Enjoy Spanish

I began taking this course earlier this year, and was amazed by how much I was able to improve my Spanish speaking skills. I started off with Rafael as an instructor and realized that it wasn’t the right level for me. Soon after, I switched to Carlos and absolutely loved it. What I appreciated was the small class environment and Carlos’s teaching methods. He always encourages his students to participate (in Spanish) and is very helpful when you’re having trouble remembering grammar, verb tenses, etc. Carlos is a wonderful teacher, has a great sense of humor, and I recommend him to anyone that would like to learn Spanish. I hope to continue my classes again in the new year.

I’ve always wanted to learn basic conversational Spanish and I couldn’t have asked for a better place to do so. I really like the small class environment and how Carlos encourages everyone to speak to each other about mundane things (what they did today, where they would like to go, whom they would like to meet, etc.) — I believe this is a much better way to learn than Rosetta Stone or other programs that require memorization. You need to actually be able to quickly apply and practice what you learn in a real life situation to truly learn a language.
I also enjoyed the fact that Carlos emphasizes conversation over literacy. I was looking to learn conversational skills so I can get around in Central and South America when I travel and that involves 95% conversation and 5% being able to read and understand signs. (There is a bit of reading/​writing involved, which I think is sufficient… but this class really is about conversation). Great class, I’d recommend it to anyone at any level.

Rafael is such a great teacher. Very patient and easy to understand. I tried the group classes, but feel the one on one classes are more helpful for me.

I’ve been taking one on one spanish lessons through Enjoy Spanish for over a year now and have gone through all three instructors. They are all pretty good but I prefer Carlos’ methodology of teaching. It is a very relaxed and comfortable environment but at the same time Carlos is good at consistently correcting my mistakes immediately and reinforcing it by having me repeat it over and over until I get it. We always start off with conversation and then work our way to grammar. It’s a good combination since I would like to eventually be fluent in spanish. I have taken it for over 15 years throughout my education years but would like to take my skills to the next level. I believe that Carlos’ class can help me achieve that goal.

I have been a student at Enjoy Spanish for just under a year and very much enjoyed the experience. Carlos is an excellent teacher and the program is a first-​class operation with a great group of students. I feel that my Spanish language skills have improved dramatically and the conversational-​style of learning is highly productive. If you are interested in learning Spanish (or improving upon your current level of the language), I would highly recommend Enjoy Spanish.

I’d give this class a 4.5 out of 5 (no fractional stars allowed in Unilocal,so making it 5). It is the second private small class school I’ve attended in San Francisco and I’ve made very good progress in this class, somewhat better than I did in the other.
Location: The Flood Building is near the Van Ness SF Muni and BART Civic Center stations. Super convenient location. They allow bikes in the building, so you can bring yours up to class. Very convenient.
Class availability: The list of available times and levels is pretty good. I’ve never had a class cancelled because they couldn’t get enough students. Classes are usually a good size, 3 – 5, people. Once or twice the class has been a bit too large for my taste (7, I think)
Quality of instruction: I’ve been quite happy with the classes themselves. I’ve had two different teachers, Carlos (the owner) and one other staff teacher, and one substitute teacher. They’ve all been good. The staff teacher was good, and I’d say Carlos is usually great. Occasionally, the instructors have small gaps in their familiarity with English (none I’ve encountered is a bilingual native English speakers), but it’s never a significant impediment. Carlos has a very good methodology for balancing conversational practice with the introduction of new grammar. He has a good instinct for how long it takes a new verb tense to sink in, and is very organized with respect to how new verb tenses are introduced and practiced. He has a sort of protocol for the class in which he expects a student to answer in the same tense in which a question was asked. This allows him to grill you and reinforce new lessons, which can feel a bit assertive, but is definitely beneficial. New words that come up in conversation are captured on the whiteboard and reviewed at the end of class.
All of the class materials are available as electronic docs, which I find to be extremely convenient (I’m terrible at keeping track of papers).
Price: It’s a bit higher than the other school I attended, and you generally need to buy a 10-​pack of classes. I have found it to be a good value for the money, but it’s not cheap.
Things that could be better —
Clarity about the class policies, etc. For example, I don’t think I knew the missed class/​cancellation policy until I had things come up and missed the class. It’s not a bad policy, it just needs to be better communicated when you sign up. Also, even with several weeks advance notice, the school wants you to double up and take two classes a week as a makeup, rather than just miss the class, which is often not what I want to do.
Also, I was routed to a class which was too easy for me initially. My initial skills assessment was over a bad phone connection and was inaccurate.
One a very positive note, I once spaced out and left my laptop at class and Carlos promptly locked it up and let me know right away I’d left it behind. The next morning, he met me before his first class so I could pick it up, which was really nice of him.

I have been taking Spanish classes with Carlos for over the past 2 years or so and I have been 100% happy with my progress. Carlos is a great teacher, he employs an informal, conversational style which enables you to learn and use the language from day 1.
In each lesson he introduces new vocabulary and works it into class conversation which helps you learn and internalize the words — grammar, verb tenses are taught in phases and you get plenty of practice with both speaking and written exercises. Throughout his lessons he drops in historical, geo-​political as was as anecdotal references/​stories which make the class all the more interesting and informative. The small class size means that each student gets plenty of attention and a chance to practice what is being taught.
If you are looking to start learning Spanish or are looking to refresh what you have learned in the past — no matter your skill level — I would most definitely recommend giving Enjoy Spanish a try, you will not be disappointed!

I switched to Enjoy Spanish after attending classes with another company for a year, and I am very glad I made the switch. I was immediately placed in the right level class, and the classes are a good mix of conversation and grammatical practice. We are moving forward with different verb tenses at a good pace, I feel like we are given plenty of time to get comfortable and practice in one tense before moving onto the next. Highly recommended!

My wife and I have been taking classes at Enjoy Spanish for about a year and we’re thrilled with both the experience and the outcome. We both greatly appreciate Carlos’ interactive, conversational teaching style, which helps us to learn a new language naturally and organically, without getting too bogged down in the rote memorization of vocabulary or grammar exercises. We genuinely look forward to attending class each week, getting to know our classmates, and talking about popular culture, the news of the day, or life in general. Carlos always pushes us just enough to keep us learning without feeling pressured or overwhelmed, and the results speak for themselves. I’ve wanted to learn Spanish for many, many years and Enjoy Spanish is helping to make it happen in a way that feels less like work and more like fun. Highly recommended.

I have been taking weekly one-​on-​one classes with Rafael at Enjoy Spanishg for almost two years and am very happy with both the process and the result. I studied French in high school and college and had one year of Spanish my Senior year of college — but that was over 50 years ago, so, as you might expect, my Spanish was more than rusty. Rafael and I joke about how when I started I knew only the present tense and now I can banter in all tenses. Rafael became a friend and he leads me to terrific movies, books, articles — and we spend the entire hour and a half of each class conversing in Spanish. I highly recommend Enjoy Spanish and both Rafael and Carlos for anyone wanting to learn or improve their Spanish. I’m also grateful for how flexible Rafael and Carlos are about scheduling. Somehow we’re always able to reschedule classes when necessary. (I’m flexible, too.)
P. S. I was going to write this review in Spanish but realized that some of you might not be able to read it. But I’m happy to say that I COULD have written it in Spanish if I had wanted to.

I’ve been taking the Enjoy Spanish classes for the last 15 weeks and I’ve really enjoyed them! Carlos teaches you how to actually have a conversation and to use your mind & reasoning to speak spanish instead of just memorization. He also allows you the space to make mistakes and try to help build up your confidence. I just returned from a two week vacation in Mexico where I was able to use the Spanish I learned and felt confident. I would recommend this class to everyone.

As a complete novice, I wanted to take some Spanish lessons because I took Latin in school and never tried a spoken language. Raphael was very patient and friendly. I would recommend Raphael for one-​on-​one lessons to anyone who wants to give Spanish a try, or for those who know a little but want to improve.

Great experience. I was in Raphael’s class and really enjoyed it.

Love Enjoy Spanish! I had no background at all in the language, and in 10 enjoyable and fun weeks, I was approaching conversational. Which was all the more delightful because I loved spending the weekly hour chatting with my instructors! Highly recommend.

I took the high intermediate class with Carlos to improve my college Spanish sufficiently in order to use it for work. There were only a few people in each class, just enough that we learned from each other but not too many to prevent us all getting a good amount of speaking time.
One of the most helpful things was having Carlos correct every mistake I made. When speaking Spanish outside of class I generally didn’t know when I was making mistakes because people didn’t bother to correct me if they understood. Carlos makes sure that you learn how to speak good Spanish rather than just understandable Spanish.
Since the conversations usually involved the students telling stories based on our experiences, we learned how to talk about things that we talk about in real life.

I really loved my classes with Carlos. I learned a lot, not only about speaking Spanish, but also about Spanish culture and geography.
Carlos is an excellent teacher. He always corrects us for the small pronunciation and grammar mistakes, but in a polite and fun way. He has many ways of teaching: discussion, small homeworks (to be done in class) and small readings.
I recommend him to everybody!

My wife and I found that Carlos and Rafael to be great instructors. I had taken a spanish class for a year a long time ago but was very rusty. A good conversational class like this once a week really helped brush the rust off and both Carlos and Rafael were very good about catching the many mistakes I was making and we also went through the basics that were also pretty rusty. Now I feel like I could make reasonable conversation on a trip to a latin country again. Definitely recommended.

Enjoy Spanish provides great conversation classes. My Spanish went from not being able to speak at all to having a simple conversation in just a few months of going once a week. The focus is conversation with a steady progression through the verb tenses and grammar. Highly recommended!

This is the place to be! To learn Spanish that is!
I took almost a year worth of classes here, mainly with Rafael. He’s the man! Love him. He’s so funny and great at explaining things. His classes were entertaining and he did a great job of engaging everyone who attended whether it was someone’s first class or they’re a regular.
What’s cool about classes here is you really do get to practice Spanish. They don’t give you a bunch of homework to do like you did way back in high school. They do follow a schedule of sorts, but what I really love is that you’re free to ask what «waterbed» is in Spanish. Or how you could ask a certain question in Spanish. It’s catered a lot to you and what you want to communicate.
I’ve only had classes with Raphael and Carlos if I was doing a make up class. Carlos is a great instructor too.
I’m looking forward to going back and restarting my Spanish. One tip, if you can have someone to practice Spanish with outside of the classes, do it! It’s helpful. I didn’t practice enough outside, but I did see my skills improve. Plus I loved when Rafael called me out on my spanglish. Haha. I’m glad he knows what’s up since he’s originally from Mexico.
Either way, I’ve had a super great experience here with Carlos and Rafael. The classes are priced well for the value you get in class and it’s perfect for the 9 – 5 people who don’t want to hit up a college class to learn Spanish.
2 thumbs up!

Such a great, well-​run organization! I started taking classes at Enjoy Spanish in January 2013. I had no previous experience & when I went to Peru in September I was shocked by how much I was able to communicate.
I originally started with ¹⁄₁ lessons with Lidia. Lidia was a fantastic instructor, very patient, very sweet. I switched to group classes after a few months & Rafael was my instructor. Rafael is a great instructor, very passionate and enthusiastic and very patient.
I’ll definitely continue my classes with Enjoy Spanish.