LAURA GARRIDO ESLAVA: SPANISH LANGUAGE TEACHER
Hi, my name is Laura and I am from Bilbao in northern Spain. I trained as a Spanish Language Teacher with Lacunza International House in San Sebastian and qualified in 2004. I taught Spanish at Exeter College of Further & Higher Education in England and later in an Alicante Language School after moving back to Spain. I really enjoy my job and the intricacies of the Spanish Language. I still live in Alicante and for the past seven years have been teaching the Spanish Language via the internet to students from all over the world.
My main personal interests are music, photography, travelling, reading and cooking. I studied music for twelve years in Bilbao and I play the piano. I also enjoy singing and I try to sing more in English now. I really like to eat and cook new food from different countries, although I am definitely a big fan of Spanish cuisine! I also love traditional English food and believe it is underrated. I lived in England for about four years and I think that I have tried most of the traditional British dishes. My favourites are English cakes such as scones with clotted cream and flapjacks.
I have been learning English since I was twelve as it is compulsory in Spanish schools. However, when I finished my University degree and travelled to England for the first time I realised how little I actually knew. My English got better after being thrown in at the deep end and having to speak English every day at work there. Now I still speak English every day and have had a lot of practice, but I understand just how tough it can be to start learning a language. I try to apply my own experiences to my teaching and get my students speaking as much as possible as quickly as possible.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for visiting my website. I really appreciate your interest and I hope that you enjoy my daily Spanish lessons and my complete Spanish video and mp3 courses. I also hope that you find my articles about “everything and anything Spanish” interesting and they motivate you to come and explore Spain. I will try to cover as wide a range of topics as possible, including Spanish food, Spanish TV, Spanish cinema, Spanish music, and Spanish history. My mission is to provide the most complete, most clearly explained, best quality, best value Spanish language learning material available anywhere and to tell as many people as I can all that I can about my wonderful country.
Hey Laura,
I am so happy to have found your blog. You continuously provide your visitors with thorough information along with exceptional resources and learning tools for people interested in the Spanish language and culture.
Thank you,
Aaron
Hola Aaron,
Thank you very much for your comments. I really appreciate you taking the time to write and hope you continue to enjoy my blog and Spanish lessons for a long time to come.
Saludos,
Laura
Hola Laura
Acabo de descubrir tu sitio.
Me gusta mucho tu estilo.
Sus blogs son muy ayudosos.
Gracias y que tengas un buen dia.
Saludos
Michael
¡Muchas gracias Michael!
Hi Laura,
Buenas noches from Manila, Philippines.
I stumbled on your youtube videos while researching about Spanish lessons on the net then from there was brought to this wonderful website. I am grateful that you have devoted a free section for beginners.
I want to learn to write and speak Spanish fluently. My long term goal is to eventually be able to write simple instructional technical articles in Spanish. I am a Java Developer and I plan to write a blog on Java/Web programming in both English and Spanish.
Good luck and more power to you. I hope to visit your site in the days to come.
PS. I noticed that your middle name and my surname are the same – an auspicious coincidence.
Hola Mario,
Thank you for your kind words about my website! I am really pleased that you are enjoying the lessons here and with a fine name like “Garrido” for sure you are going to progress very well with your Spanish studies.
Keep in touch and my best regards to the Philipines!
Laura
Hello Laura,
I just wanted to say thanks for the great resources you provide. I really enjoy the parallel texts — they’re interesting and very helpful. I’ve just started studying Spanish and am really enjoying learning about the language and culture. Keep up the great work. – Neil
Mrs. Laura, I think you are so beautiful. God bless you. I love your work. I am a fire fighter in the United States.
Hi there Laura, luckily I found your super site recently whilst browsing UTube for Spanish Lessons. I am just starting out, but I am sure that your lessons will further assist me reaching my language goals. What is apparent on your website is your real passion for promoting the Spanish language and culture, and I must say that you deserve some praise! Good luck and every success with your mission :-)
I am a Web Consultant in the UK [when I'm not in the Spainish sun] – Saludos! Pablo !
Hey Laura,
Thought I would make contact and congratulate you on your blog. I have seen you on Twitter so thought I’d nip over and see what you do.
I am also learning Spanish and so am constantly on the look out for tools to compliment the experience.
My very best
Sharon
Hola Laura: Como esta? I was very pleased to find your spanish lessons online. British Columbia, Canada is my home and I am married to a wonderful man from Mexico. My mother-in-law and most of my in-laws do not speak or have very limited English so I am trying to learn Spanish to improve my communication with them.
Muchas gracias!
Thank you all very much for taking the time to write here with you comments.
It makes such a difference to me to hear that people are enjoying my website.
I hope you all continue to progress well with your Spanish studies and my blog helps you along the way.
Best regards, Laura
Hi Laura I found your lessons really helpful, I thank you very much and really appreciate your help.
Hi Laura,
I just wanted to say a big gracias for your useful and informative website! Your utube videos bought me here. As a beginner frantically trying to learn some Spanish before my upcoming camino de Santiago I have already found loads of useful information and the your pronunciation on your videos is so clear and defined that it has actually given me a little confidence that I may just learn a few words! Tha Lyon for your time in putting up such great lessons and information. All of this for free as well!!
Hola Laura, Muchos Gracias for a brilliant web site Im always on it working my way through all your videos. I really enjoy testing myself.At the moment I am studying Spanish at local adult education centre and I recommend your site to all the students.
¡Muchas gracias!
These kind words make me feel very proud.
Thanks for taking the time to write.
Enjoy your Spanish!
Laura
Hola,
Muchisimos gracias for your blog and youtube. They really help me learn alot! I’ve always wanted to learn Spanish and this is really helping me greatly. I have relatives who are hispanic and I’ve wanted to communicate with them and because of you, it can help me achieve my goal.
Again, thank you,
~Jeni
Hola Laura,
Me encanta este blog. ¡Estoy muy feliz que puede consiguir practicando el español ahora que he vuelto a EEUU de España. Gracias por mantenerlo!
Saludos,
Sierra
Hola Laura,
You can probably guess from my name that I hail from Russia, but have lived most my life in England. I began learning French at eleven and German at thirteen. As German is closely related to English it was easy for me to learn. French was difficult but oh well.
When I finally became fluent in French, I decided to broaden my knowledge of four languages ( Russian, English, French and German) and learn Spanish as well. I was just scrolling through YouTube pages and found this marvellous website. Thank you so much for your brilliant videos and hopefully I shall learn as much as possible from them :)
By the way, sorry about the length of my comment
Adios
¡Hola!
Thank you all so much for these lovely comments.
I am very pleased to hear that you are enjoying my Spanish lessons and the other material here on my website.
I wish you every success with your studies and look forward to keeping in touch with you via the blog.
Kind regards,
Laura
Hi Laura,
I am so happy to have found your blog and really appreciate that you put so much time into helping others to learn Spanish.
I really feel that your lessons will help me more than any of the others I have had in the past.
Thanks a million – you are amazing!! :-)
All the best,
Sherrie
Very kind words Sherrie! Thank you.
All my best, Laura
Hi Laura,
I have just returned home from walking the Camino de Santiago, and have fallen in love with Spain and all things Spanish.
I learned a bit of Spanish from the friends I made along the way, but would love to get properly fluent. I think that using your amazing website and chatting to my new friends on Skype I will be able to do this quite easily. Thanks for all the hard work in setting this blog up! Its most certainly appreciated!
Thanks,
Chris
Hey, just thought I’d add to the sentiment here and tell you you’re doing a great job, I read and enjoy every one of your posts. Even though I’ve been learning Spanish for years now I still learn something new from everyone. Keep up the good work.
Cheers,
Andrew
I live in California, USA and looking to become fluent for my career path, but am currently a beginner. Are your lessons applicable to the way the Spanish language is spoken by Mexican and Latin American immigrants in the United States? Or if not, is there another similar site to yours you could recommend?
Thank you in advance.
Hola,
Thank you all very much for your comments here and your support of this website.
In response to the final question from Brian, the Spanish I speak and teach is Castellano Spanish as spoken in Spain which is almost identical to Latin American Spanish as spoken in South America, North America, Central America and the Caribbean. Latin American Spanish originally developed from Castellano and, though there are minor differences in pronunciation and vocabulary, both are basically the same language. The differences are similar to those between American and British English. It is certainly not difficult to understand one language once you know the other and Castellano Spanish will be easily understood by Spanish speakers in Spain and Latin America.
Please let me know if you would like to try a free 30 minute demonstration class where we can meet online and talk a bit more about my classes, your current level of Spanish and your specific goals and preferences.
I look forward to hearing from you soon,
Laura
Hi Laura! Great blog and resource for students interested in learning Spanish. Have a great night!
Megan
Los vídeos me ayudaron muchos!Muchas gracias!
As always, thank you very much for your comments here and your support!
All my best,
Laura