The big bellied, all American boy, Bert Kreischer, was fluent in Russian at one point of his life. This is no small feat because Russian is a very difficult language to learn, let alone write. It has a different alphabet, it’s hard to pronounce, and it has different declensions. Yet Bert Kreischer failed all of his college Russian classes miserably! So how was he able to learn such a complex language in a matter of weeks? The same way Peace Corps volunteers do and the same way we teach in Spanish Language Bootcamp: Through deep immersion.
In his stand-up routine, Bert Kreischer describes how he spent 2 entire years failing Russian in college and not understanding a single thing of what the teachers were trying to show him. His teacher needed a minimum number of students to join her field trip to Russia and promised Bert Kreischer that if he joined the field trip, he would get a minor in Russian with a passing grade.
When Bert Kreischer arrived to Russia, thanks to his party animal antics and humor, he was soon taken under the wings of the Russian mafia that was providing security services for his class. They spent a considerable amount of time in night trains traveling. While other students were in the class’ cabin, Bert Kreischer hung out with the mafia and partied with them. By the end of the short trip, Bert Kreischer understood and spoke Russian. As he says during his stand-up routine, he didn’t learn Russian through books, memorizing, and classes, he learned by immersing himself in a Russian speaking environment.
This is how Spanish Language Bootcamp students learn Spanish, through Spanish immersion. Students live in a Spanish-only speaking environment for weeks to months at a time. Accompanied by a structured language curriculum and specialized language activities (hikes in the jungle, business consulting in Spanish, etc.), students receive the ultimate language learning methods and learn to speak Spanish very quickly. Students will be provided with the same ingredients Bert Kreischer needed to learn Russian as quickly as he did. Though there aren’t any trains or mafia in La Fortuna, there are a lot of parades, dancing (merengue, cumbia, bachata, salsa), and friendly folks who can help you with your Spanish immersion and road to fluency.
Here is Bert Kreischer’s video on how he learned Russian. It’s hilarious!!
