Migration and Life Stories — Talking About the Past and the Future

The most profound experiences are often life stories: leaving home, arriving in a new country, building a new life. Migration is a central sub-topic of the Experiences theme and a chance to combine several tenses — the present perfect for accumulated experience, the past tenses for the journey itself, and ir a + infinitive for hopes and plans. This lesson brings your narrative tools together.

Begin with migration vocabulary, handling it with the sensitivity the topic deserves. La migración is migration; a person who leaves their country is un emigrante and, from the perspective of the receiving country, un inmigrante. Related terms include el/la refugiado/a (refugee), emigrar (to emigrate), establecerse (to settle), echar de menos (to miss someone or something), la frontera (border), el pa