Learn K'iche Mayan from scratch by Immersion: why and how and the nitty-gritties

In April 2024, on a whim, I decided to go to Guatemala to learn a Mayan language. However, I was totally unprepared and did not know any “chapino”. What's worse, I didn’t even know which Mayan language to learn or where to go to find people who actually speak a Mayan language. I didn’t want to end up speaking only castellano !!! People will say: “Going to the country where your target language is spoken is the best way to learn a language”, but this is easier said than done. In this talk, I’d like to share how I improvised a way to set up an efficient immersion program to learn K’iche Mayan from scratch. I will also address the following questions: “how best to find a good city/village to learn your target language, especially when it’s an indigenous one?”, “how to make real friends”, “how to get people to talk to you in their native language instead of Spanish or English”, etc. And last but not least, I will introduce you to the beautiful world of K’iche.