I had a fantastic time in Dosrius, in the province of Barcelona, with Mónica, her parents and her 2 Golden Retrievers: Rumba and Samba. Mónica is warm, fun, kind, and generous, and I had a great time with her! She went out of her way to ensure that I was taken care of and had a good time there.

She also worked hard to make sure my lessons were relevant to my needs. I am preparing for the SIELE exam this month.. I am going to take the remote exam with Spanish Express as they are an accredited centre. Mónica is a great teacher-examiner. I feelI am more than ready to take up the SIELE exam now.

Mónica’s house is in the Parc del Montnegre i el Corredor, the First Urban Quiet Park in Spain. I consider myself extremely fortunate to have had this opportunity! It was the ideal opportunity to meet a lovely lady and her family, practise my Spanish, and see so many beautiful places around the area. Absolutely an amazing experience, highly recommended!

First of all, I would like to thank Pilar, our Spanish teacher, for this experience. The way she teaches is excellent. I already knew a bit of Spanish, but my boyfriend, who also came with me to Valencia, didn't know any. But surprisingly, he went back home being able to maintain really interesting conversations with some friends we met there.

We stayed for over two weeks in Valencia. Each morning we started with a lesson after a fantastic breakfast that Pilar made for us. Once we finished the classes, Pilar took us around Valencia. We visited many places, '' el Barrio del Carmen'', which is beautiful and has a lot of history. Pilar showed us each of its charms, and of course, she accompanied us to the most beautiful monuments in Valencia, such as the Micalet or the Torres de Serrano and Quart.

We also saw the Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias, where we could see some exhibitions. The visit to the Albufera was amazing, we saw the sunset, and it was one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen.

In short, I recommend this experience. Pilar is an incredible teacher; we learned a lot with her, and from her, she introduced us to many people. In fact, to this day, I still maintain a relationship with some of them, and I practice my Spanish, which is super important to me.

Certainly, an unforgettable experience, and we will repeat it soon.

I was looking for a different kind of solo trip to explore a new culture and stumbled across immersion courses with Spanish Express. I had never had a Spanish lesson in my life, but I’m genuinely shocked at how much I learned in just 7 days. The SHIP experience taught me so much about the culture of Cataluña, I feel really connected to the place and can’t wait to come back. Mónica is a fantastic teacher with a beautiful home and I felt really welcome. I cannot recommend this enough if you’re looking for a different kind of escape.

I had a fantastic experience during my course last year in Valencia with Pilar Martinez.
I had forgotten alot of the Spanish I had learned previously as I hadn’t been practicing enough. I thought what better way than to have an immersive course? Right from the beginning, I found myself immersed into the culture and enjoyed the trip. Pilar took me around Valencia, which was beautiful and I had the opportunity to practice my Spanish with the locals.

I left with a newfound confidence with my language capabilities and look forward to returning on my own to continue to develop my fluency.

I had been studying for the DELE C1 exam with regular virtual lessons with Mónica, and decided to bite the bullet and take advantage of the SHIP course. I have absolutely 0 regrets, an immersion course was exactly what I needed to understand, speak and live like a native Spaniard. I was a bit nervous at first as I’ve never done anything like this, but Moni was so accommodating. We did a range of activities, from city visits, museums, exploring nature reserves and not to mention all of the amazing food. The classes were intense, but not overwhelming as Moni tailored the course to my needs (mainly the subjunctive!!). I can notice a huge improvement in my Spanish and feel very confident that I can pass the DELE exam which I need for work. I am so thankful for Mónica’s support. Thank you SpanishExpress!

Portuguese and Spanish look very similar so we can generally read the other language without too much struggle. But when it comes to the spoken forms things get a bit more complicated. There’s an almost 90% lexical similarity between the two, which means that 90% of Spanish words have a cognate (equivalent) in Portuguese.

Being a Portuguese speaker and already having an advanced level in Spanish has been a great help to improve my Spanish for my next trip in Barcelona (It's my favourite city in Spain). The opportunity to be in the teacher’s house for 2 weeks has been amazing. I made more progress in 2 weeks than in a whole academic year at my language school back home. Also to mix with Mónica’s friends and family, learn about gastronomy and culture has broadened my horizons in general.

We had a varied social programme with plenty of excursions and things to do. I love nature and animals so my favourite excursions were all the visits we did around the Parc del Montnegre i el Corredor, the first 'park of silence' in Spain; the Donkey Reserve: Rukimon, a park where all the donkey breeds of the Peninsula live together. I really enjoyed petting and feeding them. They love cuddles and carrots!

But the contact with nature was not only limited to the Montnegre i Corredor park and our furry friends; we also visited Can Gel, a cow farm that allows you to interact with the animals and learn many relevant facts about their care. I even got the amazing opportunity to bottle feed a baby cow.

All in all it was an amazing experience that I would recommend to any travel lover wanting to experience Spain at first hand!

I have always had a passion for language learning and my first steps into the world of Spanish language and culture convinced me that Spanish was the language that I wanted to gain a more rounded knowledge of. Bilingualism is a major advantage for many roles in Europe and I am focused on being linguistically prepared for a potential career move into the European architecture and/or construction sectors. I was becoming increasingly aware that in order to take up such an opportunity I needed to increase my level of speaking fluency in order to engage fully both in day-to-day conversation and in the more technical dialogue required for professional interaction. It was for both these reasons that I chose the Spanish Homestay Immersion Programme (SHIP) in Barcelona with Mónica as it provided me with the opportunity to focus my learning into technical areas and immerse me into a completely Spanish speaking environment.

Spanish Express also has an excellent online program that complements the immersion program. For a year, Mónica provided me with a bespoke programme focused on the technical vocabulary required for construction professionals, as well as assistance with my CV and job interview preparation. We then met face-to-face in Spain, where I spent two weeks improving not only my Spanish but also the way to do business in Spain, culture, gastronomy, art, and much more. This programme is highly recommended for people who want to advance in their careers by learning Spanish.

I am also a very keen cyclist and Monica’s home in Dosrius is ideally located with plenty of gravel trails from the doorstep with access to explore the Natural Park of Montnegre y el Corredor.

To improve my Spanish has always been a goal in my life because I would like to live in a Spanish speaking country in the future. This trip to Barcelona helped me a lot. Mónica is an excellent teacher and also a great host. I felt very comfortable staying at her beautiful house. She has two lovely dogs which made my time there even more special because I love dogs. The people, the food, the architecture, everthing was amazing and I will gladly repeat this experience on my next vacation. I totally recommend this programme to all the people who wants to learn or improve their Spanish.