Updated June, 2023

Spanish Exchange MeetUps as part of your preparation for Mexico

As a single person living in Mexico, I hear people toss the ball around on whether knowing how to speak Spanish is necessary to live here. The fact is people who live in Mexico can be quite happy here without speaking Spanish. It's also irrefutable that anyone will have a richer experience with some fluency in the language. It may even change how you see your world.

MeetUps are the place to start if you live in a larger city in the US. For the uninitiated, thousands of MeetUps take place all over the country reflecting every imaginable interest. There were several Spanish language meetup groups everywhere I’ve lived since starting 9 years ago.

Language practice groups offer a number of benefits. For one, you’re able to start practicing initially with other non-native speakers. Language teachers tell us that it’s perfectly fine to practice this way, as my favorite online Spanish teacher explains here. Beginner speakers tend translate from English to Spanish word for word. You can understand them more easily than native speakers when you are starting out.

“You don't learn a second language to speak it, you speak a second language to learn it.”

Being afraid of making mistakes, along with inconsistency in studying, are the two biggest obstacles to learning a second language.

Practice groups with other non-native speakers help you get used to making errors. That was probably the most important aspect of MeetUps for me. Without that year of getting used to the discomfort, I would have been totally overwhelmed once I arrived to Mexico, the deep end of the pool. In Mexico, language exchange groups exist, but speaking with natives, for many people, is much more pressure.

My Meet Up experience

My favorite Meetup met 9:30 am on Tuesdays and Thursdays, making it more likely that older and retired people would be there. We met at the Gypsy House Café, a fabulously funky hookah bar in Denver.  The Turkish woman who owned the place only took cash. We waited with gleeful anticipation to see if our coffee would arrive in a chalice or an onion soup bowl. Prices on the chalkboard were estimations.

We hung out for hours in our own little Parisian cafe, pontificating from overstuffed sofas in usually very poor Spanish on politics, environmentalism or existentialism. We could debating for half an hour on whether the subjunctive tense always followed the Spanish word for "if." 

Side conversations in French, Italian, German and Portuguese invariably broke, as the group tended to attract polyglots. Others had traveled to Spanish-speaking countries, fallen in love with the countries and sought to maintain a tenuous  love affair through practicing with the group.

For our group, the new language sometimes became a veil, a way to try out opinions, insights and even jokes we’d never try at home. The laughter we shared trying to remember the correct verb or just making things up (aka giving it our best shot) made the mundane topic entertaining. Sometimes there were 20 people, sometimes a companionable six, but always a good practice.

Guessing incorrectly led to some memorable moments. Once I unknowingly asked the patriarch of the group, a multilingual man in his late seventies with Parkinsons and the hippest person in the group, if he liked to dress in leather, causing us both to laugh ourselves to utter helplessness. When you meet at least once a week for years, you can develop close friendships.

These practices can be an invaluable prep before moving to Mexico. You learn, like Charlemagne to take a deep breath, go forth and conquer.  

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About the author:

Kerry Baker moved to Mexico in 2014. She’s written "If Only I Had a Place" a guide to renting luxuriously in Mexico, written specifically for the aspiring expat.

My second book is “The Mexico Solution: Saving your money, sanity, and quality of life through part-time life in Mexico.” This is the most entertaining book you’ll find that also gives you practical advice and a real timeline to reach your goal of life in Mexico.

Most recently I wrote The Lazy Expat: Healthy Recipes That Translate in Mexico” for those trying to maintain a healthy diet while traveling.