Tips 114: Life in Madrid with Daniel Welsch

Ever considered an ex-pat life in Spain? This week you will hear from Daniel Welsch who has been living in Madrid for more than 10 years.

I’m very excited to welcome Daniel to the podcast. It is great to talk to someone who has focused solely on Spanish and immersed himself in the culture. This interview is a great opportunity to focus not only on some of the themes of language learning mindset but the mindset associated with a move to a Spanish speaking country.

In the interview, you will hear about some of Daniel’s thoughts on language learning and adapting to life outside of the United States.

In this first part of the interview we talk about:

• How Daniel got his start with Spanish.
• How a 2 week trip to Spain turned into a 10 year stay.
• What is it like to transfer Spanish of Mexico to Spanish of Spain and how Daniel initially dealt with transferring his knowledge of Spanish from another Spanish region of the world.
• Daniel’s approach to making mistakes and getting used to feeling silly. Daniel talks about how life maybe to short to worry about whether your Spanish is perfect or not.
• Daniel has also worked as an English teacher and he talks about some the struggles of his students from Spain have with their English.
• Some of the problems with literal translation and how this applies to going from English to Spanish or the other way round.
• How you can see a variety of Spanish accents change from different regions of Spain.
• I ask Daniel what is the best thing about living in Spain.
• I then ask Daniel what is the worst thing about living in Spain.
• We finish the first part of the interview talking about Spanish cinema.

Resources mentioned in part 1 of the interview:

• Daniel’s favourite movie: Jamón Jamón.
• Another favourite movie: Bienvenido, Mister Marshall.
• The famous spanish director we mentioned in the interview: Pedro Almodóvar.
• Daniel’s website: AprendeMasIngles.com.
• Daniel’s expat blog: ExpatMadrid.com.

What did you learn from the first part of the interview with Daniel Welsch?

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