About Myself

I have been teaching languages for over 25 years. I teach Spanish, English as a Second Language, and Haitian Creole. I speak Spanish, English, Portuguese, French and Haitian Creole. I was born in Argentina, and ever since I was a child I've been interested in languages, accents, dialects and cultures. I started learning English when I was about 14, first at school, and then through songs, TV, some books and through contact with natives. When I was 16 I was fluent already, but I would only respond in Spanish. I was so afraid to talk, so self-conscious of my thick accent, that although I understood everything, I would only reply in Spanish. I got over it eventually, and that's when my journey with languages skyrocketed.

The second language I learned was Portuguese, which was very fast to acquire, for two reasons. First, after you've broken your mental boundaries by learning a second language, everything is much easier. Once you've managed to understand with an open mind that a second language is very different from yours, and that it is based in a whole different thinking pattern, then a third language is faster to learn. Second, Portuguese and Spanish have around 80% of vocabulary in common. 

Then I learned French, closely related to Spanish and Portuguese, it being a Romance language. In turn, speaking French put me in contact with Haitians. That led into learning Haitian Creole, and eventually teaching this beautiful language to Spanish speakers. I also started working on material to teach Haitian Creole to English speakers as well. 
However, I found the most pleasure in creating content for Spanish learners. Being a very visual learner myself, I'm always attracted at well presented material. This shows in the material I produce for my classes, videos, and the Manuals I produce for each course. 

I love Phonetics. In every course I teach, there's a section dedicated exclusively to Phonetics. I think this is very helpful to approximate your accent to that of a native. I love teaching, you can see that on every class. 

Manuel