u/swosei12

Perhaps, someone who has obtained Ghanaian citizenship via descent can help me on how to get started with the process since I'm STILL waiting for the embassy in US to respond to my emails.

Ok, I am a US-born citizen of a Ghanaian-born father with dual Ghanaian-US citizenship and a US-born mother. According to the information that I received from the embassy's chat feature, I'm technically am a Ghanaian citizen since my father was born in Ghana and still has maintained his citizenship. From the limited information that I received, to start the process, I would need to register my Ghanaian citizenship. However, this is where things get a little tricky for me. For one of the forms to register your citizenship if you are living abroad, one would need to provide your birth certificate and/or national card. However, how can can one acquire these items if you weren't born in Ghana?

So if anyone has obtained Ghanaian citizenship as a child of a Ghanaian parent in the last few years (or has established citizenship for their children born outside of Ghana), I would love to hear how you did it. Any and all suggestions would be extremely helpful.

Just in case someone brings this up. I'm trying to establish citizenship because my father who is in his late 70s is moving back to Ghana very soon to live out the rest of his years. I was thinking that it might be useful to establish citizenship to handle necessary paperwork when he unfortunately passes on into the afterlife...which I hope will not be for a while. I also figure that it might be easier to start this process while he is in the States (since I'll probably need

This is probably a very general question, but I figure why not ask anyway. Perhaps, I can learn about some new ways for improving my audio comprehension and/or building my vocabulary.

A little about me (TLDR): Originally, I was planning to take DELE C1 this November, but I recently found out that I'm running a marathon on the same day. Rather than traveling to NYC to take DELE C1 in October or finding another fall marathon to run, I decided to postpone DELE C1 until May 2027. Although the May 2027 DELE is a year away, I think this postponement will give me ample opportunities to improve on some of my weak areas, not only for the DELE exam, but also learning Spanish.

Although I took DELE B2 in November 2025 and passed, my scores reflect an extreme deficiency in audio comprehension. My other sections were not too bad, but I wished that I performed better (at least 20+ points) in the reading and writing portions.

• Comprensión de lectura: 19.06/25
• Comprensión auditiva: 9.17/25
• Expresión e interacción escritas: 19.75/25
• Expresión e interacción orales: 25/25

I think part of my struggles with listening comprehension is that the quality of the recordings hard to follow (at least for my ears). When there is a bunch of static, random sounds or echos, I lose focus. As a way to get used to this, I have started to listen to talk radio broadcasts, where the audio is not a "top-tier" as single-person podcasts.

Although I just started easing into studying for November's DELE C1 exam, I'm gonna have to make a choice - a mental challenge vs a physical challenge. I learned that my fall marathon (my physical challenge) and the exam (my mental challenge) are on the same day in November. In my neck of the woods, DELE exams are offered only in Nov and May. On one hand, I probably should go with the exam since there are plenty of opportunities to run a marathon in fall 2026. On the other hand, I really want to run this particular marathon (which has the nickname America's Friendliest Marathon)...especially, since I deferred last year's marathon to this year.

After checking out another Instituto Cervantes, there is another option. I could travel to & spend the weekend in NYC (about 4 hrs by train) and take the exam in October.

Decisions, decisions, decisions 😉

First question: Do folks have any recommendations for free (or near free) flash card apps? Since I have a few (well 12) spreadsheets with Spanish -> English words, I would need an app that will allow me to upload a CSV file to create the flashcards.

Second question (the main one): What are some tips that has really helped you incorporate new words into your working vocabulary? I'm currently at a B2 level, and I would like to advance to C1 at some point. Although I would like to take the C1 DELE in Nov 26, I think it might be better to take it in spring 2027. Since I am in the intermediate hump, I feel like I am at a bit of a stalemate with incorporating new terms in that:

• if I do not know a specific word (e.g., greenhouse of harvest), I can still explain the concept of the word to get my point across.
• I use words without appreciating the nuances. Lately, I found that I use obtener (especially while speaking) in way too many situations where something like conseguir, adquirir or alcanzar would be more appropriate. While writing, my vocab is a bit richer but I think that's because I have more time to think (even under timed conditions) about the appropriateness of my selected words.

I do read Spanish-language material like newspapers, magazines and books, but I feel like I'm not doing enough "homework" to really incorporate new words into my working vocabulary. For instance, I'm currently reading Animal Fam (aka Rebelión en la granja) in Spanish. Would it be advisable to take 5 words (at least) from each chapter that I don't know, create some sort of vocab list, and give myself daily drills? But then, this becomes of question of finding a balance between reading for pleasure and turning leisurely reading into a chore.

I posted this request back in November but did not receive too much traction. However, I recently received a few DMs over the past couple of weeks about this topic, so I figured why not check in (again) to see if folks are interested in establishing a Spanish-language speaking group. Since the weather is nicer, there might be a greater interest this time around.

Feel free to respond here or send a DM, and I'll add you to the chat on Reddit & request that you complete a brief (anonymous) poll.

Original message from 6 months ago

>In an effort to improve my spoken Spanish, I figured why not see if anyone in the area wants to do the same and would be interested in meeting once a week in a group setting to randomly converse in Spanish for 60-90 minutes. I realize there are a couple of Spanish language meetup groups (mainly in DC), but they don't really meet frequently and one has to travel to DC. Ok, so DC isn't THAT far, but I'd rather commute 15 minutes rather than 40 minutes. Maybe we can make this happen if enough folks are interested.

>Since I do not want to step on anyone's toes, please let me know if something like this already exists in DTSS or Wheaton.