Erfahrungsbericht von José Antonio G.

I'm 60 old, just retired but not too old I'm feeling a new opportunity for enjoy in life, I love geography, travelling, culture, sciences, meet people and... learn languages. When visit a new country, it's for me a need to be undertanding and undertand others whom I talk. Why? I love talks and learn by, I ask for their city, country, people, meal, traditions... and this knowing about the place when I spend my holidays and its people gives me pleasure and invites me to participate, to be one more and make new friends, that's my life! I like good people and my principles are mutual respect, education and sympathy to establish friendship. I can speak several languages, cos I'm Spanish, I speak Spanish castillian and catalonian, Portuguese, English, Italian and Greek, unfortunately I have forgotten how little I knew of Dutch and German, but why I can't speak in French? This is my story: I was born in southern Spain (Málaga) and grew up in a village in south of London called Epsom Downs, being a baby I have lived in Greece, summer of 1964 and after in Surrey (England) until 1974. My school was in Central London: Kensington and daily I took the train, there I met others children from very diverses countries around the world, It stimulated me to know the world better and be curious about learning languages, I spoke in Greek because my paternal grandfather was half Greek/half Spaniard and I met a classmate at school who is of Greek origin, his family know about my family because they are from Tessaloniki as my ancestors, and Curiously, he had a half-Spanish and half-Greek family like as me. He didn't know Spanish and I only knew the Greek alphabet. We both got together to share what each other knew and as time went by, Kostas learned Spanish and I learned Greek. In the fourth year of my first education, they introduced for the first time to the study of a foreign language and I chose French intead Spanish as my father wanted me to do, he said to me: You need learn Spanish grammar, vocabulary, ortography, to read and write correctly, but I loved French, because I am close to fall in love with Grace, a beautiful francophone girl from Canada, the first French verb I learned was: "aimer", unfortunately my father discovered my new hobby and he talked to the school about changing the language and that's how I stopped seeing Grace, we had different schedules. This is how my entire life has passed completely, for 50 years I only studied French for three months and I couldn't do it, because I felt pain for my childhood memories, of my first platonic love. Last year I know about Frantastique (by Gymglish and Le Monde) and I tried some free lessons. They were extremely fun lessons, I met two nice extraterrestrials who lived on the capital planet of the galactic Francophonie: Marcel and Muriel, I have also met Victor Hugo, I had already read Les Miserables years ago and I have always admired the humanist personality of this writer, The stories are very fantastic and little by little, in just over a year, I understand the French language quite well, I can read many things on the internet and I am very happy with the treatment I have received from the Gymglish staff for whom I feel special familiarity and closeness, I think I will continue studying languages with Gymglish for many years, I can choose Italian to perfect it because if languages are not used, one ends up forgetting, I go to Italy from time to time, and I love to sing in Italian, now I am going to France and I enjoy its cuisine and brothels, I also like fashion and knowing these languages connects me directly with the source of fashion, because I like to dress well, in the future I may study German and recover my memories, because German is an essential language for traveling in Europe, almost all of Central Europe speaks and understands German, I feel more European than ever now, in these golden years, where I am really enjoying life after many years of working. From the comfort of my home, every morning, I get up early to drink my tea, breathe the pure air of the mountain where I live, Sierra Nevada and start my language classes with Gymglish until when the sun rises and I decide to go outside to do my routines activities, each wednesday I am volunteer at Granada's planetarium and talk about the skyes, in Spanish and English sessions, soon I could do it in French, I am a doctor in the history of science, philosophy of science and logic and being retired does not prevent me from being an active and involved person. I enjoy when people can enjoy about outer space misteries.

— José Antonio G. (Sierra Nevada-Monachil (Granada), SPAIN)