Spanish coaching for professionals in the United States
“Entiendo todo… pero no puedo hablar.”
“I understand everything, but I can't speak.” It is the sentence I hear in almost every first session.
You did the app. You took the classes. You read the email, you follow the meeting, you catch most of the dinner. Then it is your turn to say something and nothing arrives. That gap is not a vocabulary problem, and it has a way out.
- 30 minutes on Zoom
- No card, no charge
- A real session, not a sales call
- You do most of the talking
- Certified by the Instituto Cervantes
- Six years coaching adults
- One to one, on Zoom, Monday to Saturday
- Based in Cali, Colombia
Who I work with
You have a reason to speak Spanish, and a date attached to it.
- Your partner's family speaks Spanish at the table, and you have been smiling through dinners for three years.
- Half your team in Miami switches to Spanish the moment the meeting ends.
- You retired, you bought the tickets to Cartagena, and “la cuenta, por favor” is the whole repertoire.
- Your clients or patients speak Spanish, and the interpreter is always one call away but never in the room.
- You studied four years of it in school and can conjugate anything on paper. Out loud, nothing.
- You are moving to Latin America in eight months and would rather arrive able to argue with the landlord.
Why you are stuck
It is not that you did not study enough.
Three things keep intelligent, hard working adults understanding everything and saying nothing. None of them is fixed by more vocabulary.
From authority to silence
In English you are the person in the room with the answers. In Spanish you become someone who cannot finish a sentence. Your brain protects you by staying quiet, and the silence becomes the habit.
Your Spanish runs through English
You build the sentence in English, translate it, check the verb, and then look up. That takes about four seconds. A conversation gives you one. The words are there, the route to them is too long.
You are waiting until you are ready
Understanding is comfortable. Speaking is not. So you keep studying, and you postpone the only activity that actually builds the skill you want. Nobody ever felt ready first.
The approach
Not a class. A coaching process built around what you actually need to say.
Traditional courses teach the language in the order a textbook likes: present tense, then past, then the subjunctive somewhere around month nine. Adults with jobs and trips and in-laws do not meet Spanish in that order. Over six years, and with certification from the Instituto Cervantes, I built the work around four commitments instead.
Communication before perfection
Every session ends with you having said things you could not say before. Fluency is built by speaking under real conditions, not by finishing a chapter.
Correction that builds confidence
I choose which errors matter now, when to raise them, and how, so that being corrected makes you speak more rather than less.
Culture as part of the language
Register, humor, what is polite in Bogotá and rude in Mexico City. This is what separates correct Spanish from Spanish that lands.
Your goals set the syllabus
A physician preparing for patient intake and a retiree preparing for three months in Medellín need different Spanish. The plan is written for one person at a time.
How I correct you, exactly
I do not stop you every time you make a mistake. While you speak I write down two kinds of error: the ones that stop people understanding you, and the ones you repeat. In the last minutes of the session you get them back, with the fix and an example you can reuse. Everything else waits. You cannot build fluency and monitor yourself for accuracy at the same time, so in my sessions you only do the first one.
The free session
Thirty minutes, and you know exactly what happens in each one.
The hardest part of starting is not the money. It is not knowing what you are walking into, in a language you are embarrassed about. So here is the whole thing, in advance.
I ask about your week, in Spanish
You answer however you can. Half sentences are fine. English is fine. Nobody is grading this.
We talk about something real
Your work, your trip, your family, whatever brought you here. I take notes instead of correcting, and you do most of the talking. This is the part that tells me everything.
I tell you what I heard
What already works, which specific thing is blocking you, and why it is blocking you. Most people have never been told this part.
I tell you whether I can help
What I would do first, how often we would need to meet, and roughly how long it takes. If I am not the right person for what you need, I say so and I tell you who is.
Bring someone if that makes it easier
Your partner, a friend, a colleague who is in the same situation. Two people in the session costs nothing extra, and for a lot of adults it is the difference between booking and not booking.
Within 24 hours you get your map
One page, written by me, yours to keep whether or not you ever book a paid session: three things your Spanish already does well, three things blocking you with the exact examples you said out loud, and a sketch of what the first four sessions would cover.
About
I'm Ángel, and I've spent six years teaching Spanish to American professionals.
I am a Spanish as a Second Language instructor certified by the Instituto Cervantes. Most of my coachees are independent professionals, executives and retirees who were not looking for another language class. They were looking for something they could use on Monday.
I worked for language centers in the United States for years, and along the way I built my own method out of what actually worked in those rooms, leaving out what did not. I run it now under my own project, Spanish YA!, from Cali, Colombia, which means the Spanish you learn arrives with the culture and the ear attached. Coffee included.
I coach across the United States, most often in New York, New Jersey, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Chicago, Miami, Atlanta, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston and Dallas.
Where the Spanish comes from
I am in Cali, and that is part of what you are getting.
Colombian Spanish is one of the kindest places for an English speaking ear to start. The vowels stay where they are, the endings do not disappear, and the pace is close to what textbooks trained you to expect. That is not folklore, it is why Colombia is full of language schools.
But the accent is only the entry point. Living here is what lets me tell you when something you learned is technically correct and socially strange: how people actually say no without saying no, what you call the person serving you coffee, when usted is warmth and when it is distance. If your Spanish is going to be used with Mexican in laws or Venezuelan patients, we work toward that instead, and I tell you where Colombia would lead you wrong.
The practical part, so you do not have to ask
Cali is on GMT-5 all year and does not change with daylight saving. From November to March I am on the same clock as New York and three hours ahead of Los Angeles. From March to November I am one hour behind New York and two ahead of Los Angeles. I coach Monday through Saturday and send my availability already converted to your local time.
Internet here is fiber with a mobile backup. If a session ever drops on my side, it does not count and we reschedule it.
Coachees
In their words
I started working with Angel two months ago to improve my conversational Spanish. I have used the apps as well as other classes/teachers in the past but find Angel to be the best I've come across. His structure to our sessions is helpful, his Spanish accent is extremely easy to understand (I'm B1 level), and he has shown flexibility to give me homework and teach me specific topics and concepts that I know I struggle with. I highly recommend him for both the casual speaker or those more serious about becoming conversationally fluent.
Greg Douglass · Private equity advisor and board member · Dallas, TXAngel was a pleasure to work with. Very professional while also very personable. Through my sessions with him my Spanish started to improve very quickly. He took the time to understand my specific goals with Spanish and tailor his lessons to me.
Tarcisio Nascimento · Sales director · Miami, FLTwo ways to work together
Sixty minutes, on Zoom, with a plan written for you.
Private coaching
- 60 minute sessions, one coachee, on Zoom.
- The plan is built entirely around your goals and rewritten as they change.
- Unlimited cancellation and rescheduling with 24 hours' notice.
- Sessions are booked in packages, so the pace is clear from the start.
Semi-private coaching
- 60 minute sessions for two coachees who already know each other.
- Couples, colleagues or friends preparing for the same trip or the same job.
- Same structure and same packages, per person.
- You bring your partner. I do not pair strangers.
How it works
From first message to first session
A free session
Thirty minutes on Zoom, laid out minute by minute above. You speak Spanish in it.
Your map, within 24 hours
One page by email: what works, what is blocking you, and what the first four sessions would cover. Yours either way.
You choose your package
The format that fits and the package sizes, with everything you need to decide without another call.
A short engagement letter
A brief agreement covering what we have each committed to. You sign it and send it back by email.
We start
You pick your times from my availability, Monday through Saturday, already converted to your time zone.
Honesty first
This is not for everyone, and I would rather say it here.
This works well if
- You understand a good deal of Spanish and cannot produce it.
- You have a real reason: work, family, a move, a trip with a date on it.
- You can protect one or two hours a week for a few months.
- You want to be corrected in a way that keeps you talking.
Look elsewhere if
- You want an accredited certificate or continuing education credit. I do not issue either.
- You are shopping purely on hourly rate. Marketplaces are built for that and I am not one.
- You want every single mistake corrected on the spot. That is a tutor, and it is a legitimate thing to want.
- You need an exam passed next month. That is a different job than the one I do.
- You are looking for classes for children.
Before you need me
Four free things that work, and none of them is mine.
If you are starting from zero, coaching is not the efficient first move. Use these instead. If you already understand and still cannot speak, they will not solve it, and that is exactly where my work begins.
Dreaming Spanish
Free video graded by level. The fastest way to build the ear before you build the mouth.
Language Transfer
A free audio course that rebuilds how you construct a sentence. Best thing available for absolute beginners.
News in Slow Spanish
Current events at a pace you can follow. Good for keeping the ear warm between sessions.
Any podcast in Colombian Spanish
Ask me in the session and I will send you the two or three that match what you actually like listening to.
If your employer pays for training
A lot of this gets paid out of a professional development budget.
For most of the professionals I work with the obstacle was never the money. It was not knowing how to ask for it. Tell me you need documentation and I will send you an itemized quote and a short description of the program, written for a manager rather than for you. Here is the email that usually does the work.
Copy, adjust, send
Subject: Professional development request, Spanish coaching
Hi [name],
I would like to use part of my professional development budget on one to one Spanish coaching. [Say the concrete reason here: the team in Bogotá, the clients I cannot serve directly, the patients who wait for an interpreter.]
It is one hour a week with an instructor certified by the Instituto Cervantes, entirely online, scheduled outside meeting hours. I have attached the quote and the program description. I am happy to report on progress at the end of the quarter.
Thanks,
[you]
Questions
Before you book
Why are there no prices on this page?
Because what I would recommend changes with what you need, and I do not know that until we have spoken for half an hour. Publishing a single number would mean quoting you for a program I have not designed yet.
If you would rather see the numbers before we meet, ask and I will send them the same day. No negotiation, no sales call attached.
What if we are not a good fit?
That is one of the things the free session is for, and it goes both ways. If after thirty minutes I do not think I am the right person for what you need, I will tell you in that session and point you somewhere better. You still keep your map.
I'm a complete beginner. Is this for me?
Probably not yet, and I would rather be straight about it. Most of my coachees arrive with years of Spanish they cannot use. If you are starting from zero, the free resources above will take you further per hour than I will for the first few months. Come back when you understand more than you can say.
Do you teach grammar?
When it unlocks something you are trying to say, yes. What I do not do is march through a grammar syllabus and hope that speaking appears at the end of it.
I will not do homework. I am being honest.
Then we design for that, and it still works. What I ask for between sessions is not exercises: it is five minutes of speaking out loud to yourself in the car, or a voice note sent to me. The people who progress fastest are not the ones with the most free time, they are the ones who keep the language switched on in small doses.
How long before I can hold a conversation?
It depends on where you start and how often we meet, and anyone who gives you a number before meeting you is guessing. What I can promise is that you will speak in the first session, and that by the fourth you will have a short list of situations you can now handle that you could not handle before. That is the horizon I work to.
You're in Colombia. Does the time difference work?
Cali is GMT-5 all year with no daylight saving. From November to March I am on the same clock as New York and three hours ahead of Los Angeles. From March to November I am one hour behind New York and two hours ahead of Los Angeles. I coach Monday through Saturday and send availability already converted to your time.
What if I have to cancel a session?
Cancel or reschedule as often as you need with 24 hours' notice. No penalty and no lost session. If the connection fails on my side, the session does not count.
Do you record the sessions?
Only if you ask me to. Some coachees find hearing themselves speak Spanish for twenty minutes to be the most useful thing in the week, and some find it unbearable. Your call, and it can change at any point.
I represent a language center or an institution.
I worked with language centers in the United States for years and I am glad to talk. Write to me directly and tell me what you are building.
The next step
Book the session. Bring the thing you have never been able to say.
Thirty minutes on Zoom at no cost. You will speak Spanish in it, you will leave knowing what is actually blocking you, and the map arrives the next day whether or not we ever work together.
If none of the times on the booking page work for you, write to angel@speakspanishya.com and I will send you that week's open slots. My teaching schedule shifts, so the page shows a fixed window rather than everything I have free.