>>I spent 6 months in an immersion school - Defense Language Institute (DLI), Monterrey, CA to be exact. Great experience. There civilian schools as well which allow you to spend time living with a family in a foreign country (like Costa Rica which I highly recommend). My daughter just came back from just a week in Costa Rica living with a family and she was automatically speaking in Spanish at the airport on her return and had to 'shift' to English all over again!
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>I read a lot (online) about different immersion schools. Some you can pick a country and the city and the level/style of living. I presume that "Defense Language.." was part of your military service. I am too old for that <g>. As far as the country, I would prefer to go to Spain. Even though I find the Spanish of Spaniards the most difficult to understand (next to Argentines), I like its sound. And I guess I like the challenge. I even got ok from the wife to leave the home for a week or two <g>. But my customers won't let me go <g>.
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>I admire your daughter for wanting to learn another language. Most kids (I presume she is a young person) today only want MTV and sex <g>.

Castellan as spoken by Spaniards is easy for me to understand, as I have spoken it since I was a child. In Spain you have many languages dependant upon where you are located. Spanish in southern Spain is often called Andaluz, and they speak a dialect of Castellan that includes chopping off the ending of words. This is flamenco country so I am very familiar with this region.

My wife is from Peru, and has trouble listening to Andaluz and understanding it. Her family is from Zaragoza, Spain. An uncle is from Catalonia, where Catalan is spoken. No one in the family can understand the uncle except for his wife! If you go to Spain with the intent to learn Castellan, be careful where you go! You also have Galician and Basque to contend with.

By the way our son speaks Castellan fluidly as does our daughter. In addition our daughter speaks German and Italian. Now she is learning Japanese.