Hola from Madrid

Hi

I'm enjoying investigating the various bits of this site (and already had one question answered before I'd even asked it! Impressive!)

Anyway, I'm Emma and I'm currently living in Madrid, working as an English teacher (what a surprise!) I'm making slow progress learning Spanish, learning to match the slow pace of Spanish life and generally enjoying myself.

I'm vegetarian (not easy here!), passionate about animal rights, travel, tennis and apostrophes.

That's about it.

Emma

Hola Emma

Welcome to the EOS forum, which we also found extremely helpful when we first moved to Spain.

We watch a lot of Spanish TV (mainly because we don´t have satellite TV!) and have found that helps our Spanish, plus we read Spanish newspapers, usually for free when we go to a bar for café or  vino.  We go to free Spanish lessons in Jumilla twice a week as well.  In spite of all this, we are far from fluent even though we have lived here for nearly two years, but that may be because we are both over 60 and it is harder to learn a new language when you are older......!

Have you looked at this website for vegetarian restaurants in Spain? This is the link for restaurants in Madrid: http://www.happycow.net/europe/spain/madrid/.

Saludos

Sue

Hi

Thanks for the welcome(s)!

I do watch Spanish TV in an attempt to improve my use of the language but frankly, most of it is so dire, I can't stand it for very long. The daytime/morning shows are as irritating as the ones in the UK, with loads of overly made-up women all shouting over each other (!), I've never been a fan of soaps, so I stick to the news and documentaries!

I'm a longstanding member of Happy Cow, actually, and have tested out several very lovely vegetarian restaurants in Madrid, and reviewed most of them on the website. At veggie restaurants obviously I have plenty of choice - the only time it's actually a struggle is just at "normal" restaurants or at tapas bars where the vast majority of food on offer is meat or fish based. For the first 2 months I was here last year, I lived on tortilla espanola, patatas bravas and huevos rotos y fritas when eating out! Not the healthiest diet in the world, and just as well I'm not vegan or I'd have starved! Most of the vegetarian paella I've tried has been pretty awful and I rarely find my favourite (pimientos al padron) on menus here. Mind you, I cook at home most of the time now!

Anyway, I'll continue to look around the site and look forward to keeping up with other people's experiences of living in this fantastic country!

Hi Emma,

I'm struggling to pick up Spanish as well.  It's very English where we are and I work in Gibraltar, so don't get much opportunities to speak Spanish.  I can understand Spanish fairly well and can have basic conversations in Spanish.  I've been living in Spain nearly 18 months now and I find it pretty disgraceful that I am not on my way to becoming fluent yet.

I have just signed up for Spanish classes at our local Escuela Oficial de Idiomas.  It's 4 hours per week spread over 2 nights, so I'm hoping this will improve my Spanish a lot.  Maybe that is something worth looking into in Madrid?

Cheers

I did go to a few classes when I first arrived but, much like most English teachers here, I'm pretty broke so if it's a choice between food and Spanish classes.....!

I speak pretty good French and did Italian for a year, so actually my theoretical Spanish is pretty good. I just don't get the opportunity to speak it very often. Next academic year, my promise to myself is that I'll get a couple of intercambios sorted and do it that way!

Good luck with yours, I'm sure we'll both get there in the end!

Hi,

The Escuela Oficial de Idiomas only charge about 60 euros for the year FYI.

Sanchez1

Wow, that's a bargain.  Thanks, I'll look into it!

Welcome

Welcome to Eye on Spain!

Bienvenido!