D Donde esta el baño? Com Como esta usted? This sums up pretty well the results of a two-year Spanish school that was adopted as a college course almost 50 years ago! Of course, why would anyone ever need to know that the Spaniard never met a Mexican, let alone go to Mexico? My, how times have changed!
After living in Houston for 25 years, we found that Mexico was just two hours away and that she had some very intriguing qualities. In 1984, we bought a condo in Mismaloya, south of Puerto Vallarta, and made semi-annual visits to Vallarta for 13 years before buying a villa in the foothills of the Sierra Madre, overlooking Banderas Bay and El Centro, the city center of PV. When we moved to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, known by the locals as PV or Vallarta, ten years ago our Spanish dictionary consisted of about five words.
Fortunately, a few taxi drivers, most of the waiters in the restaurant, and some caddies spoke or at least understood a little English. In order to survive here, it was necessary to understand and speak to some extent Spanish. During our first month in Vallarta we bought textbooks, manuals, dictionaries and hired a mentor to come to our villa twice a week. We worked diligently for almost half a year, studying Spanish words, paraphrases, times, etc., so that we had the opportunity to communicate with the locals.
To help our learning process, we watched our Mexican television, which had about five channels; CNN, sixth-class Mexican shows, and American films with Spanish subtitles. Then we turned off the volume and try to understand the movies by reading the subtitles. Not very fun, but the price you had to pay to live in Paradise, where the average daytime temperature in the "high season" from November to May is 73 ° F, and in fact there is no chance of rain!
We sent this first summer back to the States, and, returning to PV, we became lazy and stopped our research. Satellite television became available in Vallarta, and we no longer had five Mexican channels, but instead had 350 channels from the United States. Fortunately for us, the tourist boom in Vallarta was just starting to happen ten years ago.
Over the past decade, thousands of new homes and tens of thousands of new condominiums, new hospitals, a new campus in Guadalajara, a new airport, a new maritime terminal, etc. were built in Vallart. As tourism increased, it was also required to speak English by local residents. If they could understand and speak English, they could get better paying jobs, where communication with tourists is commonplace. Jobs such as waiting tables, caddying, taxis, police department, front desk clerk in hotels, offices, hospitals, airports, etc. D. And managerial positions in stores and other enterprises could pay three times more than construction work, daily work, cleaning, etc., where there is no need for the ability to speak English.
The difference in wages was so obvious and significant that over the past ten years, most of the entire younger generation of people in Vallart have been learning English at school, they understand and speak mostly English. Even those who have not had a day in the English class understand Espanglish well, and we have absolutely no problems with communicating with anyone in Vallart there before.
Almost all educated Mexicans in the field of PV, such as doctors, lawyers, engineers, architects, bankers, nurses, teachers, etc., are fluent in English. In fact, most of these people prefer to speak English with Americans and Canadians. Typical music in restaurants, bars, hotels and even dental offices are popular American songs. American magazines, newspapers and books are available throughout the city, whereas a decade ago they practically did not exist.
To summarize, knowledge of Spanish is no longer a prerequisite for visiting or retirement in Vallarte.
Most pensioners who live in PV speak little Spanish and get on well. Most of the tourists on the plane or cruise ship do not know Spanish, and they also have no problems with communication. Obviously, Vallarta is not typical for Mexico, but those who are considering a retirement or retirement in Vallarta who do not speak Spanish should not be disturbed by the language barrier here. In terms of speed, everything changes in PV, who knows, English can become its main language in another generation!
