I have been studying my Spanish in the meantime. I have joined many ex-pat forums to continue my learning. I almost procured a very nice apt. that an internet friend of mine offered me. It didn’t pan out after he closely rethought the low interest rate I was offering (it was necessary to make it affordable for me). I offered more for the apt. than it was worth to offset that fact, but in the end he switched gears and offered it to me as a rental. It still is not a bad deal, but I will pass for now.

I have discovered that even on Craigslist you can find rentals. I have re-looked at Costa Rica and Uruguay as well. I really like Ecuador, I actually embrace their President Correa. I find his policies refreshing and innovative. That is not a negative in any way for me, despite my well-meaning relatives telling me it is a “Communist” country. LOL

My granddaughter found her 2nd grade backpack buried way back in my closet this weekend. In it were general words for them to study for spelling, etc. I have snatched them & am going to put the Spanish words on the back for small flashcards. I think that will be a big help for me. My pronunciation of Spanish is getting better.

So Ecuador is still on my wish list, but I am just getting there a little slower than I had wished. Oh well – slow & steady won the race didn’t it?

I saw one example of using Emperor Nero — hence e nero. So when you are trying to remember the first month remember that image of the Emperor & then carry on from there.

As with the days of the week in the previous post, these are also NOT capitalized and they are all masculine as well.

I am still brand new at learning Spanish, so again, please bear with me. I may, or may not, make a few mistakes. Please if you see one, let me know

• Learn the basic 1-10
• Then learn 11-15 as they don’t follow the rules
• It gets a little easier from here as 16-19 are easy to follow – see below
• Now learn 20 and the rest of the 20′s (this pattern continues through the 20′s)- see below
• In the 30′s there is a new pattern and it continues throughout the number system untill 99
• Now learn the 10′s and the 100′s and will be a snap
• Lastly, learn the big guys – they also follow the rules

That is how I see learning the system. It actually is quite easy once you figure out who abides by the rules and who doesn’t. I hope this helps you out some, it helps me.

The Spanish alphabet is amost exactly the same as the English alphabet, with a few exceptions, which I placed in bold:

I found a wonderfully helpful webpage that lets you hear the sounds of each letter by hovering over them at SpanishSpanish.

The following chart shows the capital letters along with name of each letter and the sound I think it makes. Please note I am a beginner, like you, so I may be off on some of my sounds:

Right off the bat I see which ones I will have problems with. They would be: R, V, W, X, Y. Which ones will you have problems with? Woo-Hoo I remembered how to build a table, it makes it SO much nicer to read, don’t you think?

These folks advertise “for Kids” but when I checked them out further, they offer all the way from Elementary School up to Spanish III. They know their Spanish! Try Before You Buy!:

Take a free trial and access a week’s worth of course material. See how a student is engaged in contextual learning activities, games, and interactive quizzes to make learning a new language fun and intuitive. See how powerspeaK¹² exposes students to a story in their native language and gradually transitions words and phrases from the story into the new language, making comprehension and retention of the new words almost effortless.

They may be worth looking at!

Distinctive forms of Quechua are found in the north of Peru (Cajamarca, San Martín, Loreto) and in Ecuador, where it is known as Quichua. I used the general term instead of the Ecuadorian version, just to avoid confusion as there are 2 other dialects of the same language in So. America.

These following videos give you an idea of what it sounds like and a little background of the Quechua peoples. These are not learning videos like the Spanish I grouped up for you:

There are NO learning videos that I have found. It is a spoken language carried down by generations of indiginous peoples of the Andes in South America. I have heard that is has a Sanskrit base but I am not positive. I found a site that gives free internet lessons on Quechua. If you have mastered Spanish and are ready for more, this would be a good addition to your language skill set in Ecuador.

Another resource I found is “Fun Facts to Know About Quechua.” On that site they say:

Here’s some English words derived from Quechua: coca, condor, guano, gaucho, guanaco, Inca, jerky, lagniappe, lima [bean], llama, pampa, puma, quipu, quinine, quinoa, and vicuña.

Quechua Phrasebook

I managed to find one book on the Quechua language. It doesn’t come up with “Quechua” in the search so use: ISBN: 9781740597708 in the search box. Click on this to enter site then put in previous search term: Lonely Planet Country Guides

I also found a few items on eBay for Quechua. These change all the time so check back if you don’t see anything.

To see solution go to: Word Search Solutions Page.

This one is coded “From the Beginning”: