i want to carry on my language study in spain but i am not sure where. i was thinking of Seville,Madrid or Barcelona. any advice would be great.

Hey David, jere here.

First off, welcome to the message board.

I think your idea for a learning vacation is a great one, more should take advantage of in-country language lessons when they come here to Spain.

Ok, I am of course biased and always lean towards my favorite city, Madrid

In Madrid you wil get the total vacation, history, culture, vibrant life, loads of activity and things to do and great language teaching. Aside from Academia =elemadrid= which is a sponsor of mine and a great and very nice school just off the PUERTA DE ALCAL�, in general there are many quality language schools in Madrid.

Sevilla is also a beautiful city but for me it just does not have the "pull" that Madrid has as the capital city of Spain and where everything is going on. Sevilla is also a bit more homogenous than Madrid which is becoming a more and more international city every day.

Barcelona is nice to visit but I would not want to live there. It is a ver cosmopolitan city and its architecture is unrivaled buy any other city in Spain thanks to Antoni Gaud� and his modernist marvels...

* www.greatbuildings.com/architects/Antonio_Gaudi.html (in English).
* www.geocities.com/SoHo/Lofts/9477/gaudi.htm (in Spanish and VERY impressive).
* www.red2000.com/spain/barcelon/phgau.html (lots of photos but no history or descriptions).

Problem with Barcelona is that you are more likely to learn "Catal�n" than "Espa�ol" and the city (and region of Catalu�a) is becoming increasingly nationalist. Nationalism in itself is not a bad thing but when you have a strong atmosphere of anti foreign attitudes it becomes a problem, this unfortunately is the case of Barcelona.

Also, Barcelona is a city that has a different type of tourism. Basically I meanb that the tourist and visitors are more likely to use the city and leave it a disaster area, the mian "touristy" parts of the city center are very dirty on the whole. This "use it and leave it" tourism is hard to explain so I hope you understand what I mean. Don't get me wrong, Barcelona is beautiful but personally I prefer Madrid, by far!

Have fun and I hope others also offer their advice. Just wanted to give you my take on this as an ex-Spanish teacher, Spain lover and all around Madrid nut

Saludos,
jer...

Hello.

I also suggest you Madrid. Barcelona is not an appropiate city because they speak more in "Catal�n" than in "Spanish". And, I don't recommend you Sevilla because they speack a very "closed" Spanish. They don't pronounce very well the "z" (they pronounce it simmilar to "s"), and they "eat" a lot of syllable and join words... "ven paca" instead of "ven para ac�".

Bye

You can�t go wrong.
Barcelona is more beautiful.
Sevilla more sterotipically Spanish.
Madrid best for your Spanish and worst for your sleep!

Well, I have picked a language school to study with. LaJanda in Verjer de la Frontera is very reasonably priced and in such a beautiful area that I can't help wanting to go. I can only go for a couple weeks and my instructor here thinks that I could actually learn something in that period!! So now I am in the planning stages. I can't go until September/October but I enjoy planning as much as doing!!! Yippee!