Here are a couple of good DIY options to learn a bit of Castellano (the Castillian brand of Spanish spoken in Buenos Aires) before you arrive. I think if you can get your hands on both of them, you’d have a great combination:

Bueno, entonces…

I like this DIY Castellano course. I downloaded the first class to my iPod Touch and to be perfectly honest, I was hooked. The Bueno, entonces… team say,

OUR FORMULA: Engaging + Interesting + Funny = Retention

I think they actually may have pulled it off. Despite not really wanting to like the format (laddish Brit bloke learning Spanish in Buenos Aires from hot Argentinian chick), it actually made me laugh and I have become a bit of a fan of both David (the rather cute if slightly annoying Brit chico) and Jimena (the-totally-in-control gorgeous Argentinian chica). Because I am the curious type, I met up with one of the creators of the course, in Buenos Aires, and she explained how the team had wanted to find a way to make learning a language contemporary, fun, and addictive… they went for it, and Bueno, entonces… is the result. Am I addicted? Well, sort of. Thing is, there’s a slow burning story to the whole thing as well as the lingo classes, and I can’t help wanting to find out what happens next. Soap opera language learning? Could be…

It’s a bit naughty, it’s true – you will learn the rude words you might require if you either end up in bed with an Argentine, or need to get angry with one. Wish I’d known those when I was hooking up with C. Mind you, if you’re a bit shockable, you mightn’t like it, so beware… the creators give it a Spicy Spanish Course WARNING!

The best thing is that you can download it to your laptop, iPod or iPhone, so you can have Castellano on video, on the go – and actually it’s cheaper if you do download it; the DVDs cost more. It’s been helping me to brush up on my lingo, accumulated over the past three years. If you’re a beginner I think you’ll have to watch the classes a few times, or maybe stop and start the videos while you take things in, because it is quick-paced. But the pronunciation is perfect, and the speed of speech is realistic too, so you’ll get used to how the Argentines merge their words and thus, be able to understand them faster than I ever did. Thing is, I’m not sure that there’s any other DIY course out there that teaches the Castellano spoken in Buenos Aires, so to be honest, I don’t think you can go far wrong. Anyway, before you buy you can watch some Demos on the General Linguistics website, and you can decide for yourself whether you think it could suit you.

Like the sound of it so far? Just head to the Bueno, entonces… shop front and take a look for yourself. Enjoy!

In the interests of transparency – if you buy this language course via a link on this blog, I get a percentage of the sale and it helps pay the blog’s hosting fees.

Enjoy the tango of Learning Spanish

by Demian Gawinski

This book and CD set from TangoSpanish also teach you Spanish as it’s spoken in Buenos Aires but the course is 100% set in the world of tango. That’s handy for us tango dancers. I’ve used the book myself, and it remains a great reference for me (I particularly love the handy grammar summary in the back), even after three years. The website also offers language courses via Skype before you come, though I have no direct experience of those, and a great looking DVD (I have seen a preview) should be available soon. If you want to buy the book by mail order then you can do it here, and if you get the chance please tell Demian that I sent you.

Happy Castellano to you all!