Escuela Bellavista. Learning Spanish is easier among friends!

Why study Spanish in Bellavista?

- We are certified professionals

At Escuela Bellavista all of our professors are certified and specialize in teaching Spanish as a foreign language! Lidia, Boris, Yuri, Vanessa, Cathy, Catalina, Jenny, Italo, Sebastián, Cristina, Mauricio, Piedad, Fernando and Jarka have worked together for more than 21 years.

- You are part of our Family

At Escuela Bellavista we want you to feel like you are part of the family. We strive to create a warm and friendly environment in every classroom. We are known for our small group classes of no more than 6 people per group. This allows us to offer personalized attention to each student ensuring their understanding and success in the language.

- Our personalized teaching method

Our classes are adapted to the student's level and his interests. We prepare our own lessons so that we can bring additional personalized materials to our students. Our teaching concept incorporates both written and oral exercises to help the student understand and learn more efficiently.

- Free Activities to practice your Spanish

If you are practicing, you are learning. Our courses include weekly extracurricular activities that are free of charge for all of our students. We offer salsa classes, excursions to different points of interest in Santiago, and after school grammar courses all designed to provide the student with opportunities to connect what they have learned in the classroom to real life situations in Chile.

- Spanish conversation policy

The classes are in Spanish and Spanish only. Students are encouraged to practice their conversational skills by speaking only in Spanish to each other and to their teachers. The extra curricular activities and the mid-day break are oriented to practice Spanish in everyday situations. This policy has been proven to be an excellent method.

Keep reading about this school at Escuela Bellavista.

Queda prohibido - Pablo Neruda (poem in Spanish)

Pablo Neruda's great poem, with music and images related to it. It's really nice! He is one of the greatest poets in Latinamerica!!!



Check out more poems on Youtube.

CUECA CHILENA. Traditional dance video!

Check out more videos of Chile on Youtube.

Getting Used to Clean Air

The plane ride to Calama is a boys' club; the flight attendants strolling up and down the aisles are the only women you'll see. Calama's a mining town and, therefore, if you've got business there, chances are you're a man. It's the base-camp for the world's largest open-pit copper mine, a massive terraced crater called Chuquicamata, first worked under the Guggenheim brothers' Anaconda Copper Co.

The bus from there to San Pedro was a different deal entirely. The company running shuttles to San Pedro, 120 km east of the airport, didn't have enough passengers to make a trip economically feasible. This was lucky for me, because I took a taxi into town, ate lunch and bought a bus ticket for less money than the shuttle would have cost. No skill, pure dumb luck-especially since the cabbie gouged me out of $2 bucks. The bus, though, took two hours, just like the flight, even though it never stopped.

Now, not to dwell on my health, because I've done that recently in these entries, I went to San Pedro to get healthy, to get pure, clean, dry air. And on the bus, the window wide open and my right arm pinning back the whipping sun curtain, I breathed in that air, looking out on the white rock of the Atacama Desert, the driest in the world. At least initially, I felt better, or at least that there was hope for my sinuses.

The Atacama Desert is just like what you've seen of it in movies, like, say The Motorcycle Diaries, where the young Che walks across a dry, bright desert, flat and extensive with the sun blaring down so hard you squint through sunglasses. It's unforgiving land in the broadest sense of the term.

My bus got in shortly after 2 p.m, and it was the same one I took out 6 days later-on the surface, a newer model, but with the back bumper missing and the fan belt spinning wildly and totally exposed. My plane had left at 7 a.m., forcing me to leave for the airport at 5 (I woke up 5 minutes before the Supper Shuttle came, luckily, because the alarm didn't go off). If I felt healthier, the tradeoff was how tired I was.

Read full story at TravelPod

Great way of learning Spanish. Bueno Entonces review from Facebook

by Preproduction

This is absolutely one of the most fun language lessons I have ever seen. It is like a very entertaining TV show, with intelligent conversations and good acting. Complete refreshement after all those boring podcasts that we are used to.

I am looking forward to more of it! Great work:)

Check out more on facebook.com/buenoentonces

Chilean Cuisine

Chilean cuisine stems mainly from the combination of Spanish cuisine with traditional indigenous ingredients, with later influences from other European cuisines, particularly from Germany, Italy, France and the Middle East. The food tradition and recipes in Chile stand out due to the varieties in flavors and colors. The country's long coastline and the Chilean peoples' relationship with the sea adds an immense array of ocean products to the variety of the food in Chile. The country's waters are home to unique species of fish and shellfish such as the Chilean sea bass, loco and picoroco. In addition, many Chilean recipes are enhanced and accompanied by wine, owing to the fact that Chile is one of the world's largest producers of wine. The countries inmense geographical diversity allows for a wide range of crops and fruits to be present in Chilean food.

Major Crops

Throughout Chile and South America you may find fruits and vegetables that have been cultivated for ages. These agricultural products are appreciated and heavily implemented onto several cooking recipes. They have also been exported around the world as important agricultural commodities. Among the most known are the following:

• Olives: Although originating in Europe Azapa olives from Arica are considered a variety originating in the northern region and are widely recognized in Chile.

• Chirimoya: a peruvian fruit native to the subtropical regions of the Andes mountains, it is widely consumed and produced.

• Maize: Recognized in Chile and Peru as choclo, and in English speaking countries as corn. Maize was a staple diet that prospered in three empires Mayas, Aztecs, and in closest proximity to Chile the Incas. It was also cultivated in varying systematic methods by the Atacameño. Through trade and travel, Maize brought and eventually embraced by the Mapuche and using it towards their culinary arts.

• Lúcuma: A subtropical fruit of Andean origin, native to Peru it has grown well for centuries in southern Ecuador and Chile's northern coast. The fruit is very nutritious, having high levels of carotene and vitamin B3. The lúcuma is exported all around the world. It is an important flavor for gelatin desserts such as ice cream.

• Ugni molinae: is an endemic shrub native to southern Chile. The Mapuche Native American name is Uñi, and Spanish names include Murta and Murtilla ("little myrtle"); it is also sometimes known as "Chilean guava". It was used among the Mapuche before the arrival of the Spaniards. It is an ingredient used for marmalades and liquor.

• Potato: Featured heavily in dishes such as cazuela, the potato native to the Americas, was widely grown in Chiloe Archipelago. The potato is a fundamental product in a wide array of dishes.

• Quinoa: grown as a crop primarily for its edible seeds and originated in the peruvian Andean region of South America, where it has been an important food for 6,000 years. Certain varieties of Quinoa are harvested in Concepcion, Chile, known as the Catentoa, and the Regalona is abundant in Temuco, Chile.

Seafood

An elemental characteristic of Chilean cuisine is the variety and quality of fish and seafood, due to the geographic location and extensive coastline. The Humboldt current causes a supply of seafood that gathers along the Pacific coast perpendicular to Chilean waters. These include squid, soleidae (sole), albacore, codfish, hake, corvina (salmon), batoidea and tuna. Seafood such as abalone, prawns, clams, crabs, shrimp, oysters, lobsters, percebes, picorocos, and eels are also fished in large amounts. Congridae or in Chile known as congrio can be deep fried in batter, or seasoned and baked. It may also be made into a stew: this popular dish, called Caldillo de congrio, was praised in an ode by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda.

To keep reading about this topic, visit Wikipedia.

Great pics from Chile

To search for more images of Chile, go to Flickr.

Chilean Spanglish Spoken Here: A Rooster from the Glue

Spanglish is a funny language. Spend enough time here in Chile and you end up pretty fluent in the Chilean variant, which I call Spangli-shilean!! (Get it?) See? Right there you need to be on the inside track to cachar la onda…

At our most recent Chile spouses’ dinner, our resident comedian Eileen Shea had the Spanglishilean speakers roaring with laughter—and many of the newcomers scratching their heads—with a story about a guy from work.

I asked her if I could post it here at Cachando Chile, and we ended up getting our chuckles while playing linguistic ping-pong with it for a few days until we finally came up with this version. Test your own level of Spanglishilean (and have a little bad translation fun) with this doozy:

****************

There’s a rooster of the glue who told me his worse-is-nothing had improved herself and brought a baron to light at 3 in the morning.

The uncle said his creature may not have arrived with a hard roll under the arm, but he waits he was born standing up, like he was. What it will be, always that he doesn’t convert to a bad duck or a spear. He hopes he will finish at least his medium learning and perhaps make himself a frog, like his co-father, helping the microphone operators who drive like testicles.

The wedding was very happy they had a man for the end, since they already had 3 women. His wife doesn’t have any hair on her tongue and said that now that they have a man, she’s going to close the factory and go back to selling broken underpants on the microphones in the center of James, where they live in their half water.

Maybe it was big-footed of my part, but I asked the crazy man what wave, and he said his half orange and the snotty were passing it pig. I’m going to take her some cardinals—they enchant me because they are meat dog.

****************

So, how’d you do? ¿Lo cachaste al tiro? Congratulations!
Consider yourself a fluent Spanglishilean speaker (I dare you to put that on your resume!).

To read full article, go to Cachando Chile.

The Original 911: Once de Septiembre in Chile

For most people in the world, September 11 is remembered for the bombing of the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers in 2001. For Chile, however, the memory of that day goes back much farther and much deeper.

On September 11, 1973 Chile’s military forces overthrew the government of President Salvador Allende, the world’s first democratically elected socialist president. The military, led by General Augusto Pinochet, would remain in tight control for the next 17 years.

I wasn’t here on Chile’s Once de Septiembre—nor was I, by the way, in the US for its September 11. I arrived in Chile in 1991, a year after it had returned to democracy, to learn Spanish in preparation for anthropological field work that would take me into the world of the families of the detained and disappeared. My experience with the women who used folklore to protest the disappearance of their loved ones, who danced the Cueca Sola and who sewed patchwork arpilleras will wait for another time.

Today I will concentrate on September 11, 1993, twenty years after the day that changed Chile forever. A day that I was in fact present. The following is the entry from my field notes for that day… as is, without further interpretation or benefit of the 16 years that have passed since that date:

Saturday: 11 de SEPTIEMBRE de 1993: 20 AÑOS DEL GOLPE

What a day! The (in)famous “Once de Septiembre” marked the 20th anniversary of the golpe militar, and there has been a lot of commotion over the event. Things do not feel stable here, although no one believes that there will ever be the possibility of another coupe. There will be presidential elections in November and all the various factions are battling it out in many diverse ways. Pinochet has been doing and saying very strange things, which riles up the left and incites them to violence, which is scorned by the right, and the majority in the middle are rather confused.

I had every intention of participating in the various planned activities for the 11th:

•Ecumenical Liturgy in the San Ignacio church downtown near Los Heroes metro stop and just 1 block off Alameda
•March past La Moneda in homage to Allende, with plans to lay a wreath beneath the window of the room in which he died.
•Romería (March) to Cementerio General up Avenida La Paz
•Memorial Service in Cemetery at Allende’s tomb and ‘Patio 29′

To read complete article go to Cachando Chile

Healthcare in Chile and the USA

In Chile, you have nearly Universal healthcare including a thriving private sector-ISAPRE-and FONASA-the public plan. Chileans pay 7% of their income and then make a choice to enter the FONASA or ISAPRE system-and have further choice to elect greater coverage in private plans.

I'm not saying Chile has the best system in the world but it does seem odd and a bit sad that I am less likely to die here because of a needed operation. A friend of mine recently had an operation, a much needed femoral bypass. It cost about $12,000 usd cash, no insurance-that includes everything and a 5 star room to boot.. The average "list price" in the US is $50,900 according to this website. Apparently it can be done as cheaply as $18,900(huh?). Perhaps that's a good place to check before your next operation in the USA folks.

What I know is that the US is falling in status from a number of lists.

The World Health Organization's ranking
of the world's health systems (Top 50)
In 2000, The US was still barely ahead of...Cuba. Chile beat the US by 4 places (and has improved its system under Bachelet while the US has deteriorated. The US also beat Slovenia by one place. The U.S. spends 16 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on health care, compared with 8 to 10 percent in most major industrialized nations. According to the World Factbook
(which is suspiciously updated only to 2005) The US was #2 in healthcare spending by GDP so i would guess it's now easily in 1st place(yay!!!)

Read full article at usexpatinchile.blogspot.com

CHILE - In Close Contact. Check out this video!!

Nice pics of the country!! Many tourists show Chile is alive!




Go to Youtube to watch more about Chile.

Bueno, entonces... Fun Spanish Classes

Check out more Bueno Entonces videos on Youtube

Chile, Chile Lindo. Beautiful Country

Check out these images on a video!!!



And more videos of Chile, go to Youtube.

Websites for an overview on visas and work permits in Chile.

The embassies and consulates listed below will be able to provide more detailed information:

U.S. Embassy in Chile, www.usembassy.cl
Av. Andrés Bello 2800 - Las Condes, Santiago, Chile
Tel: (56-2) 232-2600; Fax: (56-2) 330-3710

British Embassy in Chile, www.britishembassy.gov.uk/
Avda. El Bosque Norte 0125, Las Condes, Santiago, Chile
Tel: (56-2) 370-4100

Canadian Embassy in Chile, www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/chile
World Trade Centre Building, Nueva Tajamar 481, North Tower, 12th Floor, Las Condes, Santiago, Chile
Tel: (56-2) 362-9660 ext. 3340 and 3341; Fax: (56-2) 362-9393; stago-cs@dfait-maeci.gc.ca

Embassies of Chile in English speaking countries:

Embassy of Chile in the USA, www.chile-usa.org
1732 Mass. Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20036
(202) 785-1746; embassy@embassyofchile.org
Consular Section: Tel: (202) 530-4106 and 530-4107; Fax: (202) 530-4145; consulado@embassyofchile.org

Embassy of Chile in the UK, www.echileuk.demon.co.uk
12 Devonshire Street, London, W1G 7DS, U.K.
Tel: 44-20 7580 6392; Fax: 44-20 7436 5204
embachile@embachile.co.uk

Embassy of Chile in Canada, www.chile.ca
50 O'Connor Street, suite 1413, Ottawa, Ontario K1P 6L2, Canada
Tel: (613) 235-4402 ext.117; Fax: (613) 235-1176

Check out more embassies at Transitions Abroad.

Vibe won a trip to Argentina thru a Bueno Entonces contest. Check out her experience and reviews

The Day of the Bueno Entonces Mexican Margarita EXTRaVaganza

After a few big nights I’ve had to do some recuperating to get ready for the Bueno Entonces Mexican Margarita Extravaganza.. you know ... I need sleep every now and then.. When do Buenos-Aireans sleep? On Sunday all day Martin told me. But is that enough for the rest of the week?

All I could muster lately was a visit to Recoleta to see Evita’s grave. Surely a must SEE... She died just so young! Recoleta is pretty cool anyway to wander around with your sunglasses feeling melancholy. The graves are amazing and monumental and if you’ve ever dug into Argentine history or have paid attention to the streetnames you’ll find a lot of big names there. I find out Carlos Gardel is in the other cemetery, must do that one next time.

But onwards.. David (el Productor) and Cori have organised a night with the entire cast and crew of Bueno Entonces. We’re going out for Mexican and LOTS Of Margaritas in Palermo.

Jimena and the other David (this is confusing I know.. but this is the one YOU know if you’ve seen Bueno Entonces) are there and they are awesome. Also the writer and educational brain behind BE, Florencia and Hernan. Have I mentioned Carolina the beautiful Colombiana already? They’re all just amazing and what really shines through in Bueno Entonces that this is a bunch of people clearly having a lot of fun creating something together, is also pretty clear from tonight. After that more going out, and being silly.

Read full text at beadventuresinba.blogspot

Review: Learning Spanish in a Buenos Aires way

I stumbled across B.E. about a month and a half ago, I watched one episode and was hooked…David is an absolute riot…Jimena is a doll…and together, they are the perfect teacher/student combo…my husband gets annoyed bc I will not put my phone away…

Because you are hearing conversations and not sitting in front of the computer or with your nose in a book, each time you listen to an episode you learn both vocab and grammar without even knowing it.

Yes, it is fast paced but if you are truly dedicated to learning the beautiful language that is Spanish, and you want to do it quickly, it doesn’t matter….I listened to each lesson twice before moving on to the next…I had to make myself do this because not only are you learning Spanish quickly but at the same time you are dying to know what is going to happen btw David and Jimena…

Map of Chile

Check out this and more maps at national-anthems.net

The General Linguistics Method for Teaching Foreign Languages

Created by linguists, teachers and students from a half-dozen countries, General Linguistics developed Bueno, entonces… to incorporate all the best elements of the software and audiobook language learning methods like Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone that have been around for decades.

We mixed the comprehensive learning material of the audiobook courses with the addictive, fun and universally beloved format of a television show to create the Bueno, entonces… series. Each of the 30classes is 30-40 minutes long, proven as the perfect length for a language course - long enough to cover vocabulary and grammar topics but short enough to keep you interested the whole time. The challenging fast pace and edgy, entertaining style of Bueno, entonces… will keep you coming back for more.

Learning Spanish doesn’t have to be boring and monotonous. Bueno, entonces… infuses a witty, engaging storyline into the learning process - and by following along you absorb more Spanish, morequickly than you ever thought possible. By the end of the 5-week, 30-class series, you
will be speaking and understanding native conversational Spanish!

Bueno, entonces… incorporates the following 5 principles to make learning Spanish fun, painless and effective:

1. Make The Classes Interesting & Engaging With Wit and Charm.

If you are not engaged, you are not going to learn or remember anything. Learning doesn’t have to be boring — remember your favorite teachers? Well, wait until you meet David & Jimena…

Read more about the Method at buenoentonces.com/blog.

One semester of Spanish

This is so much fun. Check it out!

Visa for Chile

As regulations are subject to change at short notice it is advisable to check with the Chilean Consulate for the latest information. At present, a visa is not required by the following:

(a) nationals of EU countries, Australia, Canada, Japan and US for a stay of up to 90 days (except nationals of Greece, who can stay up to 60 days);

(b) nationals of Antigua & Barbuda, Argentina, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Fiji, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Grenada, Guatemala, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Jamaica, Liechtenstein, Macau, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Monaco, Morocco, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Poland, St Kitts & Nevis, St Lucia, San Marino, Slovenia, South Africa, Surinam, Switzerland, Tonga, Tunisia, Turkey, Tuvalu, Uruguay, Vatican City, Venezuela and Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) for a stay of up to 90 days;

(c) nationals of Peru and for a stay of up to 60 days;

(d) nationals of Costa Rica, Honduras, Indonesia, Singapore and Zimbabwe for a stay of up to 30 days;

(e) transit passengers continuing their journey on the same or first connecting aircraft provided holding required travel documents for onward destination and not leaving the airport transit lounge.

Note: Nationals of the USA, Canada and Australia entering Chile for touristic purposes will be charged a processing fee payable on arrival and in cash only. For nationals of the USA the fee is US$45, for nationals of Canada, the fee is US$55, for nationals of Mexico, the fee is $15 and for nationals of Australia the fee is US$30.


Continue the article at Allo Expat

About Chile

It just doesn't cut it to call Chile a land of contrasts - this is a land of extremes. It's a preposterously skinny tendril of a country creeping 4300km around the foot of South America: while Arica basks in tropical heat at its tip, Punta Arenas shivers at its icy tail just short of Antarctica. Nowhere else can you stand in the world's driest desert (near San Pedro de Atacama), gaze at snowcapped peaks then turn your head to see cool Pacific rollers creaming inland. Follow Chile's jagged Andean backbone of towering mountains south and you'll pass through the ancient forests of Parque Nacional Chiloé, the rich vineyards of Talca, past shimmering lakes and immense plains, to stumble upon the exquisite labyrinth of fjords, islands and milky-blue glaciers that make up Southern Patagonia at the end of the Americas.

Opportunities for outdoor fun abound. Fancy climbing an active volcano? There are 50 to choose from. Prefer running white-water rapids or paddling through ice-carved fjords? You'll be spoilt for choice. Come looking for adventure and you could hike, bike, ski, surf, swim, horseback ride and even paraglide your way from desert to ice fields. But you don't need to sweat it to enjoy the best of Chile. You can soak in hot springs until your skin wrinkles, ogle at glaciers crumbling into the sea, stargaze alongside top international observatories, ponder the ancient mysteries of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) or soak up the urban buzz of Santiago or Valparaíso.

Continue reading, at Lonely Planet

Spanish Programs in Chile

Spanish Programs
As a pioneer in language immersion, BridgeChile offers a practical, proven and communicative approach that will have you speaking Spanish from the very first day. Our professional teachers are qualified, dedicated, enthusiastic, and know how to make classes fun and effective. At BridgeChile, we also know that your experience abroad is about more than just class; it's also about getting to know the local people and the culture. For that reason, we offer a rich program of activities, excursions, and special courses that allow you to make the most of your time in Chile.

Location
BridgeChile is located in the neighborhood of Providencia, a combination of modern, high-rise buildings and quiet, tree-lined residential streets. It is just a few blocks from the main avenue 11 de Septiembre, where you will find many sidewalk cafes, plenty of shopping opportunities, as well as the metro stop "Los Leones." Just a five-minute walk from the school is one of the city's most popular night spots, Suecia, where there are some 50 restaurants and nightclubs located within a five-square-block area. For more detailed information and directions, please visit our School Location & Map page.

To finish reading, go to Brigde Chile.

Tips you need to know!!!

Safe, efficient and friendly, Chile is perhaps the easiest South American country for travelers. Still, there are a few things that are helpful to know before you arrive.

Plan ahead

Most importantly, decide when to go depending on where you want to go. Chile stretches from the tropics almost all the way down to Antarctica, so when it’s lovely in the north it can be miserable in the south, and vice-versa.
If you want to explore Southern Patagonia and hike in Parque Nacional Torres del Paine, visit in summer (December - February), or in the shoulder season (November or March) to avoid the crowds. Warning: by end of March, many services and attractions in Patagonia close for the season.
Middle Chile is best in spring (September - November) or fall (late Feb - April). Ski season runs June through October.
The Atacama Desert in Northern Chile can be explored year-round but summer (December - February) is very hot and rainy.

Bus stop

The best way to get downtown from Santiago’s airport is by bus. Buses Centropuerto and Tur Bus Aeropuerto leave from right outside the arrivals hall. They take about 40 minutes and are more dependable than taxis, which often overcharge tourists.

Wine tours

Chile’s wines are among the best in the world, and winery tours are a highlight; check out the Colchagua Valley wine tour at Santa Cruz. Carmenere is Chile’s standout varietal.

Check out more tips at Lonely Planet.

Money & costs

Costs

Chile is not cheap by South American standards, but is more economical than Europe or North America. Prices can double during the late-December to mid-March high season, but travel just before or after the official season and you'll most likely score bargain accommodations. Internal flights devour travel funds at any time of the year.

Shoestring travelers should budget around US$25 per day for food and lodging, though with determination - camping or staying in hostels, eating in markets - you could cut that to below US$20. Surprisingly cheap and ridiculously filling set lunch menus are served by most restaurants - even expensive eateries have very affordable lunchtime deals.

From about US$60 per day you can wine and dine well and sleep in cozy accommodations. Families can enjoy excellent deals in fully equipped cabins wherever Chileans like to spend their summers. Spend more than US$100 per day and you can enjoy luxuries that would commonly cost you double that in North America or Europe.

Tipping

It's customary to cough up an extra 10% of the bill as a tip in restaurants, except in family-run places, which rarely expect a tip. In general, waiters and waitresses are poorly paid, so if you can afford to eat out, you can afford to tip, and even a small propina will be appreciated. Taxi drivers do not require tips, although you may round off the fare for convenience.

Keep reading at Lonely Planet

Study Abroad Chile!!!

For more video, go to YouTube