testimonials

Spanish Business Lessons and Spanish in Detroit class Testimonials

Spanish Class Testimonials

I studied Spanish under Joaquin Frias for 6 months in 2008. I learned a great deal in a short time and found Joaquin’s approach to learning interesting and effective.  Besides, he has a good sense of humor and I laughed almost as much as I learned.  I would recommend Joaquin to anyone who wants to learn Spanish now.

Joseph J. Weiss, MD

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It was truly a pleasure working with you.  I can’t believe I understand as much as I do.  I am looking forward to seeing you in the fall for mas Español!

Diane C. Farmer, General Ledger 

Dura Automotive Systems, Inc.
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I want to again Thank You  for your compassion and patience with myself and all my fellow students for the past 6 months.  Even though I could not attend every class, what classes I did attend (70%), I learn very much.  I can now read the majority of the Spanish correspondence I receive thru e-mail and other documentation from our Mexico Offices, and when our fellow Mexican employees are speaking, I can at least understand 65% of what they are saying. What I need to do now is “force” myself to speak in Spanish to them…

Joe Chemello, Vice President

Walbridge

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Thank you for the wonderful teaching/learning experience that you created for our Spanish Class. You made learning fun while at the same time creating a strong foundation of the fundamentals that are so necessary to build upon. I very much appreciated your relaxed approach and bringing different elements of conversation, grammar, writing and reading.  Thank you for being so instrumental in my Spanish language development. ¡Hasta la proxima vez!

Jane Johnson, President

Osco Incorporated

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Joaquín is an excellent professor. He has a very dynamic teaching style that engages the students which provides for a powerful learning environment. He is dedicated to having his students learn this language that is so important in our global business world.

Alan Kolod, CFO

VIA Information Tools, Inc.

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I really enjoyed taking your Spanish class — every week you made it enjoyable. I just wish I had tried harder. As a producer for the largest multicultural advertising agency in the country, I had a real need for basic Spanish at the very least. And it paid off. Just last week I had to make a call to a production company in Mexico, and I was actually able to ask for the person in Spanish!! Thank you for the experience.

Lisa M. Bryant, Producer

Multicultural Advertising Agency

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Joaquin is a wonderful instructor.  He makes the class fun with his outgoing personality and good sense of humor.  It is never boring.  He comes to each class prepared with handouts of conversations between two friends. Our homework assignment is to translate these so we understand them, and then the next week play the part of the friends and read them in class.  He also uses these as a vehicle to illustrate the rules of Spanish grammar and conjugation of verbs, accompanied with additional handouts to help cement these in our memory and provide hard copy for future reference.

James N. Quinn, Past President

Harman Automotive Division

Harvard Industries, Inc.

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The class was a pleasure, and you did have to handle a variety of skill levels in it.  You were kind enough to work with the different pronunciations of Spanish words for various countries. We were able to successfully get around, dine, sleep, shop and enjoy the companionship of some wonderful Argentineans even though my skill level was less than a beginner. Those with some proficiency in Spanish from the class should have done very well.  I am off to Columbia this week and look forward to using a few of your homework sheets as “cheat” sheets until I am comfortable speaking there. I appreciate the fact that you were able to convince us that Spanish spoken at any level is appreciated in other countries. Good luck with your endeavors.

Susan Bayless, Manager

Business Intelligence

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan

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I enjoyed your class very much. I appreciated your easy-going manner and your ability to teach us at our level.

Carl Stone, DDS Associate Professor

University of Detroit Mercy School of Dentistry

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I am a Michigan attorney who has been a student of Joaquin Frias for the past four years. I have acted as a legal and business consultant to Canseco-Saldaña-Escobedo, a major Mexican law firm, for the past four years. When I accepted the role of consultant four years ago my Spanish was very rudimentary. Joaquin Frias has been my Spanish tutor during this period and has enabled me to become fluent enough to handle all of my day-to-day transactions with my Mexican colleagues in Spanish. His teaching style is to emphasize conversational Spanish using contemporary written material such as newspaper articles and other Spanish language publications. He sets high standards for me as his student and I have found that my progress has been remarkable due to his teaching techniques and patient teaching methods.

Alan L. Schlang, Attorney
Canseco-Saldaña-Escobedo
Querétaro, Qro., México

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I liked Joaquin’s approach; a challenging class using a great workbook, but also a lot of fun, too! And he provides ample time to practice your Spanish in conversations with fellow students.

Alysa Hunton, Development Officer
The Honors College, Kresge Library and Student Affairs
Oakland University

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Joaquin was a wonderful teacher and tutor. I took an introductory conversational class with him. The curriculum of his class was effective for learning to speak basic Spanish. I was so pleased with his methods that I started taking tutoring sessions in addition to his classes. In the one-on-one tutoring sessions, he pushed me to learn more than I thought I was capable of learning in such a short time. I would highly recommend him for both the classroom setting and individual tutoring session.

Liara Tamani, Writer

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As a medical graduate in the US, speaking Spanish is a priority if I want to spread my service to the most of my community. My experience with Spanish international was great. You get to speak your first Spanish words and expressions from day one. I have finished Spanish I with a great fund of vocabulary. In addition you get an idea about the culture of the Spanish speaking communities which is as important as speaking their language. My overall impression with Spanish international is excellent and I wist to continue with them in the near future. I will always recommend it for everyone who wants to learn Spanish from the original sources.

Zainab Elsarawy, MD

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My husband I were students of Joaquin Frias in a class at the Birmingham Community House the summer of 2007 and  have continued semi-private lessons with him.  We are very pleased with our progress.  Joaquin is unfailingly polite, friendly, patient and punctual.  He is always prepared for class and assigns a variety of homework and class exercises. He is very thorough in his teaching, focusing on the sentence structure, grammar, verb forms and idioms required to learn a language.  He addresses the different accents and sounds heard in Spain and other Spanish speaking countries, and he is receptive to requests and suggestions from students.  We highly recommend Joaquin to anyone desiring a thorough and practical presentation of Spanish.

Lynn and Ray Chateau

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Joaquin, both Joan and I enjoyed the Spanish I class.  As you were aware, we were shortly off to Spain for two weeks and wanted to be able to fend for ourselves.  We wanted to be able to understand enough of the restaurant menus, direct taxis and drivers, understand most of the responses and be able to read the plaques in the churches.  While we  were understandedly victims of the speed of conversation by the Spaniards, we did get by fairly well. All this with six (6) hour and a half session at the Community House.  We tried hard to learn what we could and studied together between five and six hours in the week prior to each class.  We got a lot out of this effort and highly recommend your course to anyone who is interested in picking up enough to get by at the level of our need.  You did a great job!  We feel our time and effort paid off!  Thanks for helping to make our first trip to Spain so worthwhile.
Best,
Ed McCallum

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Communication is the key in a psychiatrist’s life. Increasingly one has to be bi-trilingual in this country. Many jobs advertised that I saw in Massachusetts felt that knowing more than one language was a plus. Joaquin’s class provided us with reading, writing and conversational Spanish which was presented in a very down-to-earth, fun manner. Though I will require an interpreter to do the evaluations, I felt that I will be able to follow some conversation due to the classes. Thank you Joaquin.
Asha Keshavan, Psychiatrist
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When I enrolled in the Introductory Spanish classes last fall at the Birmingham Community House, I had very little previous experience with the language. I was worried that the classes would be too difficult. Although the classes were challenging, they were very enjoyable. After only 6 weeks the improvement was dramatic. I completed the introductory course and will continue my studies with Joaquin. Thank you for making learning Spanish fun !!!

Andrew Weidenbach
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Joaquin has shown our son Matthew that learning Spanish can be fun.  We are very impressed by the progress Matthew has made, and by how excited he is after every class. It is great to have such a good and passionate teacher.

Armina Kasprowicz

A K Design & Accents