My daughter convinced me I could learn Spanish in just 12 weekly 3 hour lessons. I was skeptical, until I met Slade, the proprietor of the Spanish Academy. Eccentric, flamboyant and mysteriously delightful is how I would describe him; but I daresay, I still am not doing justice to his brilliance... Before we left the first lesson we could understand whole passages he read to us in Spanish; it was freaky. Well needless to say, the rest of the course lived up to its promise and after 12 weeks, if not completely conversant, we could fully understand virtually anything he wanted to discuss in Spanish.