Overstatement Unfortunately
[QUOTE=Dad Fun 555;1186265]Not too sure about that. Only the lowest of the lowest peasant class at the bottom of the totem pole will not speak English. Any middle-class Colombian with standard education will speak fluent English and will be international minded. Only if you're going for the uneducated peasant girls will Spanish become a necessity. A middle-class guy from abroad ought to be able to find middle-class Colombian lady of equivalent age and social status without a problem.[/QUOTE]I have to agree with Wilt on this one. I went to high school in Bucaramanga so I can say from what I've seen that English is not spoken that much at all in that part of Colombia. Most students have to take English Classes for six years (from primero sexto). And with all that preparation and years of learning, no matter what your level is (estratos) , only a few speak more than the basic "Hello,","Thank You","I Love You" nonsense. The Colombians are just too shy, that's what I figured to be the problem; Les the pena. You have to understand, people are running around town with SHIT on their shirt written in English and are clueless as to what it even says. I lived there for four years and maybe ran into a couple of people that spoke broken English, but DAD FUN 555 said middle class speak fluently. This is simply not true. That will give thewrong impression to all foreigners / gringos visiting. You can get around without speaking the language within the bigger cities, in certain areas, like the International Zone in Bogota. You'll run into lot of gringos in certain touristy areas throughout Colombia, no doubt. But the average person doesn't have the slightest clue about communicating in our language. Because of that, I think we're one up on them, since we're not afraid to go there, and hang out, and speak in their tongue even though its more than obvious that we have an accent; yet they (meaning Colombians collectively) are afraid to speak my language. My Spanish is good, damn good, but you can still hear the accent. I keep everybody guessing, as you should, they think maybe Bolivia or Peru, but not a a gringo accent.
On Dad's last point, I thoroughly agree, someone middle class would've travelled outside of Colombia and has had their horizons opened to a different point of view. But even still, a gringo / american / european middle class, is way above their middle class financially. Hence if you move there, and are in good shape, and can speak conversational spanish, one should pull TOP SHELF at the end of the day; sooner or later, because we simply have more to offer and have more money. It's that simple.
