I have a remote software job and I want to use this time to learn Spanish. I have read great things about Santiago, Buenos Aires, and Montevideo, and I was wondering where in the Hacker News community you would recommend?
Thanks!
As an Uruguayan I would say that Montevideo is nice, but there is not much natural beauty around, the same for Buenos Aires, but Santiago is in the foot of the Andes, so in that it has more to see.
Also Montevideo is quieter than Buenos Aires but Santiago is much more well organized than both. And the only one that don't have a metro train system, so the public transport consists only on buses that get quite crowded on rush hours.
All have good night-life, art, and excepting Medellín are on the ocean.
Montevideo has easy access to world-class beaches and is only a couple hours by ferry from Buenos Aires.
Valparaíso is an hour or so by bus from Santiago if you're interested in having a big city nearby.
As far as learning Spanish, it'd be much cheaper in Colombia, but you'll be able to find classes in any of those places. Argentinian Spanish is known for an odd accent and some different grammar, but it's nothing terribly different.
Worst place for having a good connection action is the west coast of the continent.
Why? because on the East you have Brazil, the 1st economy in the LatAM region, plus access to Mexico (2nd largest GDP), easy access to both Miami and Texas (Jacksonville) as cable landing points, and of course you can serve fiscal paradises like Aruba or Panama.
As for learning Spanish, don't worry about the accent, even though Colombia is reputed to have the purest accent.
The only thing that will affect your ability to learn Spanish is how much time every day you spend conversing in Spanish with native speakers.
But if you want to learn Spanish, then it's probably Medellin, Columbia.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagoa_da_Concei%C3%A7%C3%A3o