Chile Forum

by **lilprincess** on Wed Nov 14, 2007 12:44 pm

Hi again, just have a lil question, i have been in chile for about 4 months now and loving it but i am very homesick or culture shock is really been hard on me, i have just got approved for my temporary visa and i do plan on living here with my husband whom i just marred a few month ago in august, now my question is after the year is up or sooner depends on how i am feeling here, can i bring him back to canada as my husband does anyone know where we would start with this process when we are ready to do this, he very much would love to move to canada although he is very close to his family here.

thanks guys for all your previous help and for this great site
hmmm another quickie question, i am having a verrrrry hard time learning spanish any suggestions out there to help me lol

by **RWS** on Wed Nov 14, 2007 1:36 pm

Answers to both your questions:

Immigration is a legal matter and varies from state to state (I work as an American lawyer, not too far from the Canadian border, but could not ethically presume to address a matter of Canadian law). You should ask (telephone, write) a Canadian lawyer. If you want to save money, you may find that a counsellor to the Canadian embassy in Santiago will give you broad, general guidance without charge.

Learning Spanish isn't too difficult (it is, after all, probably the simplest of the world's great languages), especially if you will separate yourself from other English-speakers (well, okay, from nearly all other English-speakers, for I assume that your Chilean husband must be fluent in English -- how else could you communicate!): don't go to meetings of expatriates or to English-language church services, don't watch English-language TV or read English-language publications, etc. If you immerse yourself in Chilean daily life, talk with your neighbors, shop, walk, and play in the broader community, you'll find that learning comes fairly easily. If necessary, take a course in Spanish as a second language. And use a bilingual dictionary and your live-in resource -- your husband (with whom, too, you should talk only in buen castellano) -- for help with stumbling blocks.

You'll do well!

by **lilprincess** on Wed Nov 14, 2007 7:51 pm

Hi and thank you for your quick response, I will seek the help of the canadian embassy here in chile then to see how we proceed, I just thought after a certain number of months or years he could just come across with me (so i was told)

Also was i told that spanish would be natural to me in about 6 months lol wellllllll my husband yes is english speaking as well so that helps, and i do have book resources and his entire family only speaks spanish and there friends and his friends so i am immersed in the language, I just thought it strange that I have not picked up as well as I thought i should have, but i am getting little words here and there

Thank you again for your help

by **admin** on Wed Nov 14, 2007 8:13 pm

Communication is funny that way. If you don't have a need for it, it is very hard to learn. If it makes you feel better my Spanish still sucks after 12+ years. Big mistake I made early on was jumping from country to country. It was kind of like learning Spanish over and over and over again.

Chile is one of the hardest countries to learn Spanish in for all kinds of reasons I don't have time to get in to right now.

Canada should be a fairly easy place for a spouse to immigrate to from Chile. About half my friends in China applied for residency in Canada and received it while I was there, and none of them had any ties to Canada or had ever been to Canada.

by **Zeek** on Thu Nov 15, 2007 10:30 am

Have brought someone to Canada before...

You can apply for Immigration here and do all the paperwork from here.
Or he can go to Canada on Visitors Visa (good for 90 days, and extendable) and then do the paper work in Canada under the special Permanant Residency for Spouses.

My ex came to Canada and was there on a Visa for a year, then once we started the application, she was able to stay until there was a answer either way. If apporved, there was no need for a visa.

The Canadian embassy here is in the World Trade Center (building2 ?) on the 12th floor. They will be able to help you more.

What part of Canada are you from ??

by **RWS** on Thu Nov 15, 2007 10:35 am

lilprincess wrote:. . . I just thought after a certain number of months or years he could just come across with me (so i was told)

If your Canadian immigration attorney told you that, it must be so. Otherwise, don't rely on it: even non-specialist attorneys sometimes misspeak, and legal advice from the man on the street could land the hearer in prison.

. . . i am immersed in the language, I just thought it strange that I have not picked up as well as I thought i should have . . . .

Again, Spanish is a very simple language (though, as Charles points out, Chilean Spanish is . . . is . . . well, idiosyncratic). Although some people don't find learning a language, any language, to be anything short of a nightmare, I'd ask if you are making your best efforts or simply are hoping to assimilate the language through osmosis. Are you really immersed in the language? Do you converse with your husband in English? Do you spend much of the day (and evening) in your apartment or reading or thinking in English?

If you'd make a pact with yourself not to speak or listen to a word of English for a month solid, and during that month to get out, walk around, buy in stores, and otherwise lead a normal life -- but all in Spanish! -- you'll soon be fluent, I'm sure.

And remember that you can (please correct me if I be mistaken, Charles) post here in Spanish! (Seriously, try to separate yourself from all English during that month: I believe that you really can master Spanish, at least at a superficial level, in fairly short order, if you think and live in that language alone.)

by **admin** on Thu Nov 15, 2007 4:31 pm

Well, beyond the occasional drunken Spanish rant that some of our more established members drop in to from time to time, I try to discourage full threads in Spanish on the forum. There are a million Spanish forums in Chile and elsewhere, and I don't want to really leave the fairly large percentage of users we have that speak no Spanish out of the loop.

I guess if you wanted to start a topic thread just to do that, and clearly explain what it was all about, that would be fine. I just would prefer not to do it for whole host of reasons on any type of regular basis.

The dominate language here still has to be English for a bunch of very involved technical and social reasons regarding the way computers work and people behave on the internet.

by **lilprincess** on Thu Nov 15, 2007 4:52 pm

Hello again and thank you thank youuu for all your help, i did not realize i could start all this right here in chile, and I am from Toronto so yes i know where to go thanks for that, hmmm and the spanish thing noooooooo sadly i do not immerse myself totalllly, i read english from the internet, watch english movies, and talk english with my husband oppppps, so your suggestion for the one month dedicating myself to only spanish stuff is verrry good idea, and i think i may just do that. Also yes the chilean language is very different from "spanish"

thanks again everyone
((hugs))

by **RWS** on Thu Nov 15, 2007 5:47 pm

'Sorry, Charles, for the part of my suggestion that was not tongue-in-cheek.

And I'll try to avoid posting in Spanish in the future.

by **admin** on Thu Nov 15, 2007 6:27 pm

I am not against it, just at some point we would become a Spanish forum and not an English forum (not sure where that would be). It is fun for members I believe to post the occasional words or lines in Spanish.

Somewhere around here is a thread about Chilean slang and such. Everyone had a blast talking about it.

We even occasionally give someone a good lashing in Spanish. So, this is a bi-lingual forum with a heavy bias towards English.

A couple of tricks I have used in my language teaching days:

Leave the TV or radio on in Spanish. Don't concentrate on it too much. Just let it play while you work around the house. Create that artificial Spanish environment. Every so often make a point to kind of tune in to what is being said, then tune it back in to the background noise again.

Little by little your ear and mind gets trained to the language. Short spurts of attention is the trick, with ever increasing lengths of time. Kind of linguistic mental exercise that does not require a lot of effort. TV is the best because there are images to associate with the words you are hearing, and sometimes text.

This is far from being the only thing, but with some classes and other stuff it helps.

Also make a point to read the newspaper every day cover to cover, even if you have no idea what is in it. Just do your best to guesstimate what articles are about and what words mean. Eventually you will find it takes you longer and longer to go through it as you are acquiring more vocabulary.

by **Leeuh3654** on Tue Nov 20, 2007 4:03 am

I actually have the same question, except in my case I'm going to attempt to bring my Chilean boyfriend (who will be my husband soon) back to the U.S. I'm sure it's 10x harder. I've heard mostly negative stories about people trying to get in to the U.S. I know how the process works, where to start, etc but I'm wondering if there's ANYTHING I can do to help the situation. I don't really know what it is that makes them reject visa applications even when the applicant is married to a U.S. citizen. Does the amount of money the applicant has have any effect? Does it look worse if he didn't graduate high school?

by **longjonsilver** on Tue Nov 27, 2007 3:31 pm

admin wrote:A couple of tricks I have used in my language teaching days:

Leave the TV or radio on in Spanish. Don't concentrate on it too much. Just let it play while you work around the house. Create that artificial Spanish environment. Every so often make a point to kind of tune in to what is being said, then tune it back in to the background noise again.

Little by little your ear and mind gets trained to the language. Short spurts of attention is the trick, with ever increasing lengths of time. Kind of linguistic mental exercise that does not require a lot of effort. TV is the best because there are images to associate with the words you are hearing, and sometimes text.

This is far from being the only thing, but with some classes and other stuff it helps.

Also make a point to read the newspaper every day...

that is some of the best language learning information you will ever get. i learned spanish by listening to the radio and comparing it to french. i listened 2 hours a day in my truck, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year for some 10 years. i didnt even try to understand most of the time, just let it flow. in my case, french provided me with much grammer, but if you only speak english you will profit by studying spanish either formally or by yourself. there is, however, NO substitute for spending time immersed in the language as admin suggested. rite now the spanish television is on in the next room and im not even trying to listen or understand. i practice what i preach.
jon

by **Fishboy** on Wed Feb 06, 2008 3:59 pm

OK folks, here goes post 2.

Anyone got advice on the relative ease of marrying in Chile v the UK?

My other half is from Chile and we have discussed getting hitched. I live in the UK (and am a UK citizen), she is a Chilena and lives and works in Chile.

With regards of the ease of either of us getting residence rights in each country and the bureaucracy involved in actually getting married, what country represents the best option for getting married?

Cheers

FB

by **Rook** on Wed Feb 06, 2008 11:59 pm

1. if you marry outside of Chile, register your marriage at a Chilean embassy.
2. if you get married outside of Chile but plan on living in Chile, look at the Chilean UK website to understand the requirements for a visa. It is easier to work with the embassy than having to do the leg work in Chile. I got mine in about 6 weeks from the Chilean embassy in New York. Once I arrived in Chile it took about 8 hours (split over 3 days) to get my Chilean id.
3. an option to consider is low key civil ceremony in UK and then the big party/ceremony in Chile where your pounds will stretch farther

I had my civil ceremony in Europe while working there and then 6 months later had a the big party/ceremony in Chile in a vineyard. At the time the dollar was strong so the chilean wedding seemed like a bargain to me. Even today I still think I would never be able to afford the same wedding in the USA. The one drawback to a wedding in a foreign country is that few if any friends can make the trip, typically family makes it.

by **Fishboy** on Thu Feb 07, 2008 11:02 am

Rook wrote:1. if you marry outside of Chile, register your marriage at a Chilean embassy.
2. if you get married outside of Chile but plan on living in Chile, look at the Chilean UK website to understand the requirements for a visa. It is easier to work with the embassy than having to do the leg work in Chile. I got mine in about 6 weeks from the Chilean embassy in New York. Once I arrived in Chile it took about 8 hours (split over 3 days) to get my Chilean id.
3. an option to consider is low key civil ceremony in UK and then the big party/ceremony in Chile where your pounds will stretch farther

I had my civil ceremony in Europe while working there and then 6 months later had a the big party/ceremony in Chile in a vineyard. At the time the dollar was strong so the chilean wedding seemed like a bargain to me. Even today I still think I would never be able to afford the same wedding in the USA. The one drawback to a wedding in a foreign country is that few if any friends can make the trip, typically family makes it.

cheers Rook - I was thinking of going for option 3!