faq's

Yes, I am a Native Spanish Speaker, fluent in Spanish and English. Raised in Argentina with parents from Spain, I have traveled extensively throughout Spain and Latin America. I have both Spanish and American citizenship. I originally came to the United States awarded with a Fulbright Scholarship. My education consists of a Master's Degree in Education from the Prilidiano Pueyrredon National University from Buenos Aires, Argentina, a Bachelors' Degree in Spanish Language from SUNY Albany, another Master's Degree in Spanish Education from Queens College, and New York State Permanent Teaching Certification in Spanish. I also have trained under the Rassias' Method at Fordham University, and am a Certified Translator from NYU. I have almost 20 years of experience teaching Spanish. My experience includes teaching at NYU and many Spanish Language Schools. If you are interested, please look over my testimonials and education and experience as a Spanish language teacher and tutor in New York City and abroad.

I have been teaching Spanish since 1996.

Please go to prices. Prices are per class.

You can pay with Zelle, Venmo, or check.

Yes, there is ONLY ONE. When you pay for 20 classes (30 hours) in advance, you have a 10% discount.

304 WEST 30TH STREET, SUITE #1
NEW YORK, NY 10001
Google Map

Yes.

Classes are from Monday to Thursday from 11:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m.

Each class is an hour and a half.

Your first lesson is a 90 minute private class, during which I will determine your level, and we will decide the strategy to work together.

Group classes meet once a week for 1.5 hours, and you have to share your class with 2 more students.
When I set up a group class, it is because the students have the same level and skill.
In order to put you in a group class, I will first need one class alone with you. Your first lesson is a 90 minute private class, during which I will determine your level, and we will decide the strategy to work together.

Sorry, group classes are not intensive, because they only meet once a week for 1.5 hours each time, and you have to share your class with 2 more students.
Private classes are intensive. You can come once, twice, three or four times a week for 1.5 hours, 3 hours, 4 hours or 6 hours each time.

Please register online: Registration.
Your appointment is not confirmed until your registration is received.

There is no registration fee.

I would be happy to answer any questions that you have in person. Please make an appointment for a consultation, which is the same fee as a one on one class: Registration.
All of your questions can be answered by e-mail at no charge. Email allows me to manage my communications in a more efficient way, focus on my students, and quickly search and refer to previous communication.  E-mail  -  Contact form .

My office telephone number is: 646.801.3718.
When possible, please email me rather than calling. Email allows me to manage my communications in a more efficient way, focus on my students, and quickly search and refer to previous communication.  E-mail  -  Contact form .
If you would like to e-mail me, I can answer any questions that you have.
I am looking forward to hearing from you.

• Private and Group classes must be paid for in cash, Chase QuickPay or check one month in advance during the last week of each month. Sorry, but no credit card payments will be accepted in person or online after the first class.
• For Private Classes, if you have to cancel a class, there is no refund. You must notify me at least 48 hours in advance, and you can reschedule your class. Otherwise, full payment is due, no exceptions.
There are no cancellations on Saturday or Sunday.
Because I am not in the office on Saturdays and Sundays, Monday classes must be cancelled the Thursday before, and Tuesday classes must be cancelled the Friday before by the scheduled time of the class or earlier. (This means that a Monday class at 10am must be cancelled by 10am the Thursday before).
• For Group Classes, there are no cancellations. If you cannot make it to a class, you will still have to pay for it, and you cannot reschedule that class.
Because regardless of your attendance, group classes take place on the same day and time, once a week, every week, (a month with 4 weeks will have 4 classes, and a month with 5 weeks will have 5 classes), you can not book or pay for fewer classes than the total number of classes taking place in one month. You have to book and pay for the whole month in advance, with the total number of Group Classes taking place during that month, even if you can not come to one or more of the Group Classes.
• SpanishNewYork.com reserves the right to cancel any Group Class that fails to attract sufficient enrollment. In case of cancellation, all students will be notified and a full refund will be given.
• Sorry, but there are no exceptions under any circumstances.
• Enrollment with SpanishNewYork.com means that you accept all the general conditions.

Your first lesson is a 90 minute private class, during which I will determine your level, and we will decide the strategy to work together. At the end of your class, I will tell you what textbook to buy according to your level and skills.
If you don't already have one, you will also need to buy a dictionary.

Any honest and serious instructor will give you the same answer: It is up to you, depending on how much time and energy you invest, how long you study the language, the frequency of the classes, and how much you practice at home.

I can not guess how long it will take you to be fluent. That depends on many variables. After your first lesson, we will start to work at your pace and focus on your needs. It is impossible to estimate when you will be satisfied with your own fluency in Spanish.

This program is based on your needs. Therefore the amount of time will vary. Most students starting this program from zero (attending classes twice a week) achieve a good level of fluency in less than one year. An advanced knowledge of the language may take from one to three years. If you are already fluent in another Romance language, such as Portuguese, Italian or French, you have a considerable advantage. You'll be able to speak the language in a relatively short time, but it could take up to three years to be fully fluent.

Sorry, I don't teach children. I only teach adults and teenagers.

• You learn faster here than in any other school.
• You learn with highly focused and effective learning methods.
• Overall student success rate is over 95% for students who start and finish the program.

In practical terms, it means that you'll be able to sit down and talk with a native Spanish speaking person fairly comfortably for as long as you want.

Methods, methods, methods. Learning is all about what you do, how you do it, when you do it, and how many times you do something. I employ a very streamlined and focused process of learning that will allow you to truly learn this language. I not only tell you what to learn, I tell you how to learn. I not only tell you how to learn something, I provide you with all the tools that you'll need to do so.

• I went through extensive training with The Rassias Method at Fordham University, New York, N.Y.,to learn the most cutting edge teaching techniques available.
• A lot of untrained tutors will try to carry conversations in Spanish with you using a lot of words, phrases and structures that you've never been exposed to. This forces you to use your instructor as a "human dictionary." This is an expensive and ineffective use of your time.
• I work a very refined process of speaking with you within the framework of the knowledge that you've built through your course materials. If you're in Lesson 8 of Beginners Spanish Level, I will carry a full conversation in Spanish with you within the framework of what you've learned from Lessons 1 through 8. As you go through your course materials, you will learn so much that by the end of the course, you will have a strong ability to converse well in all general areas of life.
• I am bilingual in Spanish and English and can answer any questions for you in English if necessary. This keeps you from using a lot of your session just trying to figure out how to ask a question.

Yes, you'll be able to communicate with people from different countries. There is only one Spanish language. You will learn intimately and professionally a general Spanish to communicate with any Spanish speaking person. If you live in the United States, can you talk with someone from Ireland or New Zealand? Of course! You won't understand every word spoken, but you can sure carry on a good conversation. When you're done with the Advanced Spanish course, you'll be able to talk with anyone who speaks Spanish, no matter where they're from.

When people are "immersed" in a language they are put under water (everything is in Spanish and leave your English at home) and most people drown. Have you ever heard something like, "the best way to learn is like a child" or "you should learn like the natives" or "try to think in Spanish."

Ask yourself a few questions.

• Are you a child?
• Are you a native?
• Do you think in Spanish?

If you answered "yes" to these questions, you should go to a school that teaches using the immersion methodology. If you answered "no", keep reading. I always ask people to consider how long it takes a "native" or a "child" to learn his native language. They say, "two to three years." I then say, "if that's what you want, then choose an immersion approach because that's how long it will take." Also, if you think about it, that's total immersion, you know, living there in the environment. Think about how long it will take if you just go to an immersion class six hours a week!

Let's dig deep here and analyze this scenario. How old are you? Take your age and subtract two years. That is how many years you have been "thinking" in English if you are a native English speaker. For the first two years of your life your thought process was very "image based". If you saw a "pen" you picked it up, stuck it in your mouth and tried to discover what it's purpose was.

At about two you began learning to call these images by name. Pretty soon you became more and more "word based," in other words, you would see a "pen," and simply say the word "pen" and that was it. You didn't stick it in your mouth anymore, in fact, if someone dropped a pen on a table you didn't even think, "why did that person drop that thing to write with on the table?" No, you thought, "why did that person drop that pen on the table?"

Adults are very word based, not image based. We talk about traffic and don't see little BMW's, Fords or Hondas flashing through our heads. The reason for this is that it's easier to manage large bodies of information concretely rather than abstractly. Which is faster to download on your computer, something with heavy graphics or a text file? Text is always faster to process than graphics!

Back to "You." Let's say you are 35 years old. For 33 years now, minus two years for when were a baby, you have been thinking in English words. Every thought you have ever had has taken you directly to what type of words? That's right, English words. 33 years of established thought process in English. Here's an important question. Is it possible for "You" to superimpose over 33 years of thought process so that in 3 months, six months or even a year you will be "thinking" in Spanish?" Of course not! It would take 3 to 5 years of your living in a Spanish speaking environment, for this to happen.

You see, the immersion approach presupposes that you will "think" in Spanish. Everything you learn is taught to you in Spanish, it is assumed that you will somehow be able to go directly from a thought to Spanish words. You know, and I know, that this is ludicrous. I have talked with countless students who have tried the immersion route, and am told over and over that it is a very frustrating and slow learning experience.

Sometimes people will say, "the only way to learn is to go down and live there for a while." Not true. That's great to do AFTER you learn to master the language, not before. Please understand this, the quickest way to learn anything is to work from your strength, not weakness. It's very difficult to learn in a vacuum. Your strength is your English, not your Spanish. In his classic book, "The Seven Laws of Teaching," John Milton Gregory asserts that "the unknown must be learned from the known." This is accepted in all valid forms of training. It is high time we accept it in language training. It is faster, it is easier and it works. You don't, nor should you, learn in a vacuum, you learn best based on tangible, understood principles.

So, as it relates to immersion.

• You are not a child and you don't learn like a child.
• You are an adult with a very highly developed language infrastructure which should be used to your advantage.
• It is a slow and frustrating learning method for adults.
• It just plain doesn't make good sense!

One last word about immersion. There is a place for it. You should be in an immersion program when you already understand and have a mastery of the Spanish language and are just looking to "smooth out the language." Unfortunately, a lot of people pay for "language instruction" and are really only paying for somebody to try and talk with them in Spanish. The worst part about it is, is that many times they're trying to talk with you in Spanish and you don't even know Spanish yet!

Oh, I left something out. This goes for going to Spain or some other place you're learning to learn. It's not about "where" you're at, it's "how" . Now, if you want to go to Spain, wonderful! My parents and best friends are from there and I go from time to time. It's a great country.

Almost all people who have tried to learn in the past, were unsuccessful because they did the wrong things, not because they couldn't learn. At Spanish Classes in New York, you will do the right things. It will make all the difference in the world! Learning is all about doing the right things, at the right time and in the right ways. I'll make sure that things go as planned, so that you really learn to communicate well THIS time. This will be your last stop Spanish shop!

If you would like to e-mail me, I can answer any questions that you have.
When possible, please email me rather than calling. Email allows me to manage my communications in a more efficient way, focus on my students, and quickly search and refer to previous communication. E-mail  -  Contact form .

I am looking forward to hearing from you.
Thanks,

Adrian Gonzalez Martinez
Spanish Teacher