Spanish coaching for professionals in the United States
“Entiendo todo… pero no puedo hablar.”
“I understand everything, but I can't speak.” It is the sentence I hear in almost every first session.
You did the app. You took the classes. You read the email, you follow the meeting, you catch most of the dinner. Then it is your turn to say something and nothing arrives. That gap is not a vocabulary problem, and it has a way out.
And if you have never studied a word of Spanish, you are in the right place too. We simply start somewhere else, and you still speak from the first session.
- 30 minutes on Zoom
- No card, no charge
- A real session, not a sales call
- Any level, including zero
- Certified by the Instituto Cervantes
- Six years coaching adults
- One to one, on Zoom, Monday to Saturday
- Based in Cali, Colombia
Who I work with
You have a reason to speak Spanish, and a date attached to it.
My coachees are working professionals and retired adults living in the United States. Beyond that, the reason matters more than the level: some have never opened a textbook, some have been reading Spanish for twenty years, most are somewhere in between. What we build depends on where you are going, not on where you are starting.
Your partner’s family speaks Spanish at the table, and you have been smiling through dinners for three years.
Half your team in Miami switches to Spanish the moment the meeting ends.
You retired, you bought the tickets to Cartagena, and “la cuenta, por favor” is the whole repertoire.
Your clients or patients speak Spanish, and the interpreter is always one call away but never in the room.
You studied four years of it in school and can conjugate anything on paper. Out loud, nothing.
You are moving to Latin America in eight months, you have never studied Spanish, and you would rather arrive able to argue with the landlord.
Why you are stuck
It is not that you did not study enough.
Three things keep intelligent, hard working adults from speaking. They show up whether you have studied for ten years or for ten days, and none of them is fixed by more vocabulary.
From authority to silence
In English you are the person in the room with the answers. In Spanish you become someone who cannot finish a sentence. Your brain protects you by staying quiet, and the silence becomes the habit.
Your Spanish runs through English
You build the sentence in English, translate it, check the verb, and then look up. That takes about four seconds. A conversation gives you one. The words are there, the route to them is too long.
You are waiting until you are ready
Understanding is comfortable. Speaking is not. So you keep studying, and you postpone the only activity that actually builds the skill you want. Nobody ever felt ready first.
The approach
Not a class. A coaching process built around what you actually need to say.
Traditional courses teach the language in the order a textbook likes: present tense, then past, then the subjunctive somewhere around month nine. Adults with jobs and trips and in-laws do not meet Spanish in that order. Over six years, and with certification from the Instituto Cervantes, I built the work around four commitments instead.
Communication before perfection
Every session ends with you having said things you could not say before. Fluency is built by speaking under real conditions, not by finishing a chapter.
Correction that builds confidence
I choose which errors matter now, when to raise them, and how, so that being corrected makes you speak more rather than less.
Culture as part of the language
Register, humor, what is polite in Bogotá and rude in Mexico City. This is what separates correct Spanish from Spanish that lands.
Your goals set the syllabus
A physician preparing for patient intake and a retiree preparing for three months in Medellín need different Spanish. The plan is written for one person at a time.
So what does “personalized” actually mean here?
It is a word every language school uses, so here is the machinery behind it. Your program does not exist before our first session, because it is built out of what that session tells me.
The diagnosis
What Spanish you already have, if any, and how you got it. What you need to be able to do in Spanish, with whom, in what setting, and by when. Why it matters to you, which is the part that decides whether you are still here in six months. All of it comes out of the free session and the map that follows it.
The design, with AI doing the search
From that diagnosis I select and build the activities for each session: the situations we rehearse, the vocabulary that earns its place, the texts and audio you work with. I use AI as the tool that makes this possible for one person rather than for a class of twelve, because it lets me test and shape far more material than I could by hand. I choose what goes in. The machine does the looking.
The adjustment
Nothing is locked. What you struggle with in one session changes the next one, and when your goal moves, the program moves with it. That is the whole reason there is no fixed syllabus and no textbook: a plan written for one person has to be allowed to keep changing shape.
How I correct you, exactly
I do not stop you every time you make a mistake. While you speak I write down two kinds of error: the ones that stop people understanding you, and the ones you repeat. In the last minutes of the session you get them back, with the fix and an example you can reuse. Everything else waits. You cannot build fluency and monitor yourself for accuracy at the same time, so in my sessions you only do the first one.
The free session
Thirty minutes, and you know exactly what happens in each one.
The hardest part of starting is not the money. It is not knowing what you are walking into, in a language you are embarrassed about. So here is the whole thing, in advance. Every level is welcome, including never having studied a word.
I ask about your week, in Spanish
You answer however you can. Half sentences are fine. English is fine. Nobody is grading this.
We talk about something real
Your work, your trip, your family, whatever brought you here. I take notes instead of correcting, and you do most of the talking. This is the part that tells me everything.
I tell you what I heard
What already works, which specific thing is blocking you, and why it is blocking you. Most people have never been told this part.
I tell you whether I can help
What I would do first, how often we would need to meet, and roughly how long it takes. If I am not the right person for what you need, I say so and I tell you who is.
Bring someone if that makes it easier
Your partner, a friend, a colleague who is in the same situation. Two people in the session costs nothing extra, and for a lot of adults it is the difference between booking and not booking.
Starting from zero? The session changes shape
If you have never studied Spanish, we run those thirty minutes in English. I ask what you need the language for, what your deadline is if you have one, and what has stopped you from starting before. Then I walk you through how the sessions would actually work and you try your first few sentences out loud. You leave with the same map everyone else gets.
Within 24 hours you get your map
One page, written by me, yours to keep whether or not you ever book a paid session: three things your Spanish already does well, three things blocking you with the exact examples you said out loud, and a sketch of what the first four sessions would cover.
About
I'm Angel, and I have spent more than six years coaching American professionals in Spanish.
I am a Spanish as a Second Language instructor certified by the Instituto Cervantes. Most of my coachees are independent professionals, executives and retirees who were not looking for another language class. They were looking for something they could use on Monday.
I have coached through several language centers in the United States since 2019, and I still do. Working inside more than one of them is what taught me the method: I kept what produced speakers in those rooms, left out what only produced notebooks, and designed my own program out of the best of each world. That program is Spanish YA!, and I run it from Cali, Colombia, which means the Spanish you learn arrives with the culture and the ear attached. Coffee included.
I coach across the United States. Most often, though not only, in New York, New Jersey, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Chicago, Miami, Atlanta, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston and Dallas. If your city is not on that list it changes nothing: everything happens on Zoom.
Where the Spanish comes from
I am in Cali, and that is part of what you are getting.
Colombian Spanish is one of the kindest places for an English speaking ear to start. The vowels stay where they are, the endings do not disappear, and the pace is close to what textbooks trained you to expect.
But the accent is only the entry point. Living here is what lets me tell you when something you learned is technically correct and socially strange: how people actually say no without saying no, what you call the person serving you coffee, when usted is warmth and when it is distance.
I also spent six years living in Mexico, so the differences between Colombian and Mexican Spanish are not trivia to me, they are something I have had to use. And because I read Latin American and Spanish literature, watch too much football and follow the series everybody argues about, the Spanish of Spain and the Spanish of Argentina are in my ear too. Whichever Spanish your life actually runs on, that is the one we work toward, and I tell you where Colombia would lead you wrong.
The practical part, so you do not have to ask
Cali is on GMT-5 all year and does not change with daylight saving. From November to March I am on the same clock as New York and three hours ahead of Los Angeles. From March to November I am one hour behind New York and two ahead of Los Angeles. I coach Monday through Saturday and send my availability already converted to your local time.
Coachees
In their words
Published with their written permission, word for word, nothing edited. Two of the three are public recommendations you can read on my LinkedIn profile.
I started working with Angel two months ago to improve my conversational Spanish. I have used the apps as well as other classes/teachers in the past but find Angel to be the best I've come across. His structure to our sessions is helpful, his Spanish accent is extremely easy to understand (I'm B1 level), and he has shown flexibility to give me homework and teach me specific topics and concepts that I know I struggle with. I highly recommend him for both the casual speaker or those more serious about becoming conversationally fluent.
Working with Angel was a wonderful experience! He is a truly exceptional, incredibly kind, engaging, patient, and encouraging teacher. The one-on-one speaking practice was one of the most valuable parts of class because it gave me consistent opportunities to practice real conversation and build confidence speaking Spanish. Angel was an amazing teacher who created such a positive and supportive learning environment, and I could not recommend taking classes with him more highly.
Sent by email, September 2026
Angel was a pleasure to work with. Very professional while also very personable. Through my sessions with him my Spanish started to improve very quickly. He took the time to understand my specific goals with Spanish and tailor his lessons to me. He makes learning something total new very simple and easy to digest. Everyone should work with Angel!
There are more of them there, written by coachees over the years. Most cannot go on this page because they name the language centers I have worked through, but they are public on my profile and you can read every one.
Two ways to work together
Sixty minutes, on Zoom, with a plan written for you.
Private coaching
- 60 minute sessions, one coachee, on Zoom.
- The plan is built entirely around your goals and rewritten as they change.
- Unlimited cancellation and rescheduling with 24 hours' notice.
- Sessions are booked in packages, so the pace is clear from the start.
Semi-private coaching
- 60 minute sessions for two coachees who already know each other.
- Couples, colleagues or friends preparing for the same trip or the same job.
- Same structure and same packages, per person.
- You bring your partner. I do not pair strangers.
How it works
From first message to first session
A free session
Thirty minutes on Zoom, laid out minute by minute above. If you already have Spanish, you speak it from the first minute. If you are starting from zero, we talk in English about what you need the language for and I show you how the sessions would run.
Your map, within 24 hours
One page by email: what works, what is blocking you, and what the first four sessions would cover. Yours either way.
You choose your package
The format that fits and the package sizes, with everything you need to decide without another call.
A short engagement letter
A brief agreement covering what we have each committed to. You sign it digitally, no printer and no scanner, and payment for the first block happens at that same moment. Nothing is charged before it.
We start
You pick your times from my availability, Monday through Saturday, already converted to your time zone.
Honesty first
Any level works here. What I need from you is a reason.
Every program is designed around one person, so the level is never the filter. I need two things to build yours: whatever background you already have, if you have any, and above all what you want Spanish for and by when. There are still a few situations where I am not the right choice, and I would rather say so here than after you have paid.
This works well if
- You understand a good deal of Spanish and cannot produce it.
- Or you are starting from zero and want to speak from the first session instead of collecting grammar for a year.
- You have a real reason: work, family, a move, a trip with a date on it.
- You want the sessions built out of your own life rather than out of a textbook.
- You have tried apps, group classes or both, and you stalled.
- You can protect one or two hours a week for a few months.
- You want to be corrected in a way that keeps you talking.
Look elsewhere if
- You want an accredited certificate or continuing education credit. I do not issue either.
- You are shopping purely on hourly rate. Marketplaces are built for that and I am not one.
- You want every single mistake corrected on the spot. That is a tutor, and it is a legitimate thing to want.
- You need an exam passed next month. That is a different job than the one I do.
- You are looking for classes for children.
What it takes
Four things decide how fast you get there. Only one of them is me.
The sessions are where the language gets built. These four are what turn it into fluency, and I recommend all four to every coachee whatever their level. Do the first two and you will progress. Do all four and you will surprise yourself.
1 · Two hours a week with me
Split into two sessions of one hour, not one block of two. Two separate contacts in a week beat one long one, because you lose less in between and you come back twice. If two hours is more than your calendar allows, that is not a problem, but it does have to be paid for somewhere: the other three below stop being optional and become the engine.
2 · Thirty minutes a day on your own
Every day, in Spanish: the news on YouTube, the newspaper, a book, a podcast, Duolingo, whatever you will actually open. Dreaming Spanish, Language Transfer and News in Slow Spanish are all free and all good. The format matters far less than the daily part.
3 · A real conversation every week
Better still, every day. With Spanish speakers who are not your coach, online or in person: a café, a bar, a Latin restaurant, a dance class. This is where what we build in session turns into something you own.
4 · Two weeks a year in Latin America
Travel, and use only Spanish while you are there. Nothing else compresses months into days the way this does. Immersion trips are something we are currently building at Spanish YA!
If your employer pays for training
A lot of this gets paid out of a professional development budget.
For most of the professionals I work with the obstacle was never the money. It was not knowing how to ask for it. Tell me you need documentation and I will send you an itemized quote and a short description of the program, written for a manager rather than for you. Here is the email that usually does the work.
Copy, adjust, send
Subject: Professional development request, Spanish coaching
Hi [name],
I would like to use part of my professional development budget on one to one Spanish coaching. [Say the concrete reason here: the team in Bogotá, the clients I cannot serve directly, the patients who wait for an interpreter.]
It is one hour a week with an instructor certified by the Instituto Cervantes, entirely online, scheduled outside meeting hours. I have attached the quote and the program description. I am happy to report on progress at the end of the quarter.
Thanks,
[you]
For companies and teams
Your team does not need Spanish lessons. It needs to be able to work in Spanish.
Training budgets buy a lot of Spanish courses that nobody uses on Monday. I build programs for the specific conversations your people have to hold: the supplier in Medellín, the client who switches languages halfway through the call, the crew on the floor, the patients in the waiting room.
Before I taught Spanish I worked in public management, project management and international cooperation. I have sat on the other side of the table: reports, deadlines, budgets that have to be justified, teams spread across borders. That is why a corporate program with me does not look like a language class with a purchase order attached.
Every program starts the same way. I talk to the people who will actually be in the sessions, find out what each one has to do in Spanish and what is currently stopping them, and design from there. You get a written program, a start date and a report at the end of each block, in the format your finance team expects.
One to one
One coachee, one program. The fastest route, and the one most companies choose for the person who has to run the meeting.
In pairs
Two colleagues who share a situation: the same clients, the same trip, the same counterpart in Bogotá. They push each other.
Small groups
Maximum five coachees per group, never more. Above five the quiet ones stop speaking, and a group where people do not speak is a webinar.
Tell me how many people, what they need Spanish for and roughly when you want to start. I answer with a program and an itemized quote, not with a discovery call.
Questions
Before you book
Why are there no prices on this page?
Because what I would recommend changes with what you need, and I do not know that until we have spoken for half an hour. Publishing a single number would mean quoting you for a program I have not designed yet.
If you would rather see the numbers before we meet, ask and I will send them the same day. No negotiation, no sales call attached.
What if we are not a good fit?
That is one of the things the free session is for, and it goes both ways. If after thirty minutes I do not think I am the right person for what you need, I will tell you in that session and point you somewhere better. You still keep your map.
I'm a complete beginner. Is this for me?
Yes. Some of my coachees started with me from zero, and one of the testimonials on this page is from one of them. Nothing about the work assumes you arrive with Spanish already in you.
What changes is the shape of the first weeks. The free session runs in English: what you need Spanish for, your deadline if you have one, what has stopped you before, and a preview of how the sessions actually go. From the first paid session you are producing Spanish out loud in the situations you care about, instead of working through a textbook you would abandon by chapter four.
Do you teach grammar?
When it unlocks something you are trying to say, yes. What I do not do is march through a grammar syllabus and hope that speaking appears at the end of it.
Every session is built backwards from you: what you need to be able to say, who you need to say it to, why it matters and by when. I design and select the activities for each session around that, using AI as the tool that makes this level of tailoring possible for one person rather than for a class of twelve. The grammar arrives at the moment it is the only thing standing between you and a sentence you are trying to build.
I will not do homework. I am being honest.
Then we design for that and it still works, but I am not going to pretend the pace is the same. What I ask for between sessions is not exercises: it is the thirty minutes a day and the weekly conversation described above, or five minutes of speaking out loud to yourself in the car, or a voice note sent to me. The people who progress fastest are not the ones with the most free time, they are the ones who keep the language switched on in small doses.
Tell me in the free session what is realistic for you and we build the program around that number instead of around the ideal one.
How long before I can hold a conversation?
It depends on where you start and how often we meet, and anyone who gives you a number before meeting you is guessing. What I can promise is that you will speak in the first session, and that by the fourth you will have a short list of situations you can now handle that you could not handle before. That is the horizon I work to.
You're in Colombia. Does the time difference work?
Cali is GMT-5 all year with no daylight saving. From November to March I am on the same clock as New York and three hours ahead of Los Angeles. From March to November I am one hour behind New York and two hours ahead of Los Angeles. I coach Monday through Saturday and send availability already converted to your time.
What if I have to cancel a session?
Cancel or reschedule as often as you need with 24 hours' notice. No penalty and no lost session.
Do you record the sessions?
Only if you ask me to. Some coachees find hearing themselves speak Spanish for twenty minutes to be the most useful thing in the week, and some find it unbearable. Your call, and it can change at any point.
Can you work with my company or my team?
Yes, and I would like to. I run private, semi private and small group programs for companies in the United States, with a maximum of five coachees per group. My background before teaching was in public management, project management and international cooperation, so budgets, reports and cross border teams are familiar ground rather than something I have to be walked through.
There is a fuller description in the section for companies above. Write to me with how many people, what they need Spanish for and when you want to start, and I will send a written program and an itemized quote.
I represent a language center or an institution.
I have worked with language centers in the United States for years and I still do, and I am glad to talk. Write to me directly and tell me what you are building.
The next step
Contáctame
Book the free session and bring the thing you have never been able to say. Thirty minutes on Zoom at no cost, whatever your level. You will leave knowing what is actually blocking you, and the map arrives the next day whether or not we ever work together.
If you would rather write or call first, every way to reach me is right here.
30 minutes · No card · Any level · Not a sales call
Or reach me directly
If none of the times on the booking page work for you, write to angel@speakspanishya.com and I will send you that week’s open slots. My teaching schedule shifts, so the page shows a fixed window rather than everything I have free.
Cuéntame
Tell me what you need
You do not have to want a free session to use this. Ask me anything: whether I am the right person, how it works for a team, what happens if you travel a lot. I answer every message myself, usually the same day.