Visual Link Spanish Newsletter (V:1; I:24)

NEW THIS WEEK! Earn Money by Referring Friends and Associates to our Web Site!!-----

Earn between $35.00 and $44.99 for each person you refer to our site that purchases a Complete Spanish Course. This is an easy, simple program and only takes a few minutes to be up and running. All you do is create a special link from your web page to our web page and earn money when people click and buy. Many of you have asked about this and now it's available - it's called an "Affiliate Program". If you refer 3 people to our web site from yours, and they each buy a complete course at the regular price, you earn $134.97! If you refer 10 people to our site and they all purchase a complete course at regular price, you earn $449.90! Click here to Find Out More.

Learn Spanish Words of the Week -----
Words taken from "Survival", Section 3 of our Complete Course.

	English	Spanish
Monday	I don't know.	No sé
Tuesday	I don't understand.	No entiendo. / No comprendo.
Wednesday	I forgot.	Se me olvidó.
Thursday	thing	cosa
Friday	place	lugar
Saturday	Is it O.K.?	¿Está bien?
Sunday	Can you help me?	¿Puede ayudarme?
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Learn Spanish Culture ----- Money, Money, Money!! (¡¡Dinero, Dinero, Dinero!!)

Inflation is very high in many Latin American countries. It is so high that a lot of countries have to change currencies every few years because their bills run out of room for all the zeros. Here's a quick example. When I lived in Peru in South America, their currency was called the "Inti". When I first arrived, a $10,000 Inti bill was worth about 14 cents in US money. It took 70,000 Inti's to make a dollar. Then, all of a sudden, in one weekend, the value of their money (dinero) went from 70,000 Inti's to about 320,000 Inti's to equal a dollar. That's inflation of about 450% in one weekend. To give you an idea of how it compares, the US has about 4% inflation every year. A few months before I left Peru, the largest Inti bill was worth about $5 in US money. They couldn't make any larger bills because all the zeros wouldn't fit on the money. As a result, they had to change currency from the "Inti" to the "Nuevo Sol" to get rid of all the zeros. When I left Peru, one "Neuvo Sol" was worth $1 in US money -- and the inflation cycle was ready to start over again.

I have spoken with many people about this issue and some have said that in Bolivia, when you get in line to see a movie, it costs a certain price. Then, when you finally get to the front of the line, the price has already gone up!

This is what you can learn from this culture lesson. If you are going to live in Latin America for an extended period of time, don't exchange all of your money for the local currency at the first. If you do, some weekend you may wake up to find out that $100 is suddenly worth only $5. What I recommend is to keep your currency and exchange it a little at a time. Usually in Latin America, there are very few places that accept credit cards and not many ATM's, but you can have money wired to a bank. If you have money wired to a bank, make sure it is reputable and only have about two to four weeks worth sent at a time so it doesn't devalue. Some countries are more stable than others so you might want to do a little research before going to live in Latin America.

For you travelers only staying one or two weeks at a time, take the cash you need and either pay with dollars or exchange your money at the first of each week. Remember, there aren't many ATM's in Latin America.

 

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¡Hasta luego! (Until later!)


David S. Clark -- President
U.S. Institute of Languages
dave@spanishprograms.com
http://www.spanishprograms.com