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When Thomas started Spanish classes in San Diego, he wasn’t looking to memorize long vocabulary lists. He wanted to understand how Spanish works in real life. Camila, a private Spanish tutor who teaches on Wiingy, helped him build that connection. She explained how yo means “I,” but in Spanish, the verb endings already tell you who’s speaking. Saying hablo (I speak) is enough. That small shift changed the way Thomas looked at the whole language.

Some of the biggest surprises came from pronunciation. Thomas learned that jugo (juice) is pronounced “hoo-go,” not like the English “J.” Even small things, like the difference between el (the) and él (he), opened up new layers of meaning. Camila made it easy to grasp, with real examples and lots of humor. One off-hand question about El Chapo turned into a fun dive into grammar, slang, and how culture shows up in language.

Living in San Diego gave Thomas constant exposure to Spanish outside class. He’d hear phrases like otra salsa, por favor (another sauce, please) at taco shops in Barrio Logan, or más rápido (faster) during soccer games in Balboa Park. Those little moments made the language feel alive. Camila often said, “Spanish without emotion is just grammar,” and that line stuck with him every time he practiced speaking out loud.
 

Over time, Thomas moved from individual words to full sentences. He practiced asking ¿Qué hora es? (What time is it?) and learned how to say No entiendo (I don’t understand) in a way that felt real, not robotic. With Camila’s encouragement, he got comfortable making mistakes and asking questions like ¿Puedes repetir? (Can you repeat?). Eventually, he was using phrases like ¿Estás libre el viernes? (Are you free on Friday?) and Estoy de acuerdo (I agree) without overthinking them.
 

No two lessons felt the same. One day they’d practice sábado (Saturday) and polite ways to ask “What?” The next, they’d talk about Colombian culture, mild cursing alternatives, or why red hair shows up in Spanish-speaking families. Camila brought real life into every class, which made the learning experience feel more human. For Thomas, Spanish started to feel less like a subject and more like a skill he was actually using in San Diego.