Learning Spanish, Why Not Volunteer?

If you’re a student in Granada, then you are probably in one of the best situations imaginable to facilitate learning Spanish. You can meet fellow student friends and chat away over tapas and beer. You get to sit in classrooms and absorb all the language nuances that the regular drifting tourist cannot.

If you’re not a student, but you do have time to try to learn Spanish while you’re in Granada, you could enroll in Spanish classes. However, imagine yourself sitting in a language classroom with a bunch of other English-speaking folks. You’re probably going to spend most of your time speaking in English.

Granada has a bunch of options for volunteering, which is a great way to put yourself into the local scene and help out with something while you’re at it. This way, you’ll get to practice your Spanish on a daily basis, and you’ll enjoy a unique life experience during your vacation instead of the ordinary run-of-the-mill snapshot Andalucía touring.

One organization is called Asociacion Calor y Café. This is a nonprofit organization that helps the homeless receive their basic needs. You’ll get to talk with people whose stories might be difficult at times to comprehend, but that take you deeper into the locality than a conversation with a tour guide.

ASPACE is an organization that offers assistance to sufferers of cerebral palsy. Volunteers help out in the dining room and swimming pool, but again, this act of kindness on your part will reward you with a different take on your Granada adventure altogether.

Although you might need a level of Spanish already a bit advanced, joining ALCER, the national Association for the Fight Against Kidney Disease, will have you speaking Spanish daily on visits to Granada hospitals to give company to dialysis patients.

Finally, if the above options seem kind of intense for you, then perhaps you can spend your days petting and feeding animals in the Refugio de Sierra Nevada animal shelter. You might be helping animals, but your coworkers will want to chat in Spanish all day.