Spanish immersion · Guanacaste, Costa Rica
Learn Spanish through daily life in a Costa Rican village
Twenty hours of class a week written around your own day, a room with a Costa Rican host family, and four afternoons out in town with local instructors. All of it in Spanish.
$950 for one weekLess for longer stays: four weeks is $920 a week
Riding out above the valley
La Fortuna de Bagaces, not La Fortuna near Arenal. We are a farming village of a few hundred people at the foot of the Miravalles volcano, about an hour from Liberia airport. Almost nobody here speaks English, which is the point.
20 h
Of Spanish class a week
With a certified teacher, written around your own day. Usually 8:00 to 12:00, Monday to Friday.
7
Nights with a family
Your own room, three meals a day, and Spanish from breakfast to bedtime.
4
Activities a week
Horseback riding, farm work, cooking, hikes and more, each with its own vocabulary.
$950
One week, all of the above
$10 less per week for every extra week. Airport pickup from Liberia or San José available at extra cost. Printing your material is $25 a week.
What to expect
Goals you set before you arrive
We don’t promise fluency by a date, because everyone starts somewhere different. On a short call before you come, your teacher sets goals with you. Typical ones:
- One week, from zero
Greet people, order food, ask directions, and tell your host family about your day in simple sentences.
- Four weeks
Hold everyday conversations about your day, your plans and the people you’ve met, in past, present and future, without switching to English.
- Intermediate and up
Follow Spanish at natural speed, tell stories in the past, and talk about real topics like farming, work and the news.
You see your progress every day in the material your teacher writes for you.
How the classes are built
No two students here get the same lesson
Your class doesn’t exist until the night before it. Every evening, your teacher builds tomorrow’s material around two things: what you’re interested in, and what you actually did that day.
Most language schools hand you a textbook that was written for nobody in particular. We don’t use one. Your teacher writes your material after watching how your day went — the animals you saw on the trail, the ride you took, the meal you couldn’t name, the conversation you couldn’t finish.
The next morning you collect it from the print shop on your walk to class. You’re not memorising a vocabulary list. You’re learning to talk about things that already happened to you — which is why it stays in your head long after you’ve gone home.
- Saw a pizote on the way to Cabro Muco→Tomorrow’s vocabulary
- Spent the morning on horseback→Giving directions, describing the land
- Couldn’t follow dinner conversation→The exact structures you were missing
- You mentioned you cook at home→A week of kitchen Spanish
10–30
pages of material, written fresh for one student, every single day of your stay.
- You live the dayClasses in the morning, an activity in the afternoon, your host family in the evening.
- Your teacher writes that nightBuilt around what you did, what you struggled with, and what you care about.
- You pick it up on the way inThere’s a print shop on the road to class. Every morning you stop there for a document made for you and nobody else.
Where you’ll live
A room in someone’s house, not a room in a hotel
This is the part of the program that does the most work. You have twenty hours of class a week; you have the other hundred or so waking hours in a Costa Rican home, hearing Spanish and using it from the moment you get up to the moment you go to bed.
This is the part students are quietest about beforehand and loudest about afterwards. Breakfast at seven with someone’s grandmother. Being asked where you’re going, and having to answer in Spanish. Coming home at night to people who waited up to hear how the day went.
You are a guest in a home, not a customer in a guesthouse. The kitchen is open to you. So is the porch, the living room, the table where everyone ends up talking. Make coffee at eleven at night if you want to.
Almost nobody in these houses speaks English. That is difficult on the second day and it is the whole reason the program works by the second week — there is no version of the evening where you get to stop practising.
We keep a few selected homes. Not everyone in town can be a host family, and that’s deliberate.
What’s included, every week
Your place in the house
- Your own bedroom. Yours alone, with space to study.
- A bathroom — often private, sometimes shared with the family, depending on the house.
- Three meals a day, cooked at home. Usually at the family’s table, though when and where is up to you. Dietary needs arranged in advance.
- Use of the laundry room. Washing is not a service the family provides, though many do it anyway.
- The kitchen and the rest of the house, like anyone who lives there.
- A short walk to class — and a bicycle if you’d like one, to get around town.
Usually one student per family, so every conversation at that table is yours. Couples, friends and families travelling together can stay in the same home. Students come back to La Fortuna de Bagaces years afterwards, and often it is the host family they came back for.
How a family becomes a host family
This is the part we’re slowest about, because your month depends on it more than on anything else.
- We already know themWe’ve known these families personally for years. This is the town we grew up in.
- We see the house firstSomebody visits and looks at the room, the bathroom and the kitchen before a family joins.
- They’ve done this beforeMost have hosted many students and know how to talk with someone whose Spanish is two days old.
- You’re matched, not assignedWe place you with a family that fits — your interests, what you eat, whether you want children around.
What students say
★★★★★
“After my immersion, the group members told me my language skills had advanced by about a year!”
Read on TripAdvisor ↗★★★★★
“A small town where you are not likely to meet other tourists… so you will get lots of practice speaking Spanish.”
Read on Google ↗★★★★★
“It gave me the opportunity to… feel like I was part of a family rather than simply a visitor.”
Read on Google ↗★★★★★
“You are surrounded by Spanish 24/7 — nobody can speak English with you.”
Read on Google ↗★★★★★
“Doris is a great teacher… she taught me what I was interested in and what I requested.”
Read on TripAdvisor ↗★★★★★
“I booked a week with my brother and 12 year old daughter… our homestay with Zoraida made us feel part of the family.”
Read on TripAdvisor ↗★★★★★
“We have gone back to visit with our host family because they are such wonderful people.”
Read on TripAdvisor ↗★★★★★
“I felt like I was being taught at my level and pace, and the real-life practice was perfect.”
Read on TripAdvisor ↗★★★★★
“After a 4 week Spanish Immersion in La Fortuna, all of my Spanish skills greatly improved!”
Read on Google ↗Did a week here change how you speak?
Then tell the next person. We are a small program in a village almost nobody has heard of — one honest review from you reaches further than anything we could pay for.
Enrollment
Three steps, and no long email chain
Pick your dates, get your plan and price the same day, hold your spot.
- Tell us your dates and levelSix questions, about a minute.
- We send your plan and priceSame day, with a link to book a call if you want one.
- Hold your spot with a depositWe match you with a host family and send arrival details.
All inclusive · priced by the week
What will my stay cost?
- 80 hours of class with a certified teacher, 20 hours a week
- 28 nights of homestay, three meals a day
- 16 language activities with instructors
- Optional volunteering at the local high school
- Airport pickup if you need it, at extra cost: Liberia $100 one way, San José $300 one way
Travelling with someone? We offer a discount for two or more people — tell us in the form and we’ll include it in your quote.
Get my plan and priceNo payment now. We reply the same day.
Get your plan and price
Six questions, about a minute. We reply the same day.
Beyond class
Weekends, giving back, and home life
Free weekends
Weekends are yours. Stay with your family, or travel around Guanacaste.
See what’s nearby →Give something back
If you’d like, help final-year students at the local high school prepare for the English part of their exit exam. Free for you and for the school; everyone volunteers.
Mention it when you write →Life with your host family
Your own room, three meals a day, and a family that waits up to hear how your day went. Usually one student per home.
Living with a family →Ready when you are
Come and speak Spanish from breakfast to bedtime
Tell us your dates and your level, and we’ll send you a plan and a price the same day. No payment now, and no long email chain.
Get my plan and priceSix questions, about a minute.
- Any dayArrive when it suits you — classes start the next business day
- All inclusiveClasses, homestay, meals, activities
- Same-day replyUsually within a few hours