. 

Almost as — if not more — important as the classes and study in language schools is “what are you doing for the weekend?” Nearly every student makes plans for one or more weekend excursions.

For my first weekend, I had tentatively planned to join a guided trek up the dormant Volcan Acatenango in order to get a close up view of erupting Volcan Fuego.  I had done this epic overnight hike the last time I was in Antigua. Watching Volcan Fuego explode throughout the day and night was one of the travel highlights of my life and I figured I might as well do it again.  

But then I start thinking more. First, it’s a hard-core hike.  Six or so hours backpacking up a steep trail to the campsite, then spend a night at 12000 feet not getting much sleep thanks to the cold, the altitude, and explosions from Fuego.  Wake up early and climb higher for the sunrise and then hike back down for a quad and leg busting few hours. Drive back to Antigua and stagger back home.

As if that weren’t enough, the Maximo travel agent mentioned that night-time temperatures at the top of Acantenango had been dropping below freezing.  Sheesh. Then, later that morning, I got a text from a new friend who had left Antigua the day before to enjoy the waves, sand, and sun of El Paredon beach about two and half hours south.  She sent photos.

A specific A or B decision started to form in my head: for this coming weekend, would I rather freeze my tush off on a volcano (that I’ve already visited) or hang out at the beach?

A few days later, around 4pm on Saturday, floating in the pool at my modest hotel near the beach, reflecting on a great kayak trip that morning, and now sipping a fruity drink, I knew I had made the right decision.  : )  

Back in my same class on Monday morning, I was already, with some regret, counting the days until the end.  I made sure to enjoy Maximo school’s courtyard and balconies where I sat in the sun every morning, surrounded by vegetation and flowers, watching volcanoes puff smoke in the distance.  This is as lovely as it sounds. 

And it’s even lovelier in February when I can pull up the weather app on my phone and compare the temperature back home in Arlington. 

Following my last class on Friday, I took a shuttle from Antigua to Panajachel, gateway town to Lake Atitlan.  Lurching around narrow Guatemalan mountain curves in a packed minibus with 30 other tourists for over two hours, top heavy with luggage strapped to the bus roof, I found myself thinking comforting, logical thoughts like, “I’m sure our driver regularly checks and replaces his brake pads and fluid.” 

Fortunately, it wasn’t yet my time to careen off a Guatemalan mountainside and we arrived safely. I spent a final four days kayaking, biking, hiking, and steam-bath-soaking in various towns around Atitlan and among the soaring volcano backdrops.

So, amidst the biking, kayaking, and narrow-mountain-road surviving, did my Spanish improve? Yeah, definitely. Like anything else, improvements become more incremental as you progress, but I was definitely feeling like a quicker and smoother Spanish speaker at the end of my 17 days.

I was also able to better nail down tricky verb conjugations like the preterito pluscuamperfecto² and the Spanish system of direct and indirect object placement either before the verb or, in certain cases, tacked on to the end of the verb. Doing all that Spanish in a warm and beautiful place made it even better.

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1. Living with a host family is not necessarily luxurious but I had my own room with a dresser, desk, and private bathroom. I could move around the house freely; for example, sitting in the sunny courtyard every afternoon to do do my homework.  It’s a pretty good set-up. 
   
   Also, these language schools know their clientele is coming from North America and Europe – no one is living on dirt floors and taking cold bucket showers! As a bonus, I could also ask my host family to check some of my homework which they were delighted to do.
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2. Generally equivalent to the English “If I would have done “such and such” thing/activity, then . . . Or if that thing/action would have happened, then . . .” ↩︎