I had one year of high school Spanish and then spent a wonderful six weeks in a micro-bus traveling from Tucson to Guadalajara and back the summer of 1967.  A field biologist friend had a commission to collect butterflies from any ecological niche in Mexico.  We considered moving to the Lake Chapala area when we left L.A. but the wife has no ear for languages, so we moved to Arkansas, where she has learned to understand the local accent.

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."