Silent Letters in Spanish – A Short But Important List
Jan 21, 2016
There are only 2 regular silent letters in the Spanish language.
But, you’ll need to be careful with both of these letters because they are silent in some words and pronounced in others.
In addition, when I say ‘regular’ silent letters I’m referring to the pronunciation of traditional Spanish words, not words that have been adopted from Greek or other languages.
In this post, I’ll give an overview of the two silent letters in Spanish including where and how you need to use them.
Since this post is about pronunciation, I’ll also include some short mp3 recordings to demonstrate what the words sound like to avoid any confusion with phonetic spelling.
The letter H
The first silent letter in Spanish is the letter H. This letter is always silent unless it is next to the letter C.
When we see the letter C next to an H we need to make a ch sound. This sound is just like the English ‘ch’ sound in words like ‘cheek’ or ‘beach’.
In the Spanish alphabet, the word that represents the letter H is hache. Since this word starts with an H and has a ch, it makes for a great first example to demonstrate the pronunciation of H and ch.
Alcohol (alcohol) (similarly, notice the H creates an elongation between the two middle O’s) https://rfs-post-audio-2.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/alcohol.mp3
To finish the section on the letter H, here are two examples with a ch:
In the majority of Spanish words with a U, the sound you need to make to represent the U is like a double “oo” in English and rhymes with the English word “too”.
Here are two examples of words with the typical pronunciation of the Spanish letter U:
To make things slightly more confusing, whenever you see a Ü in Spanish with a double dot, you need to pronounce the U sound. You will see this letter in situations like the last two examples as either a güe or a güi.
At the start of the post, I mentioned that there are silent letters that occur in words that have been adopted from other languages such as Greek.
Here are a few examples:
The m in mnemotecnia (mnemonics).
The p in pterodáctilo (pterodactyl).
The p in psicólogo (psychologist).
These are fairly low use words so I don’t recommend you spend too much time on them (unless you are a psychologist and need this word to explain what you do).
Your Turn
Choose some examples from this post and practice the pronunciation by copying recordings. Also, try them out with a Spanish native in a language exchange or with a teacher.
As a bonus for reading this post, if you sign up to the Real Fast Spanish School and mention this post in an email, I will offer you a free one-on-one Skype lesson as another opportunity to practice your pronunciation.
If you would like to learn more about pronunciation check out this podcast episode.
How can you remember the silent letters in Spanish?
Imagine your partner says to you that as a couple you should move together to the other side of the world to start a new life. Could you do it? Would you do it?
This week we talk to Cristina Orts about her experience of moving to a new country that doesn’t speak her language.
These days, Cristina is comfortable in her new environment. But there was a point where she almost didn’t come. And the thing that nearly stopped her was something that affects all of us.
In the episode, we will explore Cristina’s story. We start the story at the point where her partner Borja proposes that they should move to Australia to experience a different way of life.
Cristina’s initial reaction was to say yes (‘vale’) but when Borja started looking at flights, things started to get real and Cristina had to come clean about what she was really thinking.
Later we discover how Cristina overcame her fears and after going through the experience we learn what advice Cristina would give her younger self or anybody who is considering a move to another country.
If you are having trouble understanding the Spanish section of the podcast or if you would like to get more out of the podcasts and take your Spanish to next level you can get access to the accompanying Spanish podcast transcripts in The Real Fast Spanish School here.
What advice would you give if someone said they were afraid to move to a new country?
Tips 115: Life in Madrid with Daniel Welsch – Part 2
Jul 19, 2015
This episode of the podcast is part 2 of a two-part interview with Daniel Welsch.
If you missed part 1 of the interview you go back and listen to it here.
Daniel has some great advice for Spanish students or language students in general. He has a lot of experience teaching English and talked about some of the challenges for his students learning English. This information is great as you may find yourself in a situation where you also want to teach English while you travel.
He has been living in Madrid for more than 10 years and shares some great advice around what you need to know if you are planning a move to Spain.
In this second part of the interview we talk about:
How movie translations from English to Spanish or Spanish to English are often strange. We talk about how the decision of what to call a movie is often based on the cultural context of the title.
The merits of dubbing and subtitles and how popular TV from the US is prepared for a Spanish audience.
Daniel gives a few suggestions for some books to read and includes his favourite Spanish book of all time (see resources below).
Daniel provides some guidance on how you could plan an upcoming trip to Spain. I give him the framework of what to see and do if you only had 1 day, 1 week or 1 month.
We ‘geek-out’ a little bit on Spanish food and how you should approach the food in Spain with an open mind.
Daniel provides some great advice on what you need to know if you want to move to Spain and live there as an ex-pat.
Tips 114: Life in Madrid with Daniel Welsch
Jun 29, 2015
Ever considered an ex-pat life in Spain? This week you will hear from Daniel Welsch who has been living in Madrid for more than 10 years.
I’m very excited to welcome Daniel to the podcast. It is great to talk to someone who has focused solely on Spanish and immersed himself in the culture. This interview is a great opportunity to focus not only on some of the themes of language learning mindset but the mindset associated with a move to a Spanish speaking country.
In the interview, you will hear about some of Daniel’s thoughts on language learning and adapting to life outside of the United States.
In this first part of the interview we talk about:
How Daniel got his start with Spanish.
How a 2 week trip to Spain turned into a 10 year stay.
What is it like to transfer Spanish of Mexico to Spanish of Spain and how Daniel initially dealt with transferring his knowledge of Spanish from another Spanish region of the world.
Daniel’s approach to making mistakes and getting used to feeling silly. Daniel talks about how life maybe to short to worry about whether your Spanish is perfect or not.
Daniel has also worked as an English teacher and he talks about some the struggles of his students from Spain have with their English.
Some of the problems with literal translation and how this applies to going from English to Spanish or the other way round.
How you can see a variety of Spanish accents change from different regions of Spain.
I ask Daniel what is the best thing about living in Spain.
I then ask Daniel what is the worst thing about living in Spain.
We finish the first part of the interview talking about Spanish cinema.
Tips 113: An Insider’s Guide to the Canary Islands
Jun 25, 2015
One question you have to ask yourself if you are learning Spanish is: which accent should you focus on? How do you choose an accent? Does it matter?
In this week’s theory podcast I interview Alba del Pino. Alba is from the Canary Islands. Her accent is distinctly different to the accent of the rest of Spain.
Having said that, there are subtle differences in the accents of the separate regions from within mainland Spain. But, the way the ‘c’ and ‘z’ is pronounced in the Canary Islands is much closer to the accents of South America than those of Spain.
One point worth noting is that despite the differences in accent and lexicon of all of the separate countries of the Spanish world, even if you are only focused on one region while learning, you will be able to speak to anybody from any country.
I have spent the majority of my Spanish journey practicing with the Spanish of Spain. But I have never had any real trouble speaking with people from the Dominican Republic, Peru, Columbia, Argentina or Mexico. Yes there are subtle differences in accents and vocabulary but they are rarely a barrier to communication. You can think about the the differences between the English of Australia and the English of the United States—rarely is this difference big enough barrier to make conversation difficult.
Listen to today’s podcast to get a sample of the accent from the Canary Islands and see if you can notice some of the differences.
If you are having trouble understanding the Spanish section of the podcast or if you would like to get more out of the podcasts and take your Spanish to next level you can get access to the accompanying Spanish podcast transcripts in The Real Fast Spanish School here.
Difficult vocabulary from the Spanish conversation:
Lexicon – Léxico.
Is it the same lexicon? – ¿Es el mismo léxico?
The kitchen / cuisine – La cocina.
What is the cuisine like in the Canary Islands – ¿Cómo es la cocina de las islas canarias?
This book is a fascinating read. It highlights how a narrow vision can limit your ability to see the things that are happening all around you.
The premise of the book is simple. The author would take 11 walks around the city book with some carefully selected “experts”. Each “expert” would allow her to see through their eyes, helping her to notice things that she could never have seen without the expert’s help.
Expert is a term that is loosely applied as the first walk is with her toddler and the second walk is with her dog.
What Horowitz discovers walking her city block with experts such as a geologist, a doctor, a psychologist or a typographer is that there is a narrative that is happening all around that we rarely see. The history in a block of sandstone. The bug-eating away at a small leaf. The slightly lopsided gate of a fellow pedestrian. Or the subtle lettering on a street sign. All of these things have a story and say something about the world and without growing our ability to notice, there are hundreds of stories that we may never see of experience.
Apart from being a fascinating and eye-opening read, if you can take away the idea of looking to improve your ability to notice it can help you in two ways:
It can help you stay present and avoid spending unnecessary time fretting about things that you cannot control.
It can help you improve your rate of learning.
Both of these aspects of noticing things in the moment will improve your ability to learn a second language.
In today’s mindset podcast you will learn about the book, the ideas and some of the takeaways that you can test and apply for yourself this week.
Try the techniques for yourself and see if they help you with your ability to stay present when practising your Spanish. See if you can notice how a Spanish native speaks—the tone of their voice, the movement of their hands or the use of particular words.
The mindset challenge for you this week is to see if you can notice something that you have never noticed before on your city block. And for an additional challenge, see if you can notice yourself noticing things—this last test will really help with present state awareness.
Tips 111: Common Spanish Verbs – 6 Uses for the Verb “Acabar”
Jun 18, 2015
Can you explain when you use “to end” and “to finish” in English? If so, you can apply the idea to the Spanish verbs “acabar” and “terminar”.
This week’s Spanish theory episode is dedicated to the common spanish verb “acabar”.
In many of the examples in today’s podcast the Spanish verb “terminar” and “acabar” are interchangeable. But, just like in English, there are a few situations when you can only use one or the other.
In today’s podcast you will find out how to use ‘acabar’ in a conversation and some of it’s important uses with Spanish prepositions. If you have any questions, you can leave them below.
If you want to be conversational in Spanish, check out The Real Fast Spanish School. In the school, you can access all of the training at Real Fast Spanish designed to help you reach a conversation level of Spanish as effectively as possible.
Examples from today’s podcast:
I finish work at 5 – Termino mi trabajo a las 5.
I finish work at 5 – Acabo mi trabajo a las 5.
I don’t like how the movie ends – No me gusta cómo acaba la película.
Sofia and I are ended – Sofia y yo hemos acabado.
The word ‘university’ ends in the letter D – La palabra ‘universidad’ acaba en la letra D.
The dinner ended in drinks until 3 am – La cena acabó en copas hasta las 3 de la madrugada.
My trip to Europe ended in Paris – Mi viaje a Europa acabó en París.
I just finished my homework – acabo de terminar mis deberes.
She just called the doctor – Ella acaba de llamar al médico.
I just do not understand – No acabo de entenderlo.
Guys just don’t understand women – Los chicos no acaban de entender las mujeres.
He ended up working at McDonalds – Él acabó trabajando en McDonalds.
After much sacrifice and dedication, he ended up being a very famous actor – Después de mucho sacrificio y dedicación, él acabó siendo actor muy famoso.
My boss ended the discussion by slamming a fist on the table – Mi jefe acabó con la discusión en un golpe en la mesa.
Police ended the drug problem in my neighborhood – la policía acabó con el problema de la droga en mi barrio.
Teacher comments ended my hopes of passing the exam – Los comentarios del profesor acabaron con mis esperanzas de aprobar el examen.
How else can you use the Spanish verb “acabar” in a conversation?
Tips 110: How to Set Yourself for Language Learning Success with John Fotheringham (Part 2 of 2)
Jun 15, 2015
In today’s mindset podcast you will hear part 2 of the two part interview with John Fotheringham. In the second part of the interview we discuss how to manage frustration due to a lack of progress. We talk about what separates a good language learner from a great language learner. And we debate the merits of the language learning classroom and how you can get the most out of one.
You can learn more from John at Langauge Mastery—a language learning blog and podcast dedicated to helping language learners. The focus of his website is 80% on general language learning and 20% on Mandarin and Japanese.
If you missed part 1 of the interview you go back and listen to it here.
These mindset podcasts are about exploring topics outside of Spanish vocabulary or grammar. They are useful because because ultimately they will help you achieve your goals with learning Spanish more effectively.
In this second part of the interview we talk about:
How to manage the frustration of feeling like you have a long way to go to reach your language goals. John offers a great tip for overcoming the feeling that you are a long way away from where you would like to be.
What separates a great language learning from a good language learner.
What role passion plays in language learning and what can you do to build your passion for language learning.
Why humility is important in language learning. How to deal with making mistakes and why it is important to leave your ego at the door.
John’s thoughts on the language learning classroom and how to get the best out of a classroom if you find yourself in one.
What a famous Bruce Lee quote means to John and how you can apply it language learning.
How to improve your pronunciation.
What John’s life would look like without language learning in it?
In the end, John gives a great metaphor for why language learning is like putting on Scuba Gear.
What did you learn from the second part of the interview with John Fotheringham?
Tips 109: How to Use the Spanish Verb “Hay”
Jun 11, 2015
“Hay” is a unique Spanish verb. It is related to the verb “haber” or commonly referred to as the impersonal form of “haber”.
In today’s podcast, you will learn how to use the verb “hay” in the past, present and future. You will also learn how to use the impersonal phrase with the verb “hay” to express obligation.
Check out today’s podcast for all of the details. If you have any questions or thoughts you can leave a comment below.
If you want to be conversational in Spanish, check out The Real Fast Spanish School. In the school, you can access all of the training at Real Fast Spanish designed to help you reach a conversation level of Spanish as effectively as possible.
Examples from today’s podcast:
There is a lot of noise here – Hay mucho ruido aquí.
Is there a good place to eat around here? – ¿Hay un buen lugar para comer por aquí?
Is there a good place to drink something around here? – ¿Hay un buen lugar para tomar algo por aquí?
Is there a good place to speak around here? – ¿Hay un buen lugar para hablar por aquí?
There was a party in the apartment upstairs last night anoche. It was very noisy. – Hubo una fiesta en el piso de arriba anoche. Fue muy ruidosa.
Last week there was a day I’m never going to forget – La semana pasada hubo un día que nunca voy a olvidar.
When I was little there were very fun moments – Cuando era pequeño había momentos muy divertidos.
We laughed at a joke that there was between us – Nos reímos de una broma que había entre nosotros.
Next week there will be a church wedding – La semana que viene habrá una boda en la iglesia.
In the future there will be cars that can fly – En el futuro habrá coches que pueden volar.
One must not tell lies – No hay que decir mentiras.
If one wants to speak Spanish one has to practice every day – Si se quiere hablar español hay que practicar todos los días.
Tips 108: How to Set Yourself for Language Learning Success with John Fotheringham (Part 1 of 2)
Jun 08, 2015
In this week’s mindset podcast we welcome John Fotheringham to talk about habit forming, how to set goals for success and one aspect of language learning that rarely gets discussed.
John is a passionate language learner and is running Langauge Mastery—a language learning blog and podcast dedicated to helping language learners. The focus of his website is 80% on language learning and 20% on Mandarin and Japanese.
On top of his experience in language learning, more recently, John has been developing his knowledge on nutrition. I asked John on to the podcast to talk about the topic of nutrition because it is an important aspect of performance. If you aren’t sleeping right or your aren’t eating right, you aren’t setting yourself up for success in language learning.
These mindset podcasts are about exploring topics outside of Spanish vocabulary or grammar. They are useful because because ultimately they will help you achieve your goals with learning Spanish more effectively.
In this first part of the interview we talk about:
Nutrition and how you can improve your diet to improve your memory and ability focus and form successful habits.
John’s first experience language learning in Brazil as a 12 years old.
His experiences in France in his senior year of high school
How is true love of language learning began with Japanese in college.
Some of John’s struggles with the language gap in Japan.
We cover some of John’s observations of the cultural experience in Japan.
How you should think about priorities instead of maximising and managing your time.
How to set yourself up for success by setting tiny, achievable goals.
How to break up tasks to the minimum for focus.
What it is like to work as a translator.
John then explains how working as a translator and transferring those skills to having conversations doesn’t work as well as you might expect.
What did you learn from the first part of the interview with John Fotheringham in this mindset episode?
Tips 107: 8 Uses of Ser and Estar with Adjectives
Jun 04, 2015
The uses of Ser and Estar are an important part of Spanish that you should always be revising.
In today’s podcast, you will learn about one specific part: the uses of ser and estar with adjectives. As a reminder, ‘ser’ tends to imply a permanent feature and ‘estar’ tends to imply a temporary feature. Keep this in mind as you listen to the examples for today.
Examples from today’s podcast:
Elena is a good person, she always gives to the poor – Elena es buena, ella siempre da a los pobres.
This wine is of high quality – Este vino es muy bueno.
This gazpacho tastes great / amazing – Este gazpacho está buenísimo.
The boy is very attractive. He is tall, dark and his body is incredible – El chico está muy bueno. Es alto, moreno y el cuerpo está increíble.
I don’t like your friend he is a bad (person) – No me cae bien tu amigo, él es malo.
The Paella is cheap because it is low quality – La paella es barata porque es muy mala.
Sonia has spent all day in bed she is very sick – Sonia ha pasado todo el día en la cama, ella está muy mala.
This chicken is bad, I don’t like it – Este pollo está malo, no me gusta.
Christy Walton is the richest women in the world – Christy Walton es la mujer más rica del mundo.
The churros are so good – Los churros están tan ricos.
Your sister is very intelligent – Tu hermana es muy lista.
I’m still not ready. I need five more minutes – Todavía no estoy listo. Necesito 5 minutes más.
My car is green – Mi coche es verde.
Paco es green, he needs to keep learning – Paco está verde, tiene que seguir aprendiendo.
The apple is unripe – La manzana está verde.
The shirt is black – La camisa es negra.
I’m angry because the house is dirty – Estoy negro porque la casa está negra.
María is very open, she usually speaks to everyone at the party – María es muy abierta, ella suele hablar con todo el mundo en la fiesta.
Who left the door open? – ¿Quien dejó la puerta abierta? (La puerta está abierta)
Andrés is very closed he doesn’t speak to anybody – Andrés es muy cerrado, no habla con nadie.
The restaurant is closed, it normally opens at seven – El restaurante está cerrado, normalmente abre a las siete.
Tips 106: Language Learning, Teaching English, Capoeira and Living in Brazil with Shayna Oliveira (Part 2 of 2)
Jun 01, 2015
This podcast episode is part 2 of a two part interview with Shayna Oliveira. In this second part of the interview we cover language learning expectations, creating good study habits, getting over making mistakes and living in Brazil.
If you missed part 1 of the interview you go back and listen to it here.
When you finish listening to the interview, head across to Shayna’s site and discover a piece of english theory that you can take to your next language exchange.
In this second part of the interview we talk about:
How to overcome the fear of looking stupid. Shayna shares one of her embarrassing stories of when she made a big mistake with her portuguese.
We then talk about how you can reframe the fear of making mistakes to a new perspective. Shayna suggested that you can consider the idea of simply being able to express ideas without the need to be perfect.
We talk about the importance of frequency in your study and how you should try for more study sessions more often.
We then talk about one of the most important aspects of language learning—knowing why you are learning the language. The bigger the why, the bigger the chance of success.
We consider how you can think about managing your language learning expectations. Shayna gives a great tip for how you can change the way you think about the gap of where you are and where you would like to be with your Spanish skills.
Shayna then shares a story of one of her experiences living in Brazil.
In the end of the interview, I ask Shayna about one of the common myths that I have noticed here in Australia. The people here are terrified of Favelas. I ask Shayna whether the typical fear that people here experience is justified and what a tourist should do to be careful if they are considering a trip to Brazil.
What did you learn from the second part of the interview with Shayna Oliveira for this mindset episode?
Tips 105: Common Spanish Verbs – 9 Uses for the Word “Hacer”
May 28, 2015
How well can you make do in Spanish? This week, for the theoretical Spanish podcast, you will learn about the uses of the verb ‘hacer’.
Of course, ‘hacer’ doesn’t just mean ‘to make’ or ‘to do’, there are 8 other ways that you can use this common Spanish verb.
Check out today’s podcast for all of the details. If you have any questions or thoughts you can leave a comment below.
If you want to be conversational in Spanish, check out The Real Fast Spanish School. In the school, you can access all of the training designed to help you reach a conversation level of Spanish as effectively as possible.
The present conjugation of ‘Hacer’:
I do – Yo hago.
You do – Tú haces.
He does – Él hace.
We do – Nosotros hacemos.
You-all do – Vosotros hacéis.
They do – Ellos hacen.
Examples from today’s podcast:
What did you do on the weekend? – Que hiciste el fin de semana?
I do a lot of exercise – Hago mucho ejercicio.
I tend to make the main lunch two times per week – Suelo hacer la comida dos veces a la semana.
I forgot to make the bed today – Se me ha olvidado hacer la cama hoy.
It is very hot – Hace mucho calor.
It is very cold – Hace mucho frio.
The weather is good today – Hace buen tiempo, hoy.
It is a nice day today – Hace un buen día, hoy
The weather is bad – Hace mal tiempo.
To ask a question – Hacer una pregunta.
I want to ask you a question – Quiero hacerte una pregunta.
They ask me too many questions – Me hacen demasiadas preguntas.
It’s been a long time since we have seen each other – Hace mucho tiempo que no nos vimos.
It’s been a long time since we spoke to each other – Hace mucho tiempo que no nos hablamos.
How long has it been since you were in Spain – ¿Hace cuánto tiempo que estuviste en España?
Hecho – Done, made or fact.
This morning I made a fatal error (or big mistake) – Esta mañana he hecho un error fatal.
A fact – Un hecho.
It is an interesting fact – Es un hecho interesante.
In fact – De hecho.
In fact, it is the most popular place for tourists in Spain – De hecho, es el sitio más popular para los turistas en España.
It makes me happy – Me hace feliz.
What he told me made me happy – Lo que me dijo me hizo feliz.
It’s fun – Es divertido.
It’s funny – Es gracioso.
It’s funny – Es extraño.
It makes me laugh – Me hace gracia.
It amused me – Me hizo gracia.
It is missing to me – Me hace falta.
What do I need today? – ¿Que me hace falta hoy?
I do not need your advice – no me hace falta tu consejo.
He is not paying me any attention – No me hace ni caso (He does not make me any attention).
For a number of weeks I have wanted to get Shayna onto the podcast to talk about improving your ability to teach english. Why? Because one of the best ways to improve your Spanish is making long term friendships with Spanish natives. You can do this by finding a language exchange and then providing a ton of help when it comes to the part in English.
This has been a big part of my language learning process.
At the end of the interview, I suggest you head across to Shayna’s site and discover a piece of english theory that you can take to your next language exchange.
In this first part of the interview we talk about:
The merits of finding a language exchange and how to help someone who is learning English.
We talk about one of the trickiest parts of the English language to teach. Shayna gives a great tip for teaching this difficult part of English and draws a parallel to how this technique is very similar to how we learn as children.
We talk about Shayna’s language journey and how she ended up in living Brazil and meeting her husband. We talk about how her husband didn’t used to be able to speak english and what is like to live in a single language household that was not her first language.
What talk about some of Shayna’s biggest language learning challenges. And how she overcome them.
Even though Shayna learnt Portuguese in an immersion environment, we also talk about Shanya’s thoughts on learning a language back at home.
Shayna gives a great tip to get over the feeling of freezing up in the moment of a conversation. Then how to reduce the number of times it happens.
Shayna then talks about the idea of passive and active vocabulary and converting words from your passive vocabulary to your active vocabulary.
What did you learn from the first part of the interview with Shayna Oliveira for this mindset episode?
Tips 103: Common Spanish Verbs – 7 Uses for the Word “Pasar”
May 21, 2015
The verb ‘pasar‘ is in the top 10 most common regular Spanish verbs. It occurs frequently, it is useful and easy to conjugate.
But, it is used in a lot of different situations and contexts, which means we still need to set aside some time to take a closer look at this important Spanish verb.
So, in today’s podcast, we are going to look at some of the most common uses of pasar.
‘Pasar‘ can be used to talk about spending time, asking about what is happening, talking about a change in a situation, as a request to pass something and even to express a lack of interest in a topic.
Check out today’s podcast for all of the details. If you have any questions or thoughts you can leave a comment below.
If you want to be conversational in Spanish, check out The Real Fast Spanish School. In the school, you can access all of the training designed to help you reach a conversation level of Spanish as effectively as possible.
Examples from today’s podcast:
She spends lots of time practicing Spanish – Ella pasa mucho tiempo practicando su español.
What’s going on? – ¿Qué pasa?
Everything is well – Todo está bien.
All good – Todo bien.
Have a great time – Pásalo bien.
Have a great time on the trip – Pásalo bien el viaje.
Have a great time on the weekend – Pásalo bien el finde.
Have a great time with your brother – Pásalo bien con tu hermano.
Pass me the salt, please – Pásame la sal, por favor.
Although the restaurant is now empty, it will be filled soon – Aunque el restaurante ahora está vacío, pasará a estar lleno muy pronto.
Juan is single but will be married soon – Juan está soltero pero pasará a estar casado pronto.
I don’t care about anything, I couldn’t care less about anything – Paso de todo.
He doesn’t care about anything – Él pasa de todo.
I’m not into the bullfighting – Paso de los toros.
I’m not into sport – Paso del deporte.
Leave me alone – Pasa de mí. (Déjame en paz).
I couldn’t care less about you – Paso de ti.
To pass by – Pasar de largo. (pass without stopping).
I just saw Elena walk right by – Acabo de ver a Elena pasa de largo.
The rice is overcooked – Se me ha pasado el arroz. (The rice has passed to me).
The meat is overcooked – Se me ha pasado la carne. (The meat has passed to me).
It has gone off – Se ha puesto mala. (it has put itself bad).
The rice is going to be overcooked to you – Se te va a pasar el arroz.
Tips 102: What an Astronaut can Teach Us about Learning Spanish
May 18, 2015
It’s hard to imagine the feeling of being in a space shuttle when it is taking off. But I could imagine the experience may involve a lot fear.
It’s a funny comparison but speaking Spanish in public and taking off in a rocket ship aren’t vastly different when it comes to our fears. Both can bring up a fight or flight response.
So what does an astronaut say about dealing with fear? And how can you use the advice to get over your nerves of speaking Spanish in public?
This week’s mindset podcast is inspired by Chris Hadfield.
Chris is a Canadian astronaut who was made famous by his performance of David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ while onboard the international space station.
I recently watched his Ted Talk and thought his ideas around separating danger and fear are incredibly useful.
He starts off the presentation by asking:
– What is the most dangerous thing you have ever done? He then asks,
– What is the scariest thing you have ever done? Then,
– Why did you do it?
I thought these questions were really powerful. And for me, when answering these two questions I discovered an interesting lesson. I realised that when I was doing the most dangerous thing I have ever done I wasn’t the most scared I have ever been. In fact, when I was most scared, I wasn’t doing anything dangerous at all.
His questions made me realise that sometimes our brains are terrible judges of what is actually dangerous.
In the podcast this week I answer the two questions: I tell the story of the most dangerous thing I have ever done and the scariest thing I have ever done.
When telling these stories, I encourage you to answer the questions for yourself. Hopefully you will see that it is very possible to be fearful when there is no danger. And with this knowledge you may be able to a face situation that makes you nervous—like practicing your Spanish in public.
Here is Chris Hadfield’s Ted Talk:
What did you discover about fear, nerves and danger this week?
Tips 101: Olvidar vs Olvidarse – How to Forget in Spanish
May 14, 2015
Is forgetting in Spanish as simple as forgetting in English? If you want to forget in Spanish or at least express the idea, there are three ways you can do it.
This week explore how the verb ‘olvidar’ is used and how the idea of something forgotten in Spanish differs from how we are used to it in English.
There are 5 main ideas around the use of verb ‘olvidar’ that we explore in today’s Spanish podcast.
Firstly we talk about how forgetting is usually something that happens in the past. I forgot to tell you… I forgot what I was going to say…
Then we explore the three common forms the verb ‘olvidar’: normal, reflexive and passive.
Then lastly we talk about how ‘olvidado’ is used in combination with the verb ‘estar’ to talk about ‘something forgotten’.
Check out today’s theory podcast for all of the details. If you have any questions, you can leave a comment below.
If you want to take your spanish to the next level, you can now access all of the training courses at Real Fast Spanish now all in the one place—The Real Fast Spanish School. In the school, you can access all of the training material focused on helping you reach a conversation level of Spanish using the principles of conversation hacking.
Examples from the episode:
I always forget my mobile – Siempre olvido mi móvil.
Why do I always forget my girlfriend’s birthday – ¿Por qué siempre me olvido del cumpleaños de mi novia?
I forgot the tickets – Olvidé las entradas.
I forgot the tickets – He olvidado las entradas.
I forgot about the tickets – Me olvidé de las entradas.
Did you forget to going to the market? – ¿Te has olvidado de ir al mercado?
I forgot the tickets – Se me olvidaron las entradas.
My English is a little forgotten – Mi inglés está un poco olvidado.
My Spanish is a little forgotten – Mi español está un poco olvidado.
If you want to forget in Spanish, how else can you use ‘olvidar’ or ‘olvidarse’?
Tips 100: How to Diversify your Spanish Skills by Solving Problems
May 11, 2015
Last year, when I was living in Madrid, I was chatting to a friend about a very addictive chocolate biscuit we have in Australia. She said she would love to try them. Immediately after uttering those words, we both thought—Madrid is a big city, we could find them here, right?
What else was I going to say—challenge accepted!
The search started by simply googling ‘galletas’ in Madrid. After some digital searching, I did some searching by foot. I had a list of shops in mind that I wanted to try. I tried the big department stores and smaller boutique type chocolate shops. I spoke to a number of shop owners. Each conversation edging me one step closer to my goal.
Long story short, after 2 days of looking, I was successful! In the end, I found what I was looking for.
In order to find what I was looking for, I needed to throw away my English and start doing some detective work in Spanish.
I knew I couldn’t find what I was looking for by simply googling it in English. I had to step outside my usual method of finding things to see if I can leverage my Spanish to solve the problem.
This week for the mindset podcast, I challenge you to see if you can solve a problem using your Spanish.
If you are living in a Spanish speaking country, the challenge could be:
Looking for a cheap restaurant to eat. If you are in Spain try this line “bueno, bonito, barato” when asking about a place to find cheap quality food.
Maybe you want to find a place to buy a good pair of jeans.
You could be looking to find something from home—like the chocolate biscuits I was looking for.
Something as simple as finding a local SIM card for your phone.
Or simply looking for the meaning of a new word in Spanish that you haven’t seen before.
If you are at home or in an English speaking country, you could try to:
Look up the typical food in a country you are interested in, for example, Peru, but when you are doing the google search, do it in Spanish. Search for something like “la comida de Perú”.
If you are planning a trip to Mexico you could try looking up “los mejores lugares turisticos para visitar en México”.
There are also other problems that you could try to solve. In today’s podcast, I also mentioned some Spanish expressions. The challenge is to discover their meaning with English.
This week we celebrate the 100th episode of the podcast. The episode is also being released almost exactly a year since the first episode.
To celebrate the milestone, I’m running a competition this week. I’m going to give away 3 Spanish to Spanish dictionaries. If you want to enter the competition you have be on the Real Fast Spanish subscribers list.
Listen to today’s podcast for all of the details for the competition.
How else can you use your Spanish to solve a problem?
Tips 099: Transitive vs Intransitive Verbs In Spanish
May 07, 2015
The good thing about transitive and intransitive verbs in Spanish is most English students tend to get them right when guessing.
The bad thing is we don’t really learn about this idea in school. But, it helps if you want to understand certain phrases and grammar structures in Spanish. And of course, there is the odd exception to the rule.
Verbs in English can be grouped into transitive only, intransitive only or both. There are some verbs like “to have” that are transitive only, verbs like “to go” that are intransitive only and verbs like “to read” than can be both transitive and intransitive depending on the sentence.
In general, when you translate from English to Spanish, the verbs that are transitive only are still transitive only and similarly with intransitive and the verbs that are both. The challenge is the few rare exceptions. But, in most cases you want need to remember these.
Listen to today’s podcast to learn how to use transitive and intransitive verbs in Spanish. And if you have any questions, you can leave them below.
This month you can access the Real Fast Spanish School training platform. In the school you will be able to access every course at Real Fast Spanish all in one place. You will now be able to access a complete structured set of training designed to help you reach a conversation level of Spanish using the principles of conversation hacking. You can sign up for the school here: Real Fast Spanish School.
Examples from the episode:
I have a new car – Tengo un coche nuevo.
I have a girlfriend – Tengo una novia.
I want world peace – Quiero la paz mundial.
I want to travel – Quiero viajar.
I love you a lot – Te quiero mucho.
I go to school – Voy a la escuela.
I arrive late – Llego tarde.
I arrive early – Llego pronto.
I arrived late to the concert – Llegué tarde al concierto.
I read a lot – Leo mucho.
I read slowly – Leo despacio.
I’m reading this book – Estoy leyendo este libro.
She practices often – Ella practica a menudo.
She practices her Spanish – Ell practica su Español.
I slept for an hour – Dormí durante una hora.
In english you can’t sleep something.
He put his kids to bed – Él durmió a sus niños a la cama.
What other Spanish transitive or intransitive verbs do you know?
Tips 098: How to Improve Your Memory – The Most Important Principle
May 04, 2015
Memory is important for language learning. That’s pretty obvious. But how can you improve your memory?
It turns out there are a number of simple tactics to can use to boost your memory. But underlying all tactics for an improved memory is one very important principle.
The defining principle for all memory tactics is … importance.
If you want to memorise something, it needs to be important to you. More specifically it needs to be important to your brain. Put simply, if your brain thinks something is important it remembers it.
This principle for improving your memory then governs many tactics for memory recall such as mnemonics, acronyms, image association and memory palaces.
In a recent podcast I talked about using the emotion in music to aid in learning new Spanish vocabulary. The idea is simple—in your life you are more likely to remember days of high emotion such as birthday’s, weddings and funerals than low emotion such as last Tuesday. You can then use this idea to make Spanish vocabulary more memorable such as when it used in the lyrics of an emotional song.
In today’s podcast, I talk about a different tactic. I tell a story about a time I memorised 121 digits of Pi for a friends birthday. Not only did I memorise 121 digits of Pi but I did it in 4 hours and on the day I need to perform the recital.
You will see how I used the principle of importance to my advantage for the memory challenge.
Check out today’s podcast to hear the story. At the end of the episode I set you a challenge. The challenge is to use the principle of important to give your memory a boost.
Tips 097: Common Spanish Verbs – 7 Uses for the Word “Llegar”
Apr 30, 2015
In this week’s theory podcast we take a close look at the verb “llegar”.
“Llegar” is a common Spanish verb and generally gets used correctly by native English students but there are more ways to use this verb than what you may expect.
In today’s podcast I have broken out the use of “llegar” into two categories: literal and figurative use of the idea.
What do I mean? Well, “llegar” means to arrive, you can, therefore, use it when literally arriving at a destination or at a given time. But, you can also use “llegar” when arriving at a conclusion, an agreement, a deal or to become something.
Check out today’s podcast for all of the examples for the use of “llegar” and leave a comment below if you have any questions or you know some other uses of “llegar” and want to add to the conversation.
Also, in today’s tip, I make a big announcement. I have changed the way the courses are offered at Real Fast Spanish. Now all of the courses are in one place. This month, I’m launching the Real Fast Spanish School. The school will be an online membership and when you sign up you will have access to everything! This means you will have access to every course produced at Real Fast Spanish.
Now you don’t have to choose between courses as you will have access to everything. Instead, you need to decide if you would like a curriculum based on the principles discussed at Real Fast Spanish and in the podcast. If you are interested, you can sign up for the school here: Real Fast Spanish School.
Tips 096: How to Overcome Fear and Put Yourself Out There with Kris Broholm (Part 2 of 2)
Apr 27, 2015
This podcast episode is part 2 of a two part interview that I recently did with Kris Broholm.
Kris is running his own language learning podcast called The Actual Fluency Podcast. He was great fun to speak to and has a lot of experience learning languages as well as talking about them. His advice on finding your process for building your second language as well as dealing with some of the mental challenges that pop up along the journey is invaluable.
If you haven’t listened to part 1 of the interview then go back and start first with part 1 here.
In this second part of the interview we cover:
Some of the experiences that you can look forward to if you can achieve a high level in a second language.
How the discipline of learning a language can be transferred to anything life such as paying down debt, getting fit or developing other skills.
We talk about how to strategic use breaks in your language learning process to allow what you have learnt to sink in.
We discuss whether there needs to be a ‘necessary evil’ or grind that may need to go into learning a language. And why looking for ‘fun’ activities may not always be the best advice.
Kris covers his views on Zen thinking to keep his emotions at bay and how you can do the same with your language learning.
Is there one thing that he has learnt from interviewing lots of high level polyglots in his language learning podcast.
What does success mean for Kris in language learning. When I ask Kris this question I recommended that you ask the question for yourself and come up with your answer.
Tips 095: How to Make a Phone Call in Spanish
Apr 23, 2015
Answering the phone is an everyday occurrence. But the rules of phone etiquette in English don’t exactly work in another language.
When you make a phone call in Spanish, the language you tend to use is more direct. If you translate literally to English it may feel rude. But, it isn’t for a Spanish person.
In today’s Spanish podcast we look at the typical phrases that are used to answer a phone call, to pass the phone to someone else, the kinds of questions you should ask and how to end a conversation.
My good friend Laura joins the podcast again for another week to assist with the Spanish phone call role-play. Laura, actually plays the role of her mum and herself to demonstrate passing the phone from one person to another.
The phone call role-play is about a plan to organise an evening at the movies and it occurs between friends.
At the start of theory podcast we also cover some of the other phrases that get used in more formal contexts such as answering the phone in a business setting.
If you are having trouble understanding the Spanish section of the podcast or if you would like to get more out of the podcasts and take your Spanish to next level you can get access to the Spanish podcast transcripts and English translations here.
Examples from the episode:
Tell me – Dime. (use only if you know who is calling)
Yes – ¿Sí? (most common)
Tell me – ¿Diga? o ¿Dígame? (most formal)
I will pass you to her – Te la paso.
It is passed – Se pone.
Bowling – Bolera.
Shall we go the day after tomorrow? (Past tomorrow) – ¿Vamos pasado mañana?
They say – Dicen.
Okay a kiss – Vale un beso. (Used with friends)
Until later – Hasta luego. (Used with friends)
Goodbye – Adiós. (Formal)
Right, okay – Venga, vale.
Let’s go – Vamos.
Okay, come on, let’s go – Venga, vale, vamos.
What else do you know about phone etiquette in Spanish?
Tips 094: How to Overcome Fear and Put Yourself Out There with Kris Broholm (Part 1 of 2)
Apr 20, 2015
This week we welcome Kris Broholm to the podcast to discuss language learning mindset.
Kris is running a language learning podcast called Actual Fluency. Each week he invites on an ‘expert’ language learner—typically a polyglot who can speak a number of languages. He then attempts to find out what is working for them and their best tips for effective language learning. He also discusses and debates some of the most common issues facing language learners.
In today’s podcast, I brought Kris on to the podcast to share his story and what he is doing at Actual Fluency. I invited Kris on to Real Fast Spanish because I know how hard it is to run a language learning podcast and so I wanted to show my support for his work.
Kris has a lot to share on language learning and was extremely generous with what he has to share.
The interview went for over an hour and so I have decided to break the interview into two episodes. The second part of the interview will be released next monday.
In this first part of the interview we cover:
Why Denmark ranks highly as one of the world’s happiest countries outside of the Spanish countries of South America.
What does the title ‘Actual Fluency’ mean to Kris and how he choose the title.
How to frame your goals in language learning but choosing goals that are suited to you.
How Kris found inspiration in language learning and what is helping him stay motivated.
What you can do to overcome fear and that awkward feeling of making mistakes by putting yourself out there.
How building the discipline of language learning is a skill that can be easily transferred to other areas of your life.
Tips 093: What to See and Do in Valencia
Apr 16, 2015
Valencia is an amazing city. It home to delicious food, a good climate, great people and some impressive modern architecture.
In this week’s Spanish podcast episode we talk about what to see and do in Valencia from a local’s perspective.
In this podcast, we introduce a new guest, Laura Del Busto Bel. Laura is a good friend of mine. She is from Valencia. So I wanted to invite her onto the podcast to talk about Valencia from her point of view.
We start off with a Spanish pronunciation lesson by practising how to say Laura’s name—it’s not easy!
Then we talk a little about her background including what she studied, where she used to work and what she is doing in Australia.
We then talk about Valencia. We cover the weather, the people, things to see and do and of course the food!
As I usually do with this style of podcast, we will introduce some of the harder vocabulary at the start of the podcast to help prepare you for the 10-minute Spanish conversation.
If you are having trouble understanding the Spanish section of the podcast or if you would like to get more out of the podcasts and take your Spanish to next level you can get access to the Spanish podcast transcripts and English translations here.
Examples from the episode:
Teaching / Schoolteaching – Magisterio.
What is Valencia like? – ¿Cómo es Valencia?
Humidity – Humedad.
Humid – Húmedo.
In Valencia there is a lot of humidity because the weather is humid – En Valencia hay mucha humedad porque el tiempo es húmedo.
Valencia is well known for… – Valencia es muy conocida por…
Valencia is famous for… – Valencia es muy famosa por…
Seafood – Marisco.
Rabbit – Conejo.
Chicken – Pollo.
Do you prefer the paella with meat or the paella with seafood – Prefieres la de carne o la de marisco?
Tips 091: Possessive Pronouns in Spanish
Apr 09, 2015
Possessive pronouns in Spanish are generally straightforward except for one small detail.
The detail is about knowing whether or not you need to use the definite articles with the possessive pronouns.
In today’s theoretical Spanish podcast, we talk about how to use possessive adjectives in Spanish. Then we talk about how use the possessive pronouns in Spanish. And finally we cover the issue of whether or not you need to use the definite articles.
If you have any questions from today’s podcast then you can leave a comment below or sign up for the conversation hacking guide and ask me a question directly.
Possessive Adjectives in Spanish:
My – Mi.
Your (informal) – Tu.
Your (formal), his, her – Su.
Our – Nuestro.
Your (plural) – Vuestro.
Possessive Pronouns in Spanish:
Mine – El mío / La mía / Los míos / Las mías.
Yours (informal) – El tuyo / La tuya / Los tuyos / Las tuyas.
Yours (formal), his, hers – El suyo / La suya / Los suyos / Las suyas.
Ours – El nuestro / La nuestra / Los nuestros / Las nuestras.
Yours (informal plural) – El vuestro / La vuestra / Los vuestros / Las vuestras.
Yours (formal), theirs – El suyo / La suya / Los suyos / Las suyas.
Examples from today’s podcast:
It is my house – Es mi casa.
It is your house – Es tu casa.
My house is your house (informal) – Mi casa es tu casa.
My house is your house (formal) – Mi casa es su casa.
In our country we speak very fast – En nuestro pais hablamos muy rápido.
In our country they speak very fast (passive) – En mi país se habla muy rápido.
Do they eat a lot in your city? – ¿Se come mucho en vuestra ciudad?
Do they eat a lot of seafood in your city? – ¿Se come mucho marisco en vuestra ciudad?
My head hurts, I have a headache – Me duele la cabeza.
Does your arm hurt – ¿Te duele el brazo?
This book is mine – Este libro es mío.
This book is mine – Este libro es el mío.
Whose book is this? – ¿De quién es este libro?
This book is mine – Este libro es mío.
This book is hers – Este libro es suyo.
This book is hers – Este libro es de ella.
This book is his – Este libro es de él.
These books are mine – Estos libros son míos.
This book is mine and that book is yours – Este libro es el mío y ese libro es el tuyo.
Este libro es mío – This book is mine.
Este libro es el mío – This book is the one that is mine.
My friend and your friend still aren’t talking to each other – Mi amiga y la tuya todavía no se hablan.
Mi house is small. His is big. – Mi casa es pequeña. La suya es grande.
Mine is small as well – La mía es pequeña también.
Their comments were interesting – Sus comentarios fueron interesantes.
Ours were boring – Los nuestros fueron aburridos.
How else can you use possessive pronouns in Spanish?
Tips 090: Olly Richards on Speaking Spanish Sooner (Part 1 of 2)
Apr 06, 2015
This week we welcome Olly Richards to the podcast. Olly can speak 7 languages and knows a lot about the process of acquiring foreign languages. In this mindset podcast, Olly shares some of his best tips for developing a successful language learning process.
Olly runs the popular blog I Will Teach You A Language. His website offers practical tips and advice for learning foreign languages and he regularly publishes helpful articles and videos.
It was great speaking with Olly this week. He was extremely generous with his time and I am very grateful to have him on the show.
The interview went for over an hour, so I have broken the interview into two separate episodes. Part 2 will be realised next monday.
In the interview we cover:
Olly’s experiences with languages at school and how his poor start with languages didn’t affect his long term success.
How a break up with an ex-girlfriend pushed him into language learning. And how, at the time, language learning was an escape from loneliness.
How Olly finally got his proper start in languages with French on the streets of Paris.
Olly’s experiences with French, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish and Arabic.
Olly talks about how he was first very overwhelmed when trying to pick up a foreign language. He managed to get a job in Paris despite generally not understanding what his boss was saying.
He talked about what he did to overcome the feeling of overwhelm.
He talks about how for 3 years living in Japan he wasn’t able to converse but realised what it actually took to get his Japanese to improve quickly and reach a conversational level.
He talks about how the key to language learning is creating the ideal conditions to learn a language.
He also suggests that creating the ideal conditions doesn’t necessarily mean living in a country that speaks your target language. He, in fact, dispels the myth that you have to live in the country if you want to learn quickly and suggests that there are actually real advantages to learning at home.
Tips 089: 4 Ways to Translate “Even” from English to Spanish
Apr 03, 2015
In today’s theoretical podcast, we will take a closer look at some of the different ways the word “even” can be translated from English to Spanish.
When you are listening to today’s podcast, have a think about the wider idea of being able to change an idea around so it can be translated in a different way. For example, if you once knew the Spanish translations for “not even”, but you can remember it, can you change the sentence around in English so you don’t have to translate “not even” and instead convey the original idea in a slightly different way?
Examples from today’s podcast:
This story is even more interesting than the last – Esta historia es aún más interesante que la última.
This story is even more interesting than the last – Esta historia es todavía más interesante que la última.
This story is the most interesting – Esta historia es la más interesante.
Even the most intelligent make mistakes from time to time – Aun los más listos se equivocan de vez en cuando.
Even the most intelligent make mistakes from time to time – Incluso los más listos se equivocan de vez en cuando.
It was very cold yesterday even though we are in the middle of summer – Ayer hizo frío aunque estamos a mitad del verano.
It was very cold yesterday despite that we are in the middle of summer – Ayer hizo frío a pesar de que todavía estamos a mitad del verano.
I decided to go to the market even though it was raining – Decidí ir al mercado aunque estaba lloviendo.
I decided to go to the shops despite that it was raining – Decidí ir a la tienda a pesar de que estaba lloviendo.
It was raining, even like that, I decided to go to the supermarket – Estaba lloviendo, y aún así, fui al supermercado.
Everybody enjoyed the movie, even my grandma. – Todo el mundo disfrutó la película, incluso a mi abuela.
Even after finishing a big meal I could still eat more – Incluso después de una gran comida podría comer más.
Even after finishing a big meal I could still eat more – Hasta después de una gran comida podría comer más.
Even after finishing a big meal I could still eat more – Aun después de una gran comida podría comer más.
The food was so disgusting even the dog wouldn’t eat it – La comida era tan asquerosa que ni siquiera el perro comía.
The music was so bad that even the drunkest person wasn’t dancing – La música era tan mala que ni siquiera el más borracho bailaba.
How else can you translate “even” from English to Spanish?
Tips 088: How to Make Your Spanish Conversations Less Awkward
Mar 30, 2015
What are your conversations like in Spanish? Do they flow? or do they stall?
Being a great conversationalist in your first language doesn’t come easily—so how then can you be great in your second language?
Learning how to have flowing conversations isn’t something that can be learnt overnight. It takes years of practice. But, it is something you should always be striving to improve.
Having said that, there are some tips and tactics that you can use to give you conversations an instant boost.
In today’s podcast I talk about a technique that comes straight out of my conversation hacking course—Zero To Conversational which you can access in the Real Fast Spanish School.
In Zero To Conversational, I break down the key elements of taking your Spanish from zero to conversational in the most effective way. This includes using techniques that encourage Spanish conversations to grow and develop.
The technique I introduce in today’s podcast is called “Reverse and Add”. The reverse and add technique does two things:
It helps a conversation to grow by avoiding road blocks.
It helps you get used to spanish word order and remember verb conjugations.
Try today’s technique for yourself. Use the “Reverse and Add” technique in a few Spanish conversations this week and let me know how it worked for you.
Examples from this episode:
Did I tell you that I went to the cinema on the weekend? – ¿Te he dicho que fui al cine el fin de semana?
Yes you told me that you went to the cinema on the weekend. – Si me has dicho que fuiste al cine el fin de semana.
Yes, you did tell me that you went to the cinema on the weekend and told me you were going to see Almodóvar’s latest film. Did you like it? – Sí me has dicho que fuiste al cine el fin de semana y me dijo que ibas a ver la última película de Almodóvar, ¿te gustó?
What movie did you see? – ¿Qué película viste?
Do you realize it’s my birthday today? – ¿Te das cuenta de que es mi cumpleaños hoy?
Yes, I realize it’s your birthday today. How are you going to celebrate it? – Sí me doy cuenta de que es tu cumpleaños hoy. ¿Cómo vas a celebrarlo?
How else can you use the “Reverse and Add” technique to improve your Spanish conversations?
Tips 087: Spanish Prepositions of Position (Part 2 of 2)
Mar 26, 2015
In this podcast episode you will learn the second half of the prepositions of position. This episode is part 2 of a two part series and follows on from the last theoretical episode.
In last week’s theory episode we looked at how to say above and under as well out or outside and in or inside in Spanish.
This week we are looking at how to say besides, behind, in front of, close, far and in between.
Make sure you choose a few examples from today’s tip and use them with a fellow Spanish student, a teacher or a spanish native.
Examples for today:
The Other Side of the Bed – El otro lado de la cama (movie Rom-Com).
My apartment is next to a disco (or nightclub) – Mi piso está al lado de una discoteca.
On one hand the fried chips are delicious, on the other hand they aren’t healthy – Por un lado patatas fritas son muy ricas, por otro lado no son saludables.
After the concert we went to a bar – Tras el concierto fuimos a un bar.
After the concert we went to a bar – Después del concierto fuimos a un bar.
Behind the clouds is the sun – Tras las nubes está el sol.
The sun is behind the clouds – El sol está detrás de las nubes.
The parking is behind the building – El aparcamiento está detrás del edificio.
I have a garden out back, I have a back garden – Tengo un jardín atrás.
I can’t see it because it is hidden behind – No lo puedo ver porque está escondido atrás.
I’m not going to say anything in front of her – No voy a decir nada delante de ella.
He took one step forward and two steps back – Él dio un paso adelante y dos pasos atrás.
There is a fountain in front of the house – Hay una fuente en el frente de la casa.
There is a fountain in front of the house – Hay una fuente en frente de la casa.
There is a fountain in front of the house – Hay una fuente enfrente de la casa.
That man is the head of the company – Ese hombre está al frente de la empresa.
The market is close to my house – El mercado está cerca de mi casa.
The airport is far from here – El aeropuerto está lejos de aquí.
The airport is far from here? – ¿El aeropuerto está lejos de aquí?
There is a desert between the two towns – Hay un desierto entre los dos pueblos.
How else can you use these prepositions of position in a sentence?
Ruan is an extremely confident person, even if he doesn’t like to admit it. As long as I have known him, he has had the ability to start a conversation with a complete stranger. This includes doing so in a language other than this first—regardless of his skill level.
In this part of the interview:
I ask Ruan where does his confidence come from?
How can other language students find confidence, even if they are starting out.
What is a good target to set yourself for the number of words you should learn each day.
How to find time for learning language.
How to improve your pronunciation.
Finding the high value parts of the language.
What is the biggest lesson for you in this part of the interview?
Tips 085: Spanish Prepositions of Position (Part 1 of 2)
Mar 19, 2015
Prepositions are hard. Why? Because prepositions rarely translate well between languages. And their use often doesn’t follow a nice set of rules.
For example, when is something below and when is it underneath? How would you explain the difference? What about the difference between out and outside—could you tell a foreigner when they should use these two words?
In this week’s theoretical episode of the podcast I take a look at prepositions. I’m going to specifically look at prepositions of position. And I’m going to dedicate two episodes to prepositions of position. Why? Because they are hard and there are lot of them.
In tip 23 we looked at prepositions of movement. Prepositions of movement are also useful prepositions and worth a review.
But for this week we will focus prepositions such as on, above, below, in and out. In next week’s episode I will focus on in front of, behind and beside.
Examples for today:
We are going outside for some fresh air – Vamos afuera a tomar el aire.
We’re going to meet outside the ground – Vamos a quedar afuera del campo.
I don’t like being inside, I prefer to be outdoors – No me gusta estar dentro, prefiero estar fuera.
Have you left the meat out of the fridge – ¿Has dejado la carne fuera de la nevera?
He went inside – Él fue adentro.
It is very noisy here, I’m going inside to speak – Hace mucho ruido aquí, me voy adentro a hablar.
In a few days she will return – Dentro de unos días ella volverá.
He was never in the popular group – Nunca estaba dentro del grupo popular.
There are lots of fish below the waves – Hay muchos peces bajo las olas.
I have a wine cellar below – Tengo una bodega abajo.
My son likes to hide below the table – A mi hijo le gusta esconderse debajo de la mesa.
The keys are on the table – Las llaves están sobre la mesa.
The keys are on the table – Las llaves están encima de la mesa.
The keys are on the table – Las llaves están en la mesa.
The plane flies over land – El avión vuela por encima de la tierra.
She lives upstairs (above) – Ella vive arriba.
How would you now use these prepositions of position in context?
Tips 084: How to Build Confidence with Ruan De Witt (Part 1 of 2)
Mar 16, 2015
In 2005, Ruan De Witt was riding his bicycle on a bridge in France. A passing car caused him to fall from the bridge onto the busy highway below. He broke his pelvis, hands, elbow and back. He survived the fall. He then spent three months in a French hospital re-learning how to walk.
Three years later he asked me to join him to climb the worlds highest free-standing mountain—Mt Kilimanjaro. The trip changed both of us. But had a huge impact on me because I decided upon my return to Australia I had to start my own language learning adventure in Spanish.
The trip to Africa with Ruan in 2008 was an amazing experience. I learnt a lot about myself including our ability to achieve any goal when quitting is not an option.
I also discovered that I may have missed a whole section of my education by not learning a second language.
Ruan has accomplished a lot when it comes to language learning. He has reached a very high level in French, English and Afrikaans. He can also communicate in Dutch, Romanian, Italian and German.
Today, I’m very excited to invite Ruan to be the next guest on the Real Fast Spanish Tips podcast. I’m glad that he agreed to come on to the podcast to talk about his experiences in language learning because he has a lot to share.
In the interview for this week’s mindset episode we cover:
Ruan’s accident in France and what it took to come back to full health.
Ruan’s process for language learning.
Why Ruan inspired me to start learning Spanish and go on to start Real Fast Spanish.
How to find motivation.
How to build confidence in language learning even if you are just starting out.
How you can find extra time for language learning.
How you should set goals when it comes to learning other languages.
How Ruan has overcome the challenge of a bad memory and how you can build language skills despite a bad memory.
What to do if you are worried about making mistakes.
A number of his experiences and adventures in his language journey.
It was great speaking to Ruan this week. He has a lot of useful actionable advice as well as a great story that you can use to help keep you motivated.
What advice can you take from the interview with Ruan to help improve your language skills?
Tips 083: Tratar – How to Treat this Helpful Spanish Verb
Mar 12, 2015
In this week’s theoretical Spanish podcast we will explore the verb ‘tratar‘.
‘Tratar‘ can be confusing because of one particular meaning that is difficult to translate to English. But this difficult translation is very useful for asking what something is about.
There are five forms of tratar that I cover in today’s podcast:
Tratar – This is used for how you treat something or someone.
Tratar con – This can describe how someone is dealing with someone or something.
Tratar de – This can be used for attempting to do something.
Tratar de – In a different context to the previous use—this means to be about.
Tratarse de – Also means ‘to be about’—but you can use specifically stating the subject of the sentence.
Have a listen to today’s podcast and then if you can think of other ways to use this common Spanish verb, leave a comment below.
Previous podcast episodes on common Spanish verbs:
Tips 082: Why you Need to Overcome your Fears with Amy Whitney
Mar 09, 2015
This week Amy Whitney is on the podcast. Her story beautifully captures the idea that language learning is hard but truly worth it.
Amy has been a regular listener of the Real Fast Spanish Tips podcast for a quite some time. We first connected last year and it has been great hearing about her journey in language learning.
Amy is based in British Columbia, Canada. She has been learning Spanish for 14 years. And she has achieved a high level of Spanish.
I wanted to invite Amy on to the podcast to discuss her experiences with learning Spanish and listening to podcast.
I asked Amy to speak about her journey with the language. I wanted her to share some of the pain points she has experienced. As well as some of the highs that come with being able to speak a second language.
In the interview we explore:
How she got her start in Spanish.
Why she decided Spanish was the language for her.
Her experiences with the Real Fast Spanish Tips podcast.
What it feels like to make mistakes.
Her advice for anybody who is feeling insecure about getting things wrong.
We discuss her experiences traveling in South America.
What to do about local dialects.
And why it is all worth it.
It was great talking to Amy this week. Her experiences are similar to many other language learners that I have spoken to. We all feel anxiety about making mistakes. We all feel overwhelmed at some point—particularly on a first trip to a country that doesn’t speak english.
But in the end, we all get to enjoy the fruits of our labor when we start to make real connections with people that it would have been impossible to connect with before the hard work.
Amy has also started a website dedicated to helping foreign students learn english. If you want to contact Amy or offer some support, you can get in touch with her here:
Tips 081: 3 Spanish Phrases with the Verb ‘Caer’
Mar 05, 2015
In this week’s podcast tip we are going to look at the verb ‘caer’. We will look at the differences between ‘caer’ and ‘caerse’ and give a few spanish phrases using this common verb.
What you will discover in this tip is that ‘caer’ means so much more than ‘to fall’.
‘Caer’ does get used in a very similar way to the way we use fall in english. We use fall to refer to dates, snow and tripping over. These all translate well to Spanish.
But what doesn’t translate well from Spanish to English is how people “fall well” to each other. Have a listen to this week’s podcast to understand this bizarre phrase used to describes how you feel about other people. Or how they feel about you.
Examples from today’s podcast:
To fall – Caer.
I just fell over in the street – Me acabo de caer en la calle.
The snow is falling – La nieve está cayendo.
This year my birthday falls on a Friday – Este año mi cumpleaños cae en viernes.
To fall into a trap – Caer en la trampa.
The thieves fell for the trap – Los ladrones cayeron en la trampa.
To fall well / bad – Caer bien / mal.
I like you – Me caes bien.
I really like your friend – Tu amigo me cae muy bien.
I don’t like your friend – Tu amigo no me cae bien.
I don’t like your friend – Tu amigo me cae mal.
You have to go to the doctor – Tienes que ir al médico.
It’s just that I don’t like doctors – Es que no me caen bien los médicos.
It’s just that I don’t like doctors – Es que me caen mal los médicos.
To fall on deaf ears – Caer en saco roto.
Spanish expression in this week’s episode:
Everything you are going to say to me will fall on deaf ears – Todo lo que vas a decirme caerá en saco roto.
How else could you use the verb ‘caer’ in a conversation?
Tips 080: How to Create a Strong Connection to New Spanish Vocabulary
Mar 02, 2015
One way to increase your rate of learning spanish is to make deeper connections to new spanish vocabulary.
If you can create a strong new memory every time you discover a new word in Spanish your rate of learning would increase.
How then can you make stronger connections to new vocabulary?
It’s starts with a quick look at how we evolved. In this week’s mindset podcast, I talk about how evolution has given us one tool for making deep and longer lasting memories.
This episode was inspired by an old post. In that post I talked about how our emotions can be useful when it comes to making new memories.
Can you remember what you did last friday? How about what you were doing 3 tuesdays ago?
What you may find is that if the day wasn’t associated with a particularly strong emotion you will forget what happened. If, in contrast, you think back to an emotional day like a holiday, a wedding or a birthday you will be able to remember that day more clearly.
You can then take this idea and apply it to the language learning process. What you have to do is find a good way to link new spanish vocabulary to your emotions.
There are a number of ways to do this. But one way, that most students would find easy, is listening to music. If you can find a Spanish song that moves you, then you can learn the lyrics to the song and combine the emotion of the song with the new vocabulary.
I have provided 6 songs that have moved me in some way. Some songs make me sad, some happy, some are just really fun.
Have a listen to these songs to start. Then if you find the method effective and enjoyable look for other songs to practice with.
“Music may be the activity that prepared our pre-human ancestors for speech communication and for the very cognitive, representational flexibility necessary to become humans.” ― Daniel J. Levitin
What other Spanish music do you like? What other ways can you strengthen the memory of new spanish vocabulary?
Tips 079: Quedar vs Quedarse – How to Use this Handy Spanish Verb
Feb 26, 2015
Understanding the differences between verbs such as quedar vs quedarse is a constant challenge for Spanish students.
Not only is ‘quedar’ versatile for its use in different contexts, but it changes meaning when it becomes reflexive.
This week’s theory podcast is inspired by one of the Real Fast Spanish School Members. The question came after the last theory podcast on the uses of ‘echar‘.
Today we are going to make a few comparisons for quedar vs quedarse. This verb is another verb that has a number of different meanings depending on the context. But we are going to look at a few of the most common contexts. We are also going to explore how the meaning of the verb changes when it becomes reflexive.
Examples from today’s podcast:
To remain / be left with / to meet up – Quedar.
To stay (in one place) – Quedarse.
Is there any rice left? – ¿Queda arroz?
No there is no rice left – No, no queda arroz.
I don’t have any milk left – No me queda leche.
I don’t like how I’m left with this haircut – No me gusta cómo me ha quedado el corte de pelo.
What time are we going to meet? – ¿A que hora vamos a quedar?
Normally I meet with my parents twice a month – Normalmente quedo con mis padres dos veces al mes.
I met up with my best friend this week – He quedado con mi mejor amigo esta semana.
No, I’m staying here – No, me quedo aquí.
How long are you going to stay? – ¿Cuánto tiempo te vas a quedar?
I have to stay here for 3 hours – Tengo que quedarme durante 3 horas.
I was left flipped out (freaked out) – Me he quedado flipado.
My boss started yelling at me and I was left flipped out (or freaked out) – Mi jefe ha empezado a gritarme y me he quedado flipado.
Tips 078: How to Find More Time for Your Spanish
Feb 23, 2015
There is never enough time. Well, at least, it feels that way.
Despite how busy you feel, we all have the same 24 hours in a day. Yet some still manage to get so much more done. How?
For as long as I can remember I have had a strange relationship with time. I often curse at the clock while I’m running late. But then there are other times when I’m staring at the time, agonizing as the slowly passing minutes feel like days.
My relationship with time has meant I spend a lot of time thinking about time. Which seems maybe like a waste of time? But who knows?
How do you feel about time? Do you feel like you have enough?
Do you need more? Or more importantly could you use the time you have available more effectively?
A complaint that I often hear is “I don’t have enough time.” People tell me that they want to learn a language but could never find the time.
If I was being honest, I feel like this too. But, we all see the same sun rise and sunset everyday yet there are a select few that make is seem that they have two or more days to our one.
So what separates the people that can do more with less?
For anybody facing problems with time, it is rare that the lack of time is the actual problem. Instead, the actual problem is how they think about time.
In today’s mindset podcast, I’m going to talk about how I think about time. What the time spent thinking about time has brought me. What you can do to re-think how you think about time. And with that change in mindset how you can get more out of the time you have.
Often students don’t think about time in an empowering way. Some students talk about time in a way that makes them sound and feel helpless.
The language you use matters. With this episode I encourage you to change the language you use around time. How you talk about it. How you describe it and how you make excuses about it.
“Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson.
“Time is the longest distance between two places.” ― Tennessee Williams.
How can you change your language around time and get more out of the time you have?
Tips 077: Common Spanish Verbs – 6 Uses for the Word “Echar”
Feb 19, 2015
Sometimes mastery of a foreign language is less about how many words you know and more about how many words you know well.
Your job as a language student is not to cram as much into your memory bank as possible but to focus on learning the right things. And learning them well.
This idea of knowing the right things applies to today’s podcast. In today’s podcast I am going to take a close look at one spanish word. This podcast is similar to a recent podcast on the word ‘dar’.
The word for today is ‘echar’. Similar to the episode on ‘dar’—I’m going to focus on ‘echar’ because it is a common spanish verb.
If you want to learn Spanish effectively, it is much better to know 100 common words really well than 1000 words poorly. Or worse—100 uncommon words.
Examples from today’s podcast:
To throw – echar.
They threw me out on to the street (They fired me) – Me echaron a la calle.
Take a look – Echar un ojo.
Remember to keep an eye on the oven – Recuerde que echarle un ojo en el horno.
To lend a hand – Echar una mano.
Can you lend me a hand – ¿Me puedes echar una mano?
To burst into tears – Echarse a llorar.
I was so upset that I burst into tears – Yo estaba tan molesto que me eché a llorar.
To pass the blame (To pass the buck) – Echar la culpa.
They blamed me for everything – Me echaron la culpa de todo.
Tips 076: Learning Spanish Vocabulary – A Deliberate vs. Emergent Strategy
Feb 16, 2015
Learning Spanish vocabulary or the vocabulary of any language is a big task. Put simply—it takes focused effort overtime.
But there are ways to increase the effectiveness of your vocabulary learning process.
In this week’s mindset podcast, I introduce an idea called deliberate versus emergent strategy for vocabulary acquisition.
The idea is that you learn vocabulary through two basic approaches:
Words you learn deliberately and,
Words you learn by accident.
What do I mean by learn by accident? As you practice, you will stumble across new words in a random way.
When you listen to podcasts or read newspaper articles or catch up with Spanish friends you will be exposed to lots of opportunities to discover new words. Those new words will likely be very different to another Spanish student practicing in a similar way to you.
Imagine two Spanish students pick up a Spanish newspaper. They both choose an article on a topic they like. Hopefully they choose different articles. They then spend an hour reading and looking up the words they discover in the articles.
After an hour both students will have learned new words. It is very likely the words will be pretty different. And, they will be words that the two students did not plan to learn before they started reading. This is an example of what I call emergent vocabulary acquisition.
On the other side, a deliberate vocabulary learning strategy is a process where you choose a set of new words to learn deliberately. You make vocabulary lists and you schedule time to sit down to learn these planned sets of words.
All Spanish students are going to learn vocabulary through one of these two methods.
In addition, you need both methods to be successful at acquiring a rich Spanish vocabulary in the long run.
But, if you want to be more effective—speak Spanish faster, you should focus on how you go about your deliberate efforts.
The strategy you have the most control over is the deliberate strategy. The emergent strategy is by its nature is random.
In today’s podcast, I will talk about these two methods and how you can refine your deliberate strategy for learning vocabulary more effectively.
Quote from the episode:
“Effectiveness — often even survival — does not depend solely on how much effort we expend, but on whether or not the effort we expend is in the right jungle.” – Stephen Covey.
What are your deliberate and emergent strategies for learning Spanish vocabulary?
Tips 075: The 4 Past Spanish Translations of ‘Was’
Feb 12, 2015
One long term ongoing test for english students learning Spanish is the difference between ‘ser’ and ‘estar’. For me these two words remind me of studying physics—as you move up the levels they keep telling you to forget the previous rules you have already learned.
As if these two words weren’t confusing enough, you also have to adapt to a number of different ways of talking about the past in Spanish. What this means is that the translation of ‘was’ can present a challenge.
In today’s spanish theory podcast, we are focusing on the 4 possible past spanish translations of was. I’m going to give a number of examples of each to test and reinforce your knowledge.
The four possible translations of ‘I was’ in Spanish are:
Fui – The indefinido of ser.
Era – The imperfect of ser.
Estuve – The indefinido of estar.
Estaba – The imperfect of estar.
Here is the list of conjugations of ser in the past simple:
Past simple of Ser
I was
Fui
You were
Fuiste
He / She was
Fue
We were
Fuimos
You-all were
Fuisteis
They were
Fueron
Here is the list of conjugations of ser in the past imperfect:
Imperfecto of Ser
I was
Era
You were
Eras
He / She was
Era
We were
Éramos
You-all were
erais
They were
eran
Here is the list of conjugations of estar in the past simple:
Past simple of Estar
I was
Estuve
You were
Estuviste
He / She was
Estuvo
We were
Estuvimos
You-all were
Estuvisteis
They were
Estuvieron
Here is the list of conjugations of estar in the past imperfect:
Imperfecto of Estar
I was
Estaba
You were
Estabas
He / She was
Estaba
We were
Estábamos
You-all were
Estabais
They were
Estaban
If you really want to get the most out of today’s podcast, write out a few examples of your own to help embed what you have learned in your long term memory.
Last week I went to a party and it was a lot of fun – La semana pasada fui a una fiesta y fue muy divertida.
When I was young I used to swim a lot – Cuando era pequeño nadaba mucho.
Last week I was really busy – La semana pasada estuve muy ocupado.
I met a girl last week and she was very pretty – Conocí a una chica la semana pasada y ella era muy guapa.
Yesterday, I was at home alone when all of sudden I heard a noise – Ayer, estaba solo en casa cuando de repente oí un ruido.
In 2003, despite my money problems I was able to survive. It was thanks to a good friend who helped me – En 2003, a pesar de mis problemas de dinero pude sobrevivir. Fue gracias a un buen amigo que me ayudó.
At first I thought it was really boring but later it was much better – Al principio pensé que era muy aburrido, pero más tarde fue mucho mejor.
Well, it was a new dress – Bueno, era un vestido nuevo.
I had to go to class last night. The class was at 9 – Tuve que ir a clase anoche. La clase fue a las 9.
On Sunday, I was speaking with my mum for 3 hours – El domingo estuve hablando con mi madre durante 3 horas.
Last time I saw them, they were on the table – La última vez que las vi, estaban sobre la mesa.
I remember before she found her new job, she was very unhappy – Me acuerdo que antes de encontrar su nuevo trabajo, ella estaba muy descontenta.
When were you in class? – ¿Cuando estuviste en clase?
It was tuesday – Fue el martes.
My ex-housemate was never ready on time – Mi ex-compañero de casa nunca estaba listo a tiempo.
My great grandparents were from Scotland – Mis bisabuelos eran de Escocia.
What are some other examples of the spanish translations of was?
Tips 074: How to Avoid Feeling Dumb in Spanish
Feb 09, 2015
A complaint I often hear is “I feel dumb in Spanish”. I don’t just hear this complaint from other students. I hear it in my own head as well.
It’s not a huge surprise we feel this way. But why does it bother us so much?
In this week’s mindset podcast episode, I explore the idea of feeling dumb in another language. I explore why it occurs. Why it bothers us so much. And what we can do about it.
In your target language, even if you reach mastery levels, you still aren’t going to be able to articulate yourself as well as you can in your first language. You aren’t going to be able to shape your ideas as precisely as you want to. Or express that emotion or feeling that perfectly captures the moment.
But this is natural, right?
Obviously, you aren’t going to be able to turn a phrase as well as you can in your first language. But why then, do we still feel so inept?
The strange thing is, in our first languages, whenever we feel dumb, we tend to get over it pretty quickly.
Sometimes when it isn’t a question of speaking a foreign tongue we embrace being dumb. We often approach the idea of a lack of intelligence as a badge of honor. We sometimes like to appeal or even promote our inner less articulate side.
On the other hand, some people like to use an apparent lack of intelligence as a strategy for persuasion or influence.
Yet, despite the advantages that being stupid—or thought of as stupid—poses in English we still cannot bear the thought of appearing dump in front of foreigners.
If you do encounter this thought pattern you need consider ways to push past this mindset hurdle. If you can’t, you may face a steep uphill battle on your language-learning journey.
The quote for this episode is actually a Spanish proverb:
“En boca cerrada no entran moscas” – Spanish proverb.
Literally – Flies don’t enter a closed mouth.
An equivalent in English might be: “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt”.
Also another similar English expression: “loose lips, sink ships”.
How can you get over the feeling of being ‘dumb’ in Spanish?
Tips 073: How to Order Food in Spanish – A Restaurant Role-Play
Feb 05, 2015
I don’t know how many times I have walked into a Spanish restaurant and said the wrong thing. It could be at the start of the meal, during or even after I have paid.
The idea seems simple enough. But there is a subtle complexity to the words people use in even common interactions such as ordering food.
What do you ask for? How does the waiter ask if you are you ready to order? What do they usually say when you first sit down? How should you check the price of something? How do you ask for the bill?
In this week’s theory podcast, we finish up a 3 part series on food. In the first episode, we talked about the eating habits in Spain. In the second episode, we covered the typical food you can find in a Spanish restaurant or bar. In this final episode, we are going to do a role-play that takes place in a Spanish restaurant.
Maria will play the role of the waitress and I will play the customer. We will go through a typical set of interactions between a waiter and a restaurant customer.
We will cover pleasantries, asking for the menu, ordering the food, checking the price of one of the menu options (maybe if, for example, the price or item is not on the menu). We finish with how to ask for the bill and how to say everything with the meal was okay.
I have even included some background noise to give the role-play a more authentic feel.
If you are having trouble understanding the Spanish section of the podcast or if you would like to get more out of the podcasts and take your Spanish to next level you can get access to the Spanish podcast transcripts and English translations here.
How much is this item? – ¿Cuánto cuesta? How much is it (all)? – ¿Cuánto es? The bill – La cuenta.
Leave without paying – Sinpa (Sin pagar).
Everything is good – Todo está bien.
The food is good (the quality of the food in the restaurant is good) – La comida es buena. The food is good (after finishing a meal) – La comida está buena.
How else can you order food in Spanish? Do you know any other customs or questions to ask?
Tips 072: How to Effectively Use 3 Essential Resources to Improve Your Spanish
Feb 02, 2015
You may have heard the expression “time is money”. I don’t know if that’s true. Maybe it is. What I do know is that time has one thing in common with money and that is it can be poorly spent.
It is possible to spend hours and hours “practicing” and not really see much benefit.
But before you consider how to better spend your time, you need to consider all of resources you have available to you.
What is a resource and how can you use it?
There are resources all around us. Resources are great because they can be used to solve all different kinds of problems.
In fact, this is a pretty good definition of resource – something that we can use to solve our problems.
For Spanish students the 3 most important recourses are their time, money and attention.
Most people are aware of the idea that money can be spent poorly. But when was the last time you considered the investment of your time and attention?
If you were trying to make it big in the stock market, it would be a good idea to put your money on the best stocks. This is, of course, easier said than done.
So if you were trying to improve your Spanish, it would be worthwhile putting some time into studying.
But like the stock market, if you time is spend in the wrong stocks for studying you want see an improvement in your portfolio of Spanish knowledge.
Similarly if you are don’t have your attention fixed on your Spanish in the right way, you will see a similar result to poorly spent time.
But ultimately if you are interested in improving your Spanish, you should not only invest your time, but your attention and money as well.
Many students these days are considering trying to learn a language for free. I was also one of them. Until I realised that spending money is a great way to save time and the effort associated with long hours of studying on your own.
If you are ever finding yourself poor in one of the resources: time, attention or money, but you are still want your Spanish to progress, then one of the best things you can do is invest the other resources wisely.
In today’s mindset podcast I will be looking at the idea of your investment of time, money and attention and how you can reframe your mindset to improve your thinking about your thinking and achieve you language-learning goals faster.
Quote from this episode:
“Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.” – Albert Einstein.
How can you invest your 3 most valuable resources to improve your Spanish faster?
Tips 071: 10 Tapas You Have to Try Before You Die and 5 You Might Want to Avoid
Jan 29, 2015
How adventurous are you when it comes to food? Are you the kind of person that tries anything once?
Even if you are, you might still want to know what you are getting into. Just in case.
Walking into a traditional tapas bar in Spain can be a mix of fun, overwhelm and adventure. It is not uncommon to see a long list of unfamiliar Spanish words scribbled on a chalkboard behind the bar.
If you aren’t afraid of eating foods that you are unlikely to find at home – enjoy!
But if you are a bit squeamish and the thought of intestines or snails bothers you, you might want to come prepared with the right vocabulary.
Following on from last week’s theory podcast, we are continuing with the food theme. Last week we talked about the habits of eating in Spain. This week we talk about the different types of Spanish food that you can find in a traditional Spanish bar.
We focus on a particular style of food in Spain called “tapas”. We talk about the origin of Tapas. How did it start? Hint: there are lots of different stories. Listen to today’s podcast to find out if Maria knows the real story.
We talk about which tapas are our favourites. We give a few suggestions for tapas you have to try and a few that only the most adventurous travellers should consider.
If you are having trouble understanding the Spanish section of the podcast or if you would like to get more out of the podcasts and take your Spanish to next level you can get access to the Spanish podcast transcripts and english translations here in the Real Fast Spanish School.
Tips 070: How To Improve Your Focus (Part 2 of 2)
Jan 26, 2015
Have you ever felt like there are hundreds of things competing to distract you and limiting your focus?
Or have you ever thought that for one problem resolved there are additional five others that are now a top priority?
In this week’s mindset tip we finish the two-part series on focus. In last weeks mindset episode, we looked a focus for emotions. In this week’s mindset tip we will look at how to improve your focus for productivity.
Following on with the analogy introduced last week, I start again by comparing the brain to a camera.
If you have ever tried to focus a camera on a completely white background, you may have noticed that the camera had a hard time focusing. For me, this analogy applies perfectly for when you are struggling to find focus in your work.
If there is too much noise you may find a very similar result to the camera. You may struggle to focus.
In order to find focus, you need to start by painting a clearer picture of the background. Trying to understand all of the different things that require your attention. Once you have a clearer idea of all of the things that need your attention – rank them.
Once you have figured out what the most important item is, work on that.
The key is knowing that what you are working on is the most important thing. That way, if other things distract you, you can have the confidence to ignore them and stay with what you are working on.
From experience there are 3 things that affect focus:
Lack of rest.
Lack of food.
Lack of clarity over knowing what the most important thing is that you should be doing.
Given that you are well-rested and eaten, the next part of the puzzle is figuring out what you should be focusing on.
The hardest part is having the discipline to sit down and work out what the one most important thing is that you should be doing.
It can take time to focus. But, if it takes you an hour to actually sit down and figure it out. It will be worth it because the alternative maybe two hours of unfocused time or more.
Tips 069: What You Need to Know about Spanish Eating Customs Before your Next Trip to Spain
Jan 22, 2015
Imagine that it is 7 o’clock. A Thursday night. You are in the main street of one of the biggest cities in Spain and everything is closed. Nobody around. All the bars are empty. You think to yourself – when do the people here eat?
Even after 3 trips to Spain, Spanish eating customs still confuse me. Do they eat early or late? Do they eat big or small?
When deciding on a topic for this week’s podcast, we discussed the idea of food in Spain. But food in Spain is a massive topic. So we needed to break it down a little.
Instead of talking about all things food, we decided to focus on the eating customs in Spain.
For example, what times of the day to the Spanish eat? How big are the meals? How many meals? Do they tend to eat at home? Or out? And do they eat differently on the weekend to the typical weekday?
We going to answer all of these questions this week. As well as that, just for fun, I ask Maria how she is adapting to the way of eating here in Australia. Is she finding adapting to our eating customs difficult or a breeze?
How do the Spanish eating customs differ from those of your country?
If you are having trouble understanding the Spanish section of the podcast or if you would like to get more out of the podcasts and take your Spanish to next level you can get access to the Spanish podcast transcripts and English translations here.
Examples from the episode:
To share – Compartir.
We are going to order something to share – Vamos a pedir algo para compartir.
Mediterranean diet – Dieta Mediterránea.
Balanced – Equilibrado/a.
Typical rice dish in Spain – Paella.
Winter stew – Cocido.
Heavy – Pesado.
Breakfast – El desayuno.
Lunch – El almuerzo.
Food / lunch / main meal of the day – La comida.
The afternoon snack / tea – La merienda.
Dinner – La cena.
Typical menu of the day – Menú del día.
First plate – Primer plato.
Second plate – Segundo plato.
Dessert – Postre.
The weekend – El finde.
What else do you know about Spanish eating customs?
Tips 068: How To Improve Your Focus (Part 1 of 2)
Jan 19, 2015
I sometimes find it difficult to focus. I also feel this lack of focus is holding me back from achieving my goals.
But is focus something that is only reserved for a certain type of person? Or can we all learn to improve our focus?
For me, focus comes in two categories: focus for emotions and focus for productivity.
Sometimes we only focus on things that make us feel angry, sad or afraid. Despite this lack of utility, we continue to focus on these things anyway.
I believe that we need to look for strategies to remedy this kind of focus. The kind of focus that affects our emotional well being. And we need to remedy this type of focus before we can start to be productive.
So in this week’s mindset podcast, we will be exploring the type of focus that affects our emotions. This episode will be part one in a two part series on focus. In next week’s mindset podcast we will look at focus for productivity.
What do you focus on when it comes to learning Spanish – what you get right or what you get wrong?
Do you think about your mistakes in a positive light or negative one?
I often find myself lamenting mistakes. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a big mistake or a little one. At times I can spend hours frustrated by some silly little moment when I forgot a preposition or made another typical error with a masculine or feminine noun.
If you are at all like me, you need to find tactics to take your mind off small mishaps because this kind of frustration will only slow your progress. You need to improve your focus around mindset because once you can do that, you will be able to find quality focus for productivity and improvement.
So have a listen to this week’s podcast and take me up on my mindset challenge. The challenge is to try to answer the following questions everyday for a week.
Questions:
What is the thing you know best about Spanish? Where is your strongest area? (If you having a hard time with that question, If you were to have a strongest area what would be?)
Why can you be successful in Spanish?
What are you most excited about with learning Spanish? What are you looking forward to doing the most?
What are you grateful for? About Spanish, language learning or anything in your life?
If you find the technique helps you with your focus for emotions then keep going. There is no need to only do it for a week. If it is working for you, then keep going and building that language learning mindset.
Quote from the episode:
“The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice there is little we can do to change until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds.” – Daniel Goleman
Tips 067: Common Spanish Verbs – 5 Uses For The Word “Dar”
Jan 15, 2015
‘Dar’ is one of a small list of common spanish verbs that will have a big impact on your Spanish.
It is another verb that means a lot of different things in a lot of different contexts. Due to this verb’s frequency in the language, it is worth getting to know “dar” a little better.
On today’s podcast, I’m doing another solo round. Which is great because it gives me an opportunity to follow up tip number 51 on the verb “poner“.
In a similar set of phrases to that of “poner”, “dar” provides an opportunity to talk about how certain situations affect our emotions. It’s the translation of “that makes me … sad, happy, nervous, afraid”. In english certain things “make” us feel a certain way, in spanish those things “poner” or “dar” us a certain way.
I’m also going to cover, one of my favourite phrases in Spanish due to it’s poetic feel.
If you have any questions about the use of “dar” let us know in the comments below.
Examples from today’s podcast:
This year I’m going to give more money to charity – Este año voy a dar más dinero a la caridad.
Can you give me some advice? – ¿Me puedes dar un consejo?
It gives me equal (I don’t mind) – Me da igual.
Do you prefer meat or fish – ¿Prefieres la carne o el pescado?
It makes me nervous to speak in public – Me pone nervioso hablar en público.
Fear – Miedo.
I’m afraid to speak in public – Me da miedo hablar en público.
Embarrassment / shame – Vergúenza.
That makes me embarrassed – Me da vergüenza.
What a pity! – ¡Que pena!
I’m sad to leave – Me da pena irme.
It makes me sad to see the old man alone in the park – Me da pena ver al viejo solo en el parque.
To give birth – Dar a luz.
She is about to give birth – Ella está a punto de dar a luz.
To realise something – Darse cuenta de.
I just realised that I have forgot my wallet – Acabo de darme cuenta de que he olvidado mi cartera.
In that moment I realised I had a big problem – En ese momento me di cuenta que tenía un gran problema.
“Pues habían vivido juntos lo bastante para darse cuenta de que el amor era el amor en cualquier tiempo y en cualquier parte, pero tanto más denso cuanto más cerca de la muerte.” – Gabriel García Márquez.
Tips 066: How Do Excuses Affect Language Learning? How One Change Can Make A Big Difference
Jan 12, 2015
How many times have you heard that you should stop making excuses?
It’s good advice. Don’t make excuses. But, there is a way to change how you make excuses. You can make your excuses powerful.
We learn from a very young age that excuses work. They get us out of trouble. You can save yourself a lot of heartache if you can come up with a good excuse for a mistake you made.
But do excuses hurt us or help us?
Before we can answer that question we need to define the idea of an excuse.
Is an excuse the truth or a lie? Is it reality or perception?
In today’s podcast, I describe how you can redefine excuses. What they are. How we make them. And how to make them in a powerful way.
I will discuss how excuses are stories. Stories are sometimes fact and sometimes fiction. Stories have power in them. And when a story is told in a particular way it can give power or take it away.
Every time you tell a story in a disempowering way, you remove a tiny component of your ability to do what you want to do. And achieve what you want to achieve.
We can’t change what happens to us. But we can change the stories we tell ourselves and the people around us about the circumstances we find ourselves in.
This week, I set you a mindset challenge. How can you reframe the way you make excuses? If you make a mistake this week, can you make an excuse in an empowering way? A way that will tell yourself a story that means you will have more power in the future when you find yourself in a similar set of circumstances.
Tips 065: How to Tell The Time In Spanish, Time Based Greetings and The Merits of an Early Start
Jan 08, 2015
Knowing how ask and tell the time in Spanish should be in every student’s repertoire.
I would also label ‘telling the time’ as essential Spanish vocabulary for travel. If you are making bookings or confirming departure times you want to not only make sure you have the correct time but the time of day.
In today’s podcast we cover the basics of asking and telling the time. As well as some of the more complicated ideas relating to time such as greetings.
I couldn’t count the number of times I have made a mistake with “buenas noches” when it was still “tarde” and “buenos días” when it was already “tarde”.
Also, as it relates to time, we debate the merits of being a morning person or a night person.
Check out today’s podcast, have a listen for whether Maria considers herself a morning person or an evening person. And listen for my thoughts on an old saying about the importance of rising early.
If you are having trouble understanding Spanish section of the podcast or if you would like to get more out of the podcast and take your Spanish to next level you can get access to the Spanish podcast transcripts and english translations here.
Tips 064: The 6 Different Types Of Overwhelm And How To Avoid Them
Jan 05, 2015
Overwhelm sneaks up on us. Sometimes we see it coming. Sometimes we don’t.
There are actually 6 different types of overwhelm. And the annoying thing, if you are experiencing any of them, your language learning ability will be affected.
Overwhelm is, well, overwhelming and an important mindset topic because it could be holding your Spanish back.
Like most mindset podcast episodes, this week we discuss another topic that is outside the theory of Spanish verbs or grammar. We will focus solely on how you should think about your thinking. And how you should think about your thinking when it comes to language learning.
Being aware of such mindset topics as today’s is important when learning a language, especially if you haven’t got the luxury of “immersion”. When you are learning by immersion, you don’t have multiple distractions pulling in all different directions. It’s why immersion can be so effective.
But, if you are learning outside a country that speaks your target language, you will need to balance your studies with things other study. For most of us multitasking is a handful. And improving how all areas of our lives work together is going to be a useful tactic.
In the podcast today I go through the six different types of overwhelm. These can be broken down in to two categories of three. The first category is short term overwhelm. The second category is long term overwhelm.
Under each of the two categories comes mental, physical and emotional overwhelm.
In the podcast, I discuss how each of these is manifested and what you can do about them.
It is important to realise that if you are overwhelmed in one area, it could be affecting all other areas of your life. And the feeling of overwhelm could be affecting you in ways that you didn’t expect.
But the good news is that all overwhelm can be addressed and overcome.
Tips 063: How To Use The Spanish Future Tense
Jan 01, 2015
After New Year’s Celebrations have finished, it is usually time to start thinking about the future.
If you want to talk about your future goals, resolutions or plans in Spanish, the Spanish future tense will be very useful.
On the podcast, this week, we introduce the Spanish future tense also known as the ‘futuro imperfecto.’
For me, this tense has often been confusing. I have never really been able to figure out when to use the future tense and when to use the future construction phrase ‘ir a + infinitivo’.
The answer is that in most instances they are nearly always interchangeable. But there are a few situations where one has preference over the other. And there is one example that we discussed when you should never use the future construction phrase.
Tips 062: Why You Should Rethink Your New Year’s Resolution
Dec 29, 2014
Should you bother setting a new year’s resolution?
Maybe you have set one in the past and thought “what’s the point?” It’s just something we do on New Year’s Eve as part of tradition, right? Or is there actually something to it?
In preparation for this week’s mindset episode I did some research to see what the statistics for New Year’s resolutions looked like.
What percentage of people make New Year’s Resolutions? What percentage of people keep them? And what percentage of people that don’t make New Year’s Resolutions actually make progress despite the lack of a resolution?
When conducting the research I came across this scientific paper. The study and the results were really interesting (well at least for me).
In the paper, the researchers called up people randomly in the phone book between the 26th December and 31st December 1995. They simply asked if the person was intending to set a new year’s resolution. They then asked the person whether they would be okay for a set of follow up interviews at regular intervals throughout the year.
The researchers did their best to keep the study as unbiased as possible. For this experiment, it seems almost impossible to do so. But, they tried to keep a control group and remove ambiguity where they could.
In the end the results were fairly conclusive. Setting a resolution had a fairly high correlation with success.
I was surprised by the results because anecdotally I would tend to say most people fail on their resolutions.
Whether you are looking at anecdotal evidence or research papers there is definitely something you can get out of setting a new year’s resolution. And it’s not just simply the result of what you plan to do for the resolution.
There is something to be said for setting a resolution, whatever it may be, and simply seeing it through. Check out today’s podcast to see what I mean. Listen to hear why you should rethink your process of selecting a new year’s resolution.
Christmas in Spain is quite different to Christmas in Australia.
In today’s podcast episode we discuss some of the differences between Christmas in our two countries. We will also cover some important Spanish Christmas vocabulary.
Christmas in Spain starts on the 22nd of December with the famous Christmas lottery (La Lotería de Navidad). Celebrations then continue until the 6th January. Christmas in Spain is mostly spent with the family. But, there are opportunities to catch up with friends during the Christmas period on nights such as New Years Eve (Nochevieja).
One of the main differences between Christmas in Australia and Christmas in Spain is the seasons. It is, of course, the middle of summer here in Australia. For Maria, seeing the people in shorts and t-shirts is a bit strange for Christmas time.
Another interesting difference is that the children in Spain have to wait until the 6th of January before they can open their presents.
But, one thing both of our countries do have in common is the eating. We eat a lot at christmas as do the Spanish. (and probably most countries that celebrate Christmas.) Look out for the christmas spanish food vocabulary and listen for Maria’s reaction to my translation of Turrón to english.
The Plaza Mayor in Madrid at Christmas
Examples from the episode:
Fat – Gordo.
The lottery prize for Christmas – El gordo de Navidad.
The Christmas lottery – La lotería de Navidad.
Time/period/season – Época.
Present/gift – Regalo.
The lottery day (22nd December) – El día de la lotería. (22 de diciembre)
Christmas Eve (24th December) – Nochebuena. (24 de diciembre)
Christmas (25th December) – Navidad. (25 de diciembre)
New Years Eve (31st December) – Nochevieja. (31 de diciembre)
New Years Day (1st January) – Año Nuevo (1 de enero)
The day of the wise kings (6th January) – El día de Los Reyes Magos (6 de enero)
Tips 060: Minimum Effective Dose And Language Learning
Dec 22, 2014
The ‘minimum effective dose’ is a term borrowed from the medical world. It seeks to answer the question: what is the minimum amount of input I need to achieve a desired result?
Or in other words, how can I get maximum benefit from minimum effort?
The ‘minimum effective dose’ or MED in the medical world usually refers to the amount of medicine a patient needs to resolve their immediate needs.
The MED has recently been taken outside the medical world and applied to areas of improvement such as strength, conditioning and fat loss. For example, what is the minimum amount of exercise you need to do to lose 10 pounds?
The idea of MED has also been used in the area of accelerated learning.
In today’s podcast we take a look at the idea of the MED and ask a fundamental question:
How does the minimum effective does apply to language learning?
Before we can answer this question, we have to look that the definition of the problem. We need to first determine the end game.
You need to be able to figure out the desired result first, before you can figure out the MED.
The focus of Real Fast Spanish is answering the question: “How can you get to a conversational level of Spanish as fast as possible?”
So in the context of this problem the MED would be focusing on the minimum amount of words you need to learn, understand and recall in order to be conversational.
For Spanish, there are 1000 words that make up 87% of all spoken communication. I have included these 1000 high frequency Spanish words in the conversation hacking guide. Once you memorised these words and you can use them in context, you have achieved your MED for the goal of conversational Spanish.
Once you have a solid grasp of these words then you need to change the end game. If you are already conversational, the next obvious question would be:
How can you take your Spanish to the next level using the minimum effective dose?
Well regardless of your level, all Spanish students should be looking at doing one of two things: growing their Spanish knowledge or maintaining their Spanish knowledge.
Check out today’s podcast to see how we tackle this problem.
Quote from the episode:
“I’ve found that small wins, small projects, small differences often make huge differences.” – Rosabeth Moss Kanter
How can you use the minimum effective does to improve your Spanish?
Tips 059: An Insider’s Guide To Barcelona
Dec 18, 2014
Barcelona is a fascinating city. It’s full of life, interesting architecture and culture.
In today’s podcast episode we are going to do an interview with Maria to learn about her famous city. I ask Maria what’s it like to live there. I also ask how the locals really feel about the tourists. And what’s the best tourist attraction and why?
Every year thousands of tourists flock to see this amazing city. And for good reason. I have been there twice and would go back again in a heart beat.
There is a lot to do there and if you are considering going, today’s podcast will give you a few ideas about what you can see and do.
You will learn what Maria’s favourite tourist attraction is. Her reasons are very interesting. You will also learn what my favourite tourist attraction is and why. Also you will hear what Maria has to say about an idea I had about the prices in Barcelona after my most recent trip.
Of course, the podcast isn’t just about travel we are also here to improve our Spanish. So the interview in Spanish and if you want the transcript you can get it here. What you should notice is the style of questions I ask Maria to get more information out of her. One key skill of conversation hacking is to be able to keep a conversation going.
If you can simply ask questions and keep someone speaking in Spanish you will get more exposure to the language. You will give yourself a great opportunity to do high quality practice. This sort of practice is one of the fastest ways to improve.
Examples from the episode:
To tend to – Soler.
I tend to record two podcasts a week – Suelo grabar dos podcasts a la semana.
Myth – Mito.
To eat breakfast – Desayunar.
What is it like to live in Barcelona – ¿Qué se siente al vivir en Barcelona?
Tips 058: What You Should Know About San Fermín
Dec 15, 2014
The San Fermín festival is infamous. Outside of Spain, well at least here in Australia, it is known as ‘The Running Of The Bulls Festival.’
Every year there is a thirty second slot reserved on the news to remind us of what goes on at this event.
The San Fermín festival is held in Pamplona every year between the 6th and 14th of July. Over one million people attended the event this year. Everyday there is a race held in a cordoned off section of the streets. The race is between man and bull.
The aim: to get as close to the bull as possible without dying!
I remember when I was 16 years old watching the nightly news with my parents. At this time of year, there would always be footage of yet another tourist wounded in this bizarre yearly celebration.
After watching this footage one night, my father made me promise that I would never run. I did make him that promise. At the time, I didn’t actually think that I would one day be there watching it live.
But in 2012, I had that chance. I did get to see the event live. And I can say that I got more from that crazy 24 hours than I ever expected to.
I learnt a lot about this festival, the small town in the north of Spain that hosts the event and the local’s attitudes towards it.
I also learnt that the festival isn’t only about a high risk encounter with the bulls. It is much more. The way the city comes alive at night can only be seen to be believed.
In today’s podcast episode, I will share my experience going to this event. I will try to paint a picture of what it is like to be there and party with the locals.
I will also share what you should know if you are ever planning on going. And I will talk about one key mindset lesson about learning Spanish that I got from a young guy I met while waiting for the running to start.
For whether I kept my promise to never run in the event, you will have to listen to today’s podcast to find out.
The quote from today’s episode:
“Everyone is trying to accomplish something big, not realizing that life is made up of little things.” – Frank A. Clark
How can you use today’s mindset tip to focus this week in your study?
Tips 057: How To Use The Spanish Conditional Tense
Dec 11, 2014
Do you know how to express would, could and should in Spanish?
In this tip we will be looking at the Spanish conditional tense. We will give a few examples of how to form this conjugation. And we will give a few common situations where the conditional tense should be used.
The two big positives of this Spanish tense: it’s relatively easy to form and it’s relatively easy to use.
The negatives are that it can be a little bit tongue twisty. And there are some situations where it gets complicated to use.
But, in general, the use of Spanish conditional tense is very similar English. For example, I would like to travel, could you help me?, etc.
I often say to Spanish students that they should focus on vocabulary ahead of grammar. But, as you work your way to a conversational level, today’s tense will be extremely useful.
It is useful because you can ask about peoples dreams and desires. This is a great conversation starter because everybody has a dream or a desire.
If you can use today’s tense well you can open up a whole range of topics with the people you find to practice with.
Tips 056: How To Avoid Breaking The Chain And Improve Your Spanish Faster
Dec 08, 2014
What can Jerry Seinfeld teach us about learning Spanish?
Before I say what it is, it’s definitely one lesson I wish I had learned earlier.
Jerry Seinfeld probably doesn’t need an introduction. But if you haven’t heard of him, let’s just say he was fairly successful.
With this in mind, it is worth taking a moment to see what he has to say about being successful. And how this advice will help you improve your Spanish faster.
The Don’t Break The Chain Approach
When offering advice to Brad Issac, a young and upcoming comedian, Jerry explained that one of his secrets to success was to use the “Don’t break the chain” approach.
The idea is very simple. He wrote new material everyday. When he finished writing the material, he would put an X on the calendar. He would continue to do this day after day. The idea is to keep going without breaking the chain.
The longer the chain the better. Just keep going and don’t break it.
If you have a day off or a gap, you have to start over.
I have talked about the importance of the daily approach before, but the key difference here is that this idea turns the daily habit into a game.
In today’s podcast episode, I talk about how this approach is so powerful. I also talk about some of the down sides. And how you can combat them.
This approach is useful because it forces you to start competing against yourself. I recently talked about how competition with yourself is the best form of competition. Rather than comparing yourself to others, you just keep moving the needle in the right direction.
I also mentioned in this episode that I made a 365 day calendar in a previous post. This calendar was made specifically for printing off and putting on the wall in a convenient location in order to start marking off the days and growing your chain. You can access the calendar here:
Tips 055: Pretérito Indefinido – The Simple Spanish Past Tense
Dec 04, 2014
This week on the Real Fast Spanish Tips podcast we will be looking at another Spanish past tense.
This Spanish past tense is called ‘Pretérito Indefinido’ or ‘Pasado Indefinido’.
As well as introducing a new past tense, we introduce a new guest. The new guest on the podcast is a friend of mine from Barcelona, Maria Piñero.
As Maria is from Barcelona, it means she can speak Catalan as well as Spanish.
I want to keep things simple, so for starters, I’m going to avoid asking Maria to show us her Catalan. But if we have enough requests from the listeners we might preview some Catalan in an upcoming episode.
I’m excited to have another guest from Spain to help us develop our skills further. Maria has a lot tutoring experience in Spanish and provides a great opportunity for some more Spanish conversation practice.
Now, with introductions aside, we can start to look at today’s discussion topic.
A few weeks ago we introduced the ‘past imperfect‘ Spanish tense. In tip number 15 ‘A Hack For The Past‘, we introduced the ‘present perfect’ tense. Make sure you know these two tenses first. So if you need to do some revision head back before continuing on. If you are happy with those tenses then you can look at the ‘Pretérito Indefinido’ tense or Spanish past simple tense.
Unlike the ‘past imperfect’ tense, the past simple tense is used for describing events that have a defined beginning and end.
If an event happened last week and it represented a specific moment in time you will use the past simple tense. If the event happened repeatedly in the past and had no defined start and finish you use the past imperfect tense.
And sometimes you will need to use the two tenses in combination. We will look at a few cases of this in the podcast.
Examples from the episode:
The past simple conjugation of ‘hablar’:
I spoke – Yo hablé.
You spoke – Tú hablaste.
He spoke – Él habló.
We spoke – Nosotros hablamos.
You-all spoke – Vosotros hablasteis.
They spoke – Ellos hablaron.
The past simple conjugation of ‘comer’:
I ate – Yo comí.
You ate – Tú comiste.
He ate – Él comió.
We ate – Nosotros comimos.
You-all ate – Vosotros conisteis.
They ate – Ellos comieron.
The past simple conjugation of ‘decir’:
I said – Yo dije.
You said – Tú dijiste.
He said – Él dijo.
We said – Nosotros dijimos.
You-all said – Vosotros dijisteis.
They said – Ellos dijeron.
She told me that… – Me dijo que…
I told her that … – Le dije que…
You told me…. – Me dijiste…
I met a guy and his name was Jose – Conocí un hombre y su nombre era Jose.
Last week, I was at the movies and the movie was very entertaining – La semana pasada estuve en el cine y la pelicula era muy entretenida.
In this podcast episode I’m going to give away the secret to success. I’m going to share the one thing you need to know to be successful at learning a language.
What is most interesting about this secret is that it has remained unchanged for more than 2000 years.
But, before I give away the secret, I have to start with definition. And as a hint: definition is part of the coveted success formula.
So What Is Success?
Have you got it already? Have you had it before and lost it? What did you do to get it?
Success is elusive and depending on what studies you read, a large majority don’t have it. Why? Because they haven’t defined success for themselves.
It many ways the term ‘success’ is a lot like ‘fluency‘ the definition can depend on the person.
But the problem is people sometimes let society dictate the definition of success for them.
The Best Definition Of Success I have Ever Heard
Earl Nightingale has written in one of his books my favourite definition of success that I have ever read or heard.
It goes…
“Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal”
He said that the reason that most people are unsuccessful is they haven’t figured out what a worthy ideal.
One thing I love about this definition of success is that it is based around process not outcome:
Step 1 is to define a worthy ideal.
Step 2 is to progressively realize that worthy ideal.
What this means is once you have defined a worthy ideal, then when you start making progress towards that ideal you are being successful.
So if you want to be ahead of the majority of people that aren’t successful just work out what your worthy ideal would be. Then start working towards it.
What Do The Other Motivation Experts Say
When you start to look at what a lot of motivation experts say, you will start to see a pattern emerge:
Start with definition
Take action
See if that action is moving you towards or away from your definition
If it is working keep going, if it is not go back to step one and start with definition again.
What you will also notice is that it isn’t just the motivation experts of the last 100 years that have been saying this.
Aristotle lived between 400 and 300 BC and he said:
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
Tips 053: 10 Spanish False Friends You Need To Know
Nov 27, 2014
There are a number of words that are exactly the same in English and Spanish. This is a big advantage of learning Spanish. But, this advantage is completely lost if you run into Spanish false friends.
False friends are words that appear to be almost identical in both languages. But, they convey completely different ideas.
In today’s episode of the Real Fast Spanish tips podcast we are going to look at a few of the most common English-Spanish false friends.
We are also going to cover a section on false phrasal friends. In this section, we will look at a few common phrases that don’t translate very well. These false phrases often require a verb or noun change when translating between languages.
Have you ever heard another language student speak and thought to yourself you will never reach their level?
I have. I have met language students who have achieved an almost native level. And what’s worse, some of them have done it in a number of different languages.
If I compare myself to these students, I feel lost, jealous, defeated and overwhelmed.
So is the idea of competition in language acquisition healthy?
Before we consider that question, we have to review the idea of competition in general.
The merits of competition has been debated in the school system for many years. It may affect some of us in a negative way and therefore be more of a hinderance than a help.
But in today’s podcast, I consider that competition can be healthy or unhealthy depending on the circumstances.
When we are pushed by our peers in healthy competition we get better. It’s almost that simple.
When we compete with an opponent of almost equivalent skill, we face two possible outcomes. Sometimes we win and other times we lose. When we are in healthy competition and we win we gain confidence and when we lose we gain motivation.
Here you can see that both winning and losing can be beneficial in healthy competition.
So what is unhealthy competition?
If our rivals are too fast, too strong or too good, we may be intimidated, jealous or overwhelmed.
If we don’t feel we can compete then we may give up before the race has even begun. Here we are comparing ourselves to an opponent that is not of equivalent skill. And I would argue that whenever you try to compete against someone of vastly different skill you are in unhealthy competition.
This is true for opponents that are far worse than us as well as far better.
How do we find healthy competition in language acquisition?
If healthy competition is about competing against an opponent of equivalent skill, then the best opponent is yourself.
The main idea in this mindset podcast is you should always be competing to better your best.
You won’t ever feel overconfident or intimidated by yourself. You are you. And you can do what you can currently do. And you only have to step it up a little bit to better your best. And every time you do this your best moves in the right direction.
How can you compete against yourself?
Imagine another version of yourself. Now imagine that person was standing there right now next to you. Then ask yourself, could you beat that person? Could you speak better Spanish than them? What would you need to do to out perform that person with your Spanish skills?
There are two big benefits of trying to better your best:
It encourages certainty in improvement. From personal experience when people have certainty in their goals they achieve them. It’s great to set big loft goals but when they get too difficult – doubt creeps in.
It puts you in a place of gratitude and satisfaction because instead of looking to the horizon, instead of looking to how much more work you have to do. You start to look at where you are now and where you have come from.
When you start thinking like this you can start to enjoy the journey. You can improve and you can enjoy improving as you compete with yourself because you can win regularly. You won’t win everyday but you will win regularly.
“I am in competition with no one, I run my own race, I have no desire to play the game of being better than anyone, in any way, shape, or form. I just aim to improve, to be better than I was before. That’s me and I’m free.” – Unknown.
How can you better your best? What do you need to do to be better than you ever have been before?
Tips 051: 3 Spanish Phrases With The Verb ‘Poner’
Nov 20, 2014
‘Poner’ is one of a small list of Spanish verbs with a huge assortment of common uses. There are 28 uses for “poner” listed in my Spanish to Spanish dictionary.
Some uses of ‘poner’ are more frequent than others. In today’s podcast, I will look a few of the most useful contexts for this common verb.
Like many words in the Spanish language there are more situations to use ‘poner’ than you can poke a stick at. But clichéd introductions aside.
It is a really useful verb and sometimes if you want to get to conversational level of Spanish it is worth slowing down to speed up. That means dissecting one word at a time. Becoming really comfortable with just one word’s uses inside and out. And then moving on.
Sometimes, it is better to go 5 miles deep and 1 inch wide than 1 inch deep and 5 miles wide. Wow, I’m really in a cliché mood today. But, hopefully the point is clear. Being conversational in Spanish means knowing a few common words really well than a lot of less frequent words poorly.
Examples from today’s podcast: She puts the clothes on the shelf – Ella pone la ropa en la estantería.
I thought I put my keys on the table – Pensaba que puse las llaves en la mesa.
Get me a beer – Ponme una cerveza.
Get me a beer, please – Ponme una cerveza, por favor.
Get me a tortilla, please – Ponme una tortilla, por favor.
It makes me happy – Me alegro.
It makes me happy (content) – Me pone contento.
It makes me happy to spend time with my friends – Me pone contento pasar tiempo con mis amigos.
They make me sad – Me ponen triste.
Always the end of the year (New Years Eves) makes me sad – Siempre los fines de año me ponen triste.
It makes me very nervous to fly during a big storm – Me pone muy nervioso viajar en avión durante una tormenta grande.
It makes me nervous to speak in public – Me pone nervioso hablar en público.
Does it make your nervous to speak in public? – ¿Te pone nervioso hablar en público?
It puts me in a good mood – Me pone de buen humor.
When I see your smile, it always puts me in a good mood – Cuando veo tu sonrisa siempre me pone de buen humor.
It puts me in a bad mood – Me pone de mal humor.
It puts me in a bad mood when I have to work late – Me pone de mal humor cuando tengo que trabajar tarde.
You make me nervous with so many questions – Me pones nervioso con tanta pregunta.
To cheat on someone – Poner los cuernos.
I think that my girlfriend is cheating on me – Creo que mi novia me está poniendo los cuernos.
If I could think in Spanish then I could speak in Spanish. If I could think in Spanish then I good do anything in Spanish.
How then can I start to think in Spanish?
There is no secret to thinking in Spanish. You just start.
You don’t need permission. You don’t need a certain level of Spanish. You don’t need a particular set of vocabulary or grammar in your long term memory. You just start.
So what should I think about? There are lots of scenarios you could try. In fact, there are thousands of combinations. Maybe you are trying to get a gig as a wedding singer. Or maybe you lost your pet lizard and need help from the locals in order to find it. You just start.
We all have an inner monologue. Unless, you have a special conditions that doesn’t allow the inner voice to speak. Or maybe you have control over your inner voice that rivals that of a buddhist monk. Either way. You just start.
In today’s episode of the Real Fast Spanish Tips podcast. We will look at the techniques you can use to start thinking in Spanish. We discuss where you could try to think in Spanish and some of the scenarios you could experiment with. But, as I have pointed out already, there is no secret. You just start.
In the podcast, I give you a few scenarios. There are plenty more than this. But this list is to help you start brainstorming:
Ordering food in a cafe
Proposing to someone
Negotiating a deal (buying a car)
A job interview
Asking for a rare book in a rare book bookshop
Explaining to someone why you were eavesdropping (how you going to get out of that one)
Quitting your job (could you do that politely in Spanish, what would you say)
Confronting a jealous lover and explaining that you haven’t been cheating on them. (poner los cuernos) (no te pongo los cuernos)
How about if you are woman and you have to explain to your boyfriend you are pregnant. (would you break the news softly and spread out or are you going to take the bandaid and just rip it off)
How about teasing a secret out of somebody. (how would you gain their trust)
Quote from the episode:
“You can build great wisdom and genius by spending time each day in grateful communion with your inner voice.” – Dr. John F. Demartini
This week on the Real Fast Spanish Tips podcast we will be looking at the past imperfect tense.
There are many different past tenses in Spanish. And as you build your knowledge you will need to become familiar with, at least, the most common ones.
One of the first recommendations that I give to developing Spanish students is that should always look to improve their vocabulary before their grammar. When you know more vocabulary you can express and understand more ideas. But, we are now at tip number 49, which means we should be adding more grammar to your Spanish toolkit.
Another one of the recommendations that I like to give is that Spanish students should first become familiar with the present perfect tense. I talked about this in tip number 15 A Hack For The Past.
The reason I suggest that Spanish students become familiar with the present perfect tense is that it is easy to form. And once you know how you can always use it if you can remember how to conjugate the verb in any of the other past tenses. But if you are comfortable with the present perfect tense then it’s time to get to know the past imperfect.
There are a few rules for using the past imperfect tense. But the general rule you need to know is that it is used when there is no defined start and end time for the action in the past.
To explain further, the past imperfect tense is used in three common examples:
1. Talking about things that ‘used’ to happen in the past. These are things that may have happened habitually.
2. Talking about what happened within a set time frame.
3. Setting the scene as in a novel.
Examples from the episode:
The past imperfect of ‘hablar’:
I spoke – Yo hablaba.
You spoke – Tú hablabas.
He spoke – Él hablaba.
We spoke – Nosotros hablábamos.
You-all spoke – Vosotros hablabais.
They spoke – Ellos hablaban.
The past imperfect of ‘vivir’:
I lived – Yo vivía.
You lived – Tú vivías.
He lived – Él vivía.
We lived – Nosotros vivíamos.
You-all lived – Vosotros vivíais.
They lived – Ellos vivían.
What time were we going to meet tonight? – ¿A que hora íbamos a quedar esta noche?
I thought that we were going to meet at six – Pensaba que íbamos a quedar a las seis.
Tips 048: 4 Crucial Steps For Improving Your Listening Comprehension
Nov 10, 2014
As I stood there listening to her, I understood nothing. Not a word. Why after all this time of practicing was my comprehension so poor?
I thought I have failed at Spanish and at life. But after my lowest moment, I learned one valuable lesson.
I learned that listening comprehension can be improved. And the best way to improve my listening comprehension was in high-stakes scenarios.
Before I go too much further, I need to introduce the most common piece of advice you may hear for improving your listening comprehension. You should use passive listening. This is common advice. It didn’t work for me. Not even a little bit.
The idea of passive listening is that you expose your ears the sounds of Spanish by listening while you go to sleep, wash the dishes or drive to work. Don’t get me wrong, listening in the car is a great way to learn Spanish. But I hit a plateau from hours of passive listening. I couldn’t improve. And when I found myself in a real Spanish conversation I understood almost nothing.
Yet the advice continues. I don’t know why. Maybe it works for some people?
The alternative is active listening. This is where you are forced to actively engage in what you have heard. I designed the course Fluent Spanish Listening with this in mind. But there is one step better than an active listening course.
Have a real conversation with a real person. This is what I call high-stakes active listening.
It’s high stakes because there is a lot on the line. Your pride. If you don’t understand then you will look silly. This added element of risk forces you to concentrate and focus. If there isn’t anything on the line, it’s too easy to lose focus.
In today’s podcast episode I’m going to explain the four steps for improving your listening comprehension based on what worked for me.
The four steps are:
0. Learn more Spanish.
1. Practice active listening in high-stakes scenarios.
2. Practice active listening in general.
3. Practice passive listening.
“There’s a lot of difference between listening and hearing.” – G.K. Chesterton
Tips 047: 10 Common Ways To React In Spanish
Nov 06, 2014
As you build your Spanish knowledge you will find yourself reacting to lots of different scenarios. Each scenario will require it’s own vocabulary and a different set of reactions.
In today’s podcast we will look at some useful ways to react in Spanish.
The reactions that we discuss in today’s podcast fall into two categories: negative and positive.
If someone you are practicing with has told you something sensitive, it is worth using the most appropriate reaction. If you don’t you could confuse the speaker or worse offend them.
When I was beginning I found myself always looking for different ways to express myself. My Spanish friends would always have something interesting to share and I only felt that I had one standard response. Que intersante!
With only one response in my bag of tricks I didn’t think I was very ‘intersante’. Therefore, I want to arm you with a few more responses that you can use as you find yourself chatting to a range of unique people each with their own unique stories.
The reactions that we discuss in today’s podcast are:
How interesting! – ¡Qué interesante! That’s good! – ¡Qué bien! How lucky! – ¡Qué suerte! How fun! – ¡Qué divertido!
What a pain! – ¡Qué rollo! What a pity! – ¡Qué pena! What a mess! – ¡Qué lío! How awful! – ¡Qué horror!
Oh dear! – ¡Vaya!
I’m fed up – Estoy harto. I’m fed up with… – Estoy harto de…
This week we did a longer Spanish conversation and we have made an offer for everybody who wants to follow along to signup for the transcripts. These will include both the English and Spanish translation as well as practice questions to test your knowledge.
Tips 046: The Best Time Of Day To Study
Nov 03, 2014
Have you figured out what time of day you should be studying?
Let’s assume that you have managed to get into the habit of practicing daily. The next question is how you can get the most out of that routine.
So how should you figure out how to get the most out of your routine?
Test it!
For me, I know that I function best working late at night. I’m more creative. I’m more focused. I’m able to concentrate for longer.
It’s been that way since my teenage years. But I have also tested it. I have tried to work in the mornings. And for me, it doesn’t really work.
I once tried to get up early and study. I did this every day for a week. What usually happened was I would procrastinate and potter around until midmorning when I would start to find my stride and begin proper work.
Now, this could be different for you. We all operate on a slightly different time clock. The only way to know for yourself is to test it.
But, to explore the idea a little further, there are some defined pros and cons of working at different times of the day regardless of your natural body clock.
In general, we do our most creative work at night. Language learning isn’t typically known as a creative pursuit but it could be useful if you were trying to test a new turn of phrase, for example.
The more important idea, and what you should focus on when testing yourself, is how you best absorb information. What is the best way for you to learn something and have it stick?
We are all different and I can’t say for sure what will work for you. But it is worth trying.
In today’s podcast, I’m going to look at the time of day you should be studying. I’m going to look at larks and owls and how this applies to you. And lastly, I’m going to pull some inspiration from a few interesting people to see how they feel about the role of the subconscious mind and its effects on memory and problem-solving.
The reference in today’s podcast to the article by Hemingway is here:
“It is because the body is a machine that education is possible. Education is the formation of habits, a superinducing of an artificial organization upon the natural organization of the body.” – Thomas Henry Huxley
Tips 045: How To Make Your Spanish Sound Better Than It Is
Oct 30, 2014
When you hear the word ‘guiri’, it’s worth double checking to see if the person who is speaking is talking about you. The word is generally used to talk about foreigners.
The word ‘guiri’ is commonly used in Spain and is similar to the south american version ‘gringo’.
Chances are that you will never get rid of your ‘guiri’ status. But there are some quick and easy ways you can make your Spanish sound better than it is. And if you do it well enough, you may avoid the ‘guiri’ label.
In todays podcast episode we focus on two types of quick things you can do that will make your spanish level sound higher and impress the locals. Today’s podcast is really a fundamentals episode.
We focus on the pronunciation of Spanish cognates and a few tricks for remembering the gender of some common nouns.
When you pronounce the cognates poorly or use the incorrect gender for nouns it’s a dead giveaway that your are a beginner. But if you can focus on nailing these fundamentals it will give you a boost in perceived level.
We welcome Arantxa Florez back to the podcast to help us work on our Spanish accents. Arantxa was received warmly from her first episode. But there were a few listeners that commented that she speaks a little quickly. I suggest you listen to it a few times if you don’t understand it. Don’t worry if you don’t understand everything the first time. It’s all part of the learning curve.
Examples from the episode:
Animal.
Alcohol.
Chocolate.
Familiar.
Formal.
Horror.
Original.
Regular.
Simple.
Idea.
I have no idea – No tengo ni idea.
Important – Importante.
Interesting – Interesante.
Conclusion – Conclusión.
Decision – Decisión.
Information – Información.
Procession – Procesión.
Solution – Solución.
The tall boy – El chico alto.
The tall girl – La chica alta.
The skinny boy – El chico flaco.
The skinny girl – La chica flaca.
The white house – La casa blanca.
The white car – El coche blanco.
An idea – Una idea.
A thing – Una cosa.
A question – Una persona.
The question – La pregunta.
The party – La fiesta.
The time – La vez.
The people – La gente.
The truth – La verdad.
The example – El ejemplo.
The place – El sitio.
The side – El lado.
The moment – El momento.
The level – El nivel.
The place – El lugar.
The country – El país.
The day – El día.
The hand – La mano.
The map – El mapa.
The movie – La película.
The movie – La pelí.
The bicycle – La bicicleta.
The bicycle – La bici.
The disco – La discoteca.
The disco – La disco.
The motorbike – La motocicleta.
The motorbike – La moto.
The architect – El arquitecto / La arquitecta.
The waiter – El camarero / La camarera.
The cook – El cocinero / La cocinera.
The doctor – El médico / La médica.
The dentist – El dentista / La dentista.
The poet – El poeta / La poeta.
The police – El policía / La policía.
The model – El modelo / La modelo.
The pilot – El piloto / La piloto.
The soldier – El soldado / La soldado.
The climate – El clima.
The dilemma – El dilema.
The langauge – El idioma.
The problem – El problema.
The program – El programa.
The system – El sistema.
The topic – El tema.
Coma – El coma
Comma – La coma
Capital (money) – El capital
Capital City – La capital
Final (end) – El final
Final game / Championship – La final
Spanish Culture
For this episode Arantxa wanted to introduce a Spanish cultural section. This week Arantxa discussed one very popular television show in Spanish and the original song that inspired the show.
The band that Arantxa recommended is called Formula V. They were big in the 60’s and my take on them is that they sound like the Spanish version of The Beatles.
The song is called ‘Cuéntame’:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzxAfLZXWyY
And the television show that has the song as it’s intro is called ‘Cuéntame Cómo Pasó.’
Tips 044: How To Use The Power Of Accountability In Your Spanish
Oct 27, 2014
In today’s mindset podcast we take a deep dive into a heavy topic. We will take a look at accountability. We do this with the intention of using the idea of accountability to propel our Spanish forward.
Accountability is a scary topic. But a powerful one. The question is are you using it? And could you use accountability to learn Spanish faster?
The main reason that accountability is a scary topic is that it tugs at the idea of free will. We love, as humans, to have ultimate freedom. Freedom of thought. Freedom of speech. And freedom of action.
Anything that suggests otherwise is an affront to what we crave most. To do what we want. When we want.
But, having accountability for our actions is a positive thing. It keeps us safe. It avoids anarchy. It helps maintain order in all levels of life from our streets to our governments. Having said that, a lot of people tend to regularly ask for more accountability in our governments. But, that is a topic for another day.
Accountability is good for maintaining order. But not only that, it helps us achieve amazing things. If someone sets a goal and remains accountable for their actions towards that goal then the result could be something spectacular.
The question for you is … are you more likely to do something amazing if you are accountable for your actions?
Take a listen to today’s podcast episode as we explore this idea and take a deeper look at accountability.
“…with great power there must also come — great responsibility!” Marvel Comic Strip (Spiderman)
“If you were to sum up the last 50 years of behavioural psychology in two worlds, it would be: ‘logic fails.’ No matter how good a plan is, how thorough a book is, or how sincere our intentions, humans are horrible at self-discipline. No one is immune. The smartest, richest, and most dedicated people abandon commitments with disgusting regularity. But what if you truly want to get something done?” – Tim Ferris – The 4-Hour Chef.
“You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of.” – Jim Rohn.
“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” – Abraham Lincoln.
How can you use accountability to propel your Spanish forward?
Tips 043: Spanish Introductions With Arantxa Flórez
Oct 23, 2014
This week on the podcast we welcome our first guest. Arantxa Flórez joins us to discuss Spanish introductions.
The first phase in any conversation is an exchange of pleasantries. So what are the best ways to open a conversation? How should you get somebody’s name? What should you ask to find out what they do? And how do you ask them to repeat something if you misheard?
In today’s episode we will look at some of the most important ice breaker questions. But not only that, we get to hear a real Spanish accent.
It’s one thing listening to my Australian Spanish accent. It’s something else to hear the real thing.
Arantxa is one of my best friends from Spain. We have known each other for quite some time. She has passion for learning English and helping Spanish students with their Spanish.
Examples from the episode:
What’s your name? – ¿Cómo te llamas?
What? (can you repeat) – ¿Cómo? o ¿Perdona? o ¿Qué?
Where are you from? – ¿De dónde eres?
I’m Spanish (female) – Soy Española.
I’m Spanish (male) – Soy Español.
I’m from Spain – Soy de España.
Where exactly? – ¿De dónde exactamente?
What part? – ¿De qué parte?
What area? – ¿De qué zona?
I like to read. I like music. I like to go out with my friends – Me gusta leer. Me gusta la musica. Me gusta salir con mis amigos.
What do you like to in your spare time? – ¿Qué te gusta hacer en tu tiempo libre?
Why are you learning English? – ¿Por qué estudias Inglés?
How long have you been living in Melbourne – ¿Cuánto tiempo llevas viviendo en Melbourne?
“Los amigos son la familia que se escoge” – Spanish proverb
“Friends are the family that you choose”
If you feel like answering some of the questions from today’s podcast below. Let us know how you would answer these pleasantries in Spanish. What else could you ask when making Spanish introductions?
Tips 042: What Didn’t Work For Me And How To Learn Spanish Quickly
Oct 20, 2014
I have had a lot of embarrassing moments learning Spanish. I have referred to these moments as failures. But the best thing about failures is that they tell a story of what doesn’t work.
One of the best ways to learn is to work out what doesn’t work. That way you can get to what does work faster.
If you want to learn spanish quickly you have to work out how to learn spanish slowly. This is what today’s podcast is about.
In today’s episode I focus on what didn’t work for me. More specifically I focus on what slowed me down. Once I knew what slowed me down I could work out what would speed up the learning process.
This episode was inspired by a post from the archives where I talked about the things spanish students should avoid. Here is the link:
Not every tip in that post I have actually tried. For example, one of the tips was about learning 2 languages at the same time. I have never tried that. But a polyglot friend recommended that I didn’t try to learn 2 languages at the same time. I followed this advice because it makes sense.
What I focus on today in the podcast is the techniques that I have actually tried. I will go through these tips one by one and explain why they didn’t work. I will then talk about how to adjust to find ones that do work.
There are 10 ideas that slowed me down. These ideas are what I experienced as unhelpful if you want to learn spanish quickly. Some of the ideas are related to mindset and some related simply to writing things down.
Some of the ideas are also covered in more detail in other mindset episodes. You can see the other episodes mentioned on the podcast here:
Tips 041: 3 Common Ways To Use “Llevar” In A Conversation
Oct 16, 2014
The word “llevar” is one of the most versatile words in the Spanish language. There are 23 uses for “llevar” listed in my Spanish to Spanish dictionary.
But in today’s episode of the podcast, we will be looking at 3 common uses. We will look at one, in particular, that is extremely useful for getting to know someone.
I have had a few questions from subscribers recently that have asked for me to cover this tricky word. It is very similar to the word ‘poner‘ which has a lot of different uses as well. Of course, you don’t need to know all 23 the uses of ‘llevar’. But you should get to know the 3 that we are going to look at today.
To take away or to eat here – Para llevar o para tomar aquí.
To eat here – Para tomar aquí.
I can’t carry anything else – No puedo llevar nada más.
You have to carry a lot of water – Tienes que llevar mucha agua.
To wear clothes – Llevar ropa.
She is always wearing fashionable clothing – Ella siempre lleva ropa de moda.
I think it’s important that people wear clothes for the situation – Creo que es importante que la gente lleva ropa por la situación.
In fashion – de moda.
Fashion label clothing – Ropa de marca.
Do you like to wear fashionable clothes – ¿Te gusta llevar ropa de marca?
It depends on the situation. When I go out I like to wear brand clothes but at home I tend to wear unbranded clothes. – Depende de la situación. Cuando salgo me gusta llevar ropa de marca, pero en casa suelo llevar ropa de marca blanca.
Off label – marca blanca.
How long have you been learning Spanish? – ¿Cuánto tiempo llevas aprendiendo español?
I have been learning spanish for 2 years – Llevo aprendiendo español durante dos años.
How long have you been working at the school – ¿Cuánto tiempo llevas trabajando en la escuela?
I have been living in Melbourne for 12 years – Llevo viviendo en Melbourne doce años.
I have been living in Melbourne since 2002 – Llevo viviendo en Melbourne desde 2002.
To have been doing something for a long time – llevar mucho tiempo haciendo algo.
Quote for today:
“No pienses tanto solo dejate llevar” – Don’t over think it, just go with the flow.
Tips 040: What You Need To Know About Give Up Triggers
Oct 13, 2014
It is a hard question to ask – When do I give up? And Why?
But, if you have the courage to ask, you may discover an answer in the self-analysis that is worth the effort.
When I was 9 I gave up playing the saxophone. I was a pretty obedient kid. So when I did give something up, it was a big deal. Now I can break down the decision in hindsight and analyse the reasons why.
Saxophone wasn’t the only thing I gave up. I also gave up on Boy Scouts. A singing group. Karate. And a long distance running group.
But, there were things that I did carry on with. I played the piano for 20 years. I was a competitive swimmer for 15 years.
So what separated the activities that I continued with from the ones I gave away.
In today’s podcast episode I start by looking at the differences between the saxophone and the piano.
Why did I stick with the piano? Why did I give away the saxophone?
Then I took a look at the long distance running group and the swimming squad. I was able to stick with swimming for a long time despite the effort it took to get up at 5 o’clock in the morning week after week.
The running group was different. I could run at lunchtime. I didn’t have to get up early. I didn’t have to get wet. And there were rarely sessions that involved spewing into the side of a pool.
But why did I stick with swimming and why did I give away the running group?
Mentioned in today’s podcast is the saxophone song that I really wanted to play.
The quick summary of what I discovered from the self analysis and what I know is true for myself and my give up triggers is:
I’m less likely to give up if I have connection with other humans.
I’m less likely to give up if I have accountability to others.
I’m less likely to give up if what I am doing is convenient.
I’m less likely to give up if there is sufficient internal reward.
I’m less likely to give up if I’m not worried about how long it is going to take or how hard it is going to be.
Quote from today’s episode:
“I’m not telling you it’s going to be easy – I’m telling you it’s going to be worth it.” – Art Williams
Tips 038: How To Set Language Learning Expectations
Oct 06, 2014
What is an expectation? How do you currently set expectations? Are there such things as bad expectations? Are you setting expectations that are stopping you achieving your Spanish goals?
In today’s episode of the Real Fast Spanish Tips podcast we will be looking at the mindset topic of expectations. We start off the episode with two important quotes:
“High achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation.” – Charles Kettering
“Disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy – the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and expectation.” – Eric Hoffer
On review of these two quotes there is a dichotomy that exists. It’s that expectations help with high achievement and evoke absolute misery. In this case, who wants a bankrupt soul?
People say that you will be bitterly disappointed if you have expectations. If your expectations are high then you are setting yourself up misery and heartache.
But then we look at first quote. The only way to achieve great things is set high expectations. We may never walked on the moon if the people at NASA didn’t expect they could do it.
Most of greatness ever achieved by humans on or even off this earth has come from setting high goals and expecting to hit them.
But of course for anybody who has experienced an unmet expectation, and I’m sure you have had this at one stage in your life. And that is you feel angry, disappointed, let down and frustrated.
Stories from the episode:
A huge falling out with my best friend in high school.
An embarrassing Spanish mistake in a bar in Barcelona.
My experience this week with Amazon.
Do you say the following things to yourself:
“I expect to be good enough by now”
“I expect I would be fluent by now”
“I expect that person would understand me”
The key to unlocking expectation is thinking about the direction or the flow of expectation.
There are two types of expectations:
The expectations you have for the world (eg. The expectations you have for your friends, family, TV shows, government etc.)
The expectations that the world has for you (eg. What do your friends and family expect from you?)
Here is a funny idea but I often think about what the Spanish language expects from me?
When you reframe what you expect from the world and change it to what the world expects from you then you avoid any situation in which you can experience disappointment.
Now this is often tough because it is easier to blame others when things don’t work.
Ask yourself this question:
What does this situation expect from me?
When you ask this question it reframes things back into your control. It doesn’t mean that you will like the situation. It doesn’t mean that you have to be happy with how things have gone but it avoids having a disempowering mindset.
Tips 037: Expressing Cause And Effect In Spanish
Oct 02, 2014
If you want to know someone well, is it important to discover what motivates him or her? Everybody has a cause and an effect of why they what they do.
In contrast, a scientist always needs to match outcomes to their observations. That’s the whole point of science. Science is always trying to understand the relationship between cause and effect.
If you can understand today’s lesson then you can link cause and effect to understand a range of useful ideas. This includes expressing ideas around the cause and effect of people, science, politics or any other idea.
Whether it is in the classroom or in the laboratory or in a café. Being able to express the relationship between cause and effect is an important tool for your Spanish vocabulary.
There are lots of ways to link cause and effect in English. They can be broken down into two groups. Phrases that link a cause to an effect and phrases that link an effect to a cause.
For example: 1. Phrases that link a cause to an effect: Accordingly, so, then, thus, consequently, hence, ergo etc.
2. Phrases that link an effect to a cause: Because, since, seeing that, on account of, for the reason that etc.
In Spanish, there are also a ton of phrases that link cause and effect. But like most things on Real Fast Spanish I look to use conversation hacking principles. This is to reduce the total amount of vocab, expressions and grammar you need to know or remember for a conversation. With this in mind, I’m going to focus on the most useful Spanish phrases for cause and effect.
Therefore, today we are looking at 5 phrases that are extremely useful for linking cause with effect in Spanish.
En consequencia (These phrases link cause to effect): Asi que Por ese Por lo tanto
En causa (These phrases link effect to cause): Porque Es que
The last example is very common. It’s used when forming sentences that require a cause to be explained that is often simply an excuse.
Examples form the episode are as follows:
I was hungry so I ate something – He tenido hambre, así que he comido algo.
I was hungry so I ate everything in the house – He tenido mucho hambre, así que he comido toda la comida en la casa.
I was hungry that’s why I ate everything in the house – He tenido mucho hambre, por eso he comido toda la comida en la casa.
This week I was really busy, that’s why I didn’t speak with my parents – Esta semana he estado muy ocupado, por eso yo no he hablado con mis padres.
This week I was really busy, therefore I didn’t speak with my parents – Esta semana he estado muy ocupado, por lo tanto yo no he hablado con mis padres.
I’ve been sick, so I could not go to work – He estado enfermo, por lo tanto no he podido ir a trabajo.
They have discovered life on mars, therefore, we have to rethink our understanding of life in the solar system – Han descubierto vida en Marte, por lo tanto, tenemos que repensar nuestra comprensión de la vida en el sistema solar.
I ate something because I was hungry – He comido algo porque he tenido hambre.
I could not go to work because I have been sick – No he podido ir a trabajo porque he estado enfermo.
Why weren’t you at work this week? – ¿Por qué no has estado en el trabajo esta semana?
It’s that, I was sick – Es que, he estado enfermo.
Why are you late? – ¿Por qué llegas tarde?
I arrive late because my car broke down – Llego tarde porque mi coche se ha roto.
I arrive late because I slept in – Llego tarde porque me he levantado tarde.
I’m sorry, it’s that my car broke down – Lo siento, es que mi coche se ha roto.
I’m sorry, it’s that my alarm clock broke – Lo siento, es que mi despertador se ha roto.
Are you up for going to the movies with us this afternoon – ¿Te apetece ir al cine con nosotros esta tarde?
I’m sorry, I can’t, it’s just that I have to help my dad with the shopping – Lo siento, no puedo, es que tengo que ayudar a mi padre con las compras.
Quote form the episode is as follows:
“El pasado es historia, el futuro es incierto, pero el hoy es un obsequio, por eso se llama presente” – Kung Fu Panda.
How can you use today’s examples to relate cause to effect?
Imagine you find yourself in the middle of a massive street party at 1:00am. Spanish speakers surround you. There are in jokes, colloquial expressions and stories flying in all directions.
You are intimated and lost in the language. What’s worse is as time wears on you start to understand less and less. You think to yourself, was all that study a waste of time or am I just really bad at this whole language thing?
That’s where we found ourselves on El Día De La Paloma. Surrounded by natives in the middle of the night in one of the biggest street parties of the year.
But how did we get there? Let’s go back to the start.
We had been living in Madrid for a number of weeks and we had a friend from home coming to visit us for a few days.
We wanted to give her the best possible experience for the few days she was there. She could speak Spanish so I didn’t think it would be a big problem to go to this party and throw her into the deep end.
Of course it would have been an awesome immersion experience, if you had been regularly building towards such as moment. But if it was your first day and you were feeling a little tired and jet lagged it could get intimidating very quickly.
In today’s episode of the Real Fast Spanish tips podcast I will tell the story of our experience on El Día De La Paloma and our visiting hometown friend.
I will tell a little about the festival and how we got out of the mess. I will also discuss, for me, the big take away from the experience. And also how that take away will help you with your Spanish mindset.
If you want to read a little more about El Día De La Paloma and the week long festival you can check out the wiki article here: Fiestas de la Paloma.
The inspiration for this podcast came out of tip 30, La Supercopa De España, which has been one of the most popular episodes to date.
Quote from the episode: “Sometimes the most urgent and vital thing you can possibly do is take a complete rest.” – Ashleigh Brilliant
Tips 035: It’s Time To Start Being More Negative
Sep 25, 2014
When you start to get into the learning of Spanish. It feels great. There is a lot that you will start saying yes to.
But every now and then, like in English, there will be situations when you want to say no.
In today’s episode of the Real Fast Spanish Tips Podcast we will be looking at negative sentences. How they are different to English and some common pitfalls to watch out for.
We start with one of the grammar hacking sentences:
I can’t eat the apple – No puedo comer la manzana
Often, in Spanish, it is as simple as adding the word ‘no’ to the start of a sentence to make the sentence negative.
But, it isn’t always that simple. To learn more about making sentences negative in Spanish we need to look at the following sets of words called ‘Negative pairs’:
Tips 034: How To Learn Spanish Faster By Using A 20-Mile March
Sep 22, 2014
It was a perfect day, I really felt like practicing Spanish but I decided to stop because I knew it would be the best way to learn Spanish faster.
Sometimes learning Spanish quickly isn’t about going flat out all of the time. Sometimes it’s about leaving reserves in the tank knowing that those reserves may come in handy later.
In today’s episode of the Real Fast Spanish Tips Podcast we will be looking at the concept of the 20-mile march and how it can help you learn Spanish faster.
The story and origin the 20-mile march concept dates by to one of the greatest stories of ultimate success and ultimate failure that I know.
The story is about the race to the South Pole. A race between a team led by Roald Amundsen (a Norwegian explorer) and the other by Robert Falcon Scott who led the British team.
In the end, Amundsen’s team experienced ultimate success reaching the South Pole first and returning safely without any loss of life. Scott’s team, on the other hand, ended in ultimate tragedy. Scott’s team did make it to the South Pole but all perished on the return journey.
I have previously talked about this concept in an article in the archives. I wanted to bring it back now because I’m always looking to find things that will answer the question “how can I get to a conversational level of Spanish as fast as possible?” This idea of the 20-mile march is definitely a concept that goes a long way towards answering the question. It’s also why I wanted to record a podcast about it talking about the concept and highlighting it to you in a different way.
In today’s podcast episode I discuss some of the reasons for the success and failure. You can see details in the Wikipedia article here.
But one of the key ideas and one that I want to focus on is that of the 20-mile march.
The journey to the South Pole was approximately 1400 miles and Amundsen set about covering that journey with a relentlessly consistent pace of between 15 to 20 miles per day in good or bad weather.
This may seem counter intuitive at first because it required two types of discipline. The first type of discipline was to not push forward when conditions were favorable but to instead rest for the days to come. And the second was to push forward when whether conditions were poor.
What does this have to do with learning Spanish?
Well in both instances, your circumstance of wanting to reach a conversational level of Spanish and Amundsen’s, you are trying to focus on a long term goal that requires extended focus and effort to reach the goal in quick time.
If you want to get there faster you should consider taking a similar approach to that of Amundsen.
Applying a relentless 15 – 20 mile march he was able to cover the 1400-mile journey to the South Pole and back again over a period of 99 days.
If you had to learn Spanish and it was going to take you 1400 minutes could you do 15-20 minutes a day for 99 days?
Learning Spanish probably takes a lot longer than 1400 minutes but the idea is clear.
If you want to successfully apply a 20 mile march in your routine you need to consider setting an upper bound and a lower bound for your daily routine.
The question is can you set a lower limit that you always hit regardless of weather conditions and can you stop if you hit un upper limit when weather conditions are favorable.
Have a listen today’s podcast episode and let me know what you think?
Does this principle of the 20 mile march make sense? Could you apply the idea to help you learn Spanish faster?
Quote form the episode:
“Adventure is just bad planning” – Roald Amundsen.
How can you apply the 20-mile march concept to your Spanish journey?
Tips 033: How To Know If You Really Know – Saber vs Conocer
Sep 18, 2014
How well do you know how to say you know what you know in Spanish?
It today’s podcast episode we will be looking at these two common verbs in Spanish: saber vs conocer. We will look at a different way of thinking of the translation of these two verbs and so common uses of each.
A quick summary for the uses of these two verbs for ‘to know’ are:
Saber – Facts, Information & How to do something
Conocer – People, Places & Things
The conjugations of these two verbs:
Saber (Note it is irregular in first person) Yo sé Tú sabes Él / ella sabe Nosotros sabemos Vosotros sabeís Ellos saben
Conocer (Also irregular in first person) Yo conozco Tú conoces Él / ella conoce Nosotros conocemos Vosotros conocéis Ellos conocen
Examples from the episode:
I’m going to be familiar with it tomorrow – Voy a conocer manaña (Reference from tip 17 – A Hack For The Future)
I don’t know where I am – No sé donde estoy
He knows the answer – Él sabe la respuesta
I don’t know – No lo sé
They know nothing – Ellos no saben nada
I know how to speak spanish – Yo sé hablar español.
I know how to find – Yo sé encontrar.
I know how to explain – Yo sé explicar.
I know how to say algo – Yo sé decir algo.
Only she knows how to find this house – Sólo ella sabe encontrar está casa
Who knows! – ¡Quien sabe!
God knows! – ¡Dios sabe!
I know mathematics – Yo sé matemáticas
Are you familiar with Spanish literature – ¿Conoces la literatura española?
Do you know my friend – ¿Conoces a mi amiga?
I don’t know her – Yo no la conozco.
I know Melbourne well – Yo conozco bien Melbourne.
I don’t know Spain but one day – No conozco España pero algún día.
He we met? – Nos hemos encontrado?
Have you met / Do you know each other – ¿os conocéis?
Quote from the episode:
“Sin saber el poder de las palabras, es imposible conocer al hombre.” – Confucius (Without knowing the force of words, it is impossible to know man)
“lo conozco como la palma de la mano” – Spanish saying. (I know it like the back of my hand)
It broke my heart when she uttered those words to me.
Not only was it a massive head on collision with reality but I thought at that moment that I would never achieve my Spanish learning goals.
In today’s episode of the Real Fast Spanish Tips podcast, I explore one of the fundamental principles of Real Fast Spanish and that is that you are better off without the goal of fluency.
I got some great feedback from last weeks podcast and today’s episode was in fact inspired by one of the Real Fast Spanish Tips podcast listeners. One listener, in particular, sent me a really warm email that inspired me to reiterate one key idea that helped propel me along my Spanish journey. Not only was the email warm but filled with some great turns of phrase and today’s quote is actually directly from the listener – with permission, of course
In today’s mindset podcast I tell the story of when I first discovered that the goal of fluency wasn’t helpful and that instead, a focus on other things was far productive.
I tell the story of a french girl I met in a bar and how it was something that she told me about language learning that changed everything.
“The mountain may be high, but if the edge of potential was too close, the view wouldn’t be as spectacular.” ‒ Keith (Real Fast Spanish Subscriber)
“It’s the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top.” ‒ Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
What’s your take on fluency? Am I right or have I got it completely wrong?
Ya vs Todavía – How to Use These Useful Spanish Words
Sep 11, 2014
When and how should you use ya vs todavía?
These two Spanish words often get introduced together because they both relate to time. Specifically, they add emotion when discussing deadlines.
In this article (and podcast) you will discover some useful distinctions that will help you to better understand these two common Spanish adverbs.
Before I get to the main topic, if you would like to learn more about important Spanish vocabulary, check out the Conversation Hacking Guide on shortcutting conversational Spanish.
To introduce the main topic, first consider two simple example questions in English:
Have you done your homework?
Have you done your homework already?
Take a look at these two questions and really think about how the word ‘already’ modifies the meaning of the second question.
Moreover, if you can grasp the role ‘already’ is playing in the second question, then you will be able to understand how ya and todavía modify Spanish sentences.
When comparing the examples above, you could infer from the second question that the homework should have been done (already) or that there is an element of surprise that the homework has (already) been done. Maybe the person asking the question is not happy about the situation. Or alternatively, they might be surprised, it depends on their tone.
In Spanish the possible translations of ya and todavía are as follows:
English: Already, before, by now and now. Español: Ya.
English: Still, yet. Español: Todavía.
So which translation is appropriate and when?
You need to consider two decisions:
Whether the idea you want to express is about something that has happened in the past or continues in the present.
Whether the idea is negative or positive.
For these two considerations, you now have four possible Spanish sentence structures for ya and todavía:
Positivo
Negativo
Ya
Ya + pasado
Ya + no + presente
Todavía
Todavía + presente
Todavía + no + pasado/presente
Each of these quadrants represents a form of use for ya vs todavía.
The past forms (ya + pasado, todavía + no + pasado) often gets used with the present perfect tense, for details on using the present perfect check out 8 phrases that trigger the present perfect tense.
To help you understand these ideas, here are a bunch of examples. For an explanation of each, check out the podcast episode associated with this post—you can listen in the iTunes store or click the play button here:
Examples from the episode:
Have you done your homework already? – ¿Ya has hecho los deberes?
Yes have I have done my homework – Sí, ya he hecho los deberes.
No I haven’t yet done my homework – No, todavía no he hecho los deberes. (no, todavía no)
Have you already seen x-men? – ¿Ya has visto x-men?
Yes I have already seen x-men – Sí ya he visto x-men.
No I still haven’t seen x-men – No, todavía no he visto x-men.
I haven’t eaten – No he comido.
I haven’t eaten yet – Todavía no he comido.
To do the shopping – Ir de compras.
Have you done the shopping already? – ¿Ya has ido de compras?
Yes I have already done the shopping – Sí, he ido de compras.
No I haven’t yet done the shopping – No, todavía no he ido de compras. No, todavía no.
Are you happy? – ¿Estas contento?
I’m still not happy – Todavía no estoy contento.
Do you still live with your parents? – ¿Todavía vives con tus padres?
Yes I still live with my parents – Sí todavía vivo con mis padres.
No I don’t live with my parents anymore, I live with my girlfriend – No ya no vivo con mis padres, vivo con mi novia.
I’m not hungry, yet I could eat something – No tengo hambre, pero puedo comer algo.
I want it right now – Ya lo quiero.
I leave right now – Ya me voy.
Now I understand – Ya entiendo.
Yes I know – Ya lo sé.
Yeah we’ll see – Ya veremos.
Since – Ya que.
Let me know – Ya me dices.
Get out of here! – ¡Anda ya!
That’s it! – ¡Ya está!
Quote from the episode:
“Ya que la casa se quema, calentémonos en ella” – Spanish Proverb
It was a bucket list item for me. Something that I had always dreamed of.
I knew that it wasn’t going to be easy but I didn’t realise that if it wasn’t for my Spanish it never would have happened.
In today’s episode of the Real Fast Spanish tips podcast I discuss one of my stories from Madrid in the most recent trip.
I explain how initially it was a massive Spanish fail and how I felt really stupid. But in the end I was able to negotiate my way to not one game of European Football but two.
Today’s mindset tip is for the purpose of helping you think about your “why”, the second ‘D’ of language learning, and upping your level of desire to continue. For me, it is the most important skill asides from vocabulary and grammar. You need to nurture your ability to keep going even when you don’t quite feel like it.
If you are early in your language learning journey the best is still to come. If you have been doing it for awhile then you too need to think about the fun that is coming in the future even though it can feel a little ‘old hat’.
With my Spanish skills I was able to tick a big item off my bucket list. I was able to go see a big soccer game in Europe. Not only that but I got to see Atlético Madrid win a title in the ‘Supercopa‘, one that they hadn’t achieved since 1985. Then follow that up with celebrations until three o’clock in the morning with my friends from Madrid that are all huge Atlético fans.
I also learnt an important lesson about listening carefully to the actual options when calling a call center and how it can be very confusing if you dial the wrong number.
Check out today’s podcast episode and let me know if this story resonates with you.
Tips 029: Two Useful Grammar Hacking Sentences
Sep 04, 2014
In this theoretical episode of the podcast, we will be looking at two useful Spanish Grammar Hacking sentences.
These two sentences use indirect object pronouns and so we will also be looking at the grammar structure of these types of pronouns. And using them to better form our ideas and express ourselves in Spanish.
We first looked at indirect object pronouns in podcast episode number 7 where I introduced verbs like gustar. The set of indirect object pronouns are:
Me – Me
Te –You
Le – Him / Her
Nos – Us
Os – You-all
Les – Them
In tip number 19 I introduced the set of direct object pronouns and the behaviour of the word “lo” when you have two verbs in a compound structure at the start of a sentence.
Examples from the episode:
I give the apple to John – Le doy la manzana a John
I give hime the money – Le doy el dinero
I give him the dinner – Le doy la cena
I give her the dinner – A ella le doy la cena
You don’t tell me the truth – No me dices la verdad
He tells me something – Él me dice algo
We tell you the truth – Te decimos la verdad
They buy me a present – Me compran un regalo
I have to tell you something – Te tengo que decir algo
I have to tell you something – tengo que decirte algo
You need to give me the book – me necesitas dar el libro
She wants to show him her house – Ella le quiere mostrar su casa
She wants to show him her house – Ella quiere mostrarle mi casa
You can buy me something – Me puedes comprar algo
We have to tell him the secret – Le tenemos que decir el secreto
We are going to tell him the secret – Le vamos a decir el secreto
She wants to ask me a question – Ella me quiere pedir una pregunta
I’m going to tell him my real age – Le voy a decir mi edad real
Let me know – “Ya me dices”
Quote from the episode:
“A quien madruga, Dios le ayuda” – Spanish Proverb
What other examples can you give using these Spanish grammar hacking sentences?
Is productivity overrated? Is learning Spanish really about getting more done in less time?
In this episode of the Real Fast Spanish Tips podcast, I will share one of the best productivity tips that I have ever learnt. The best part is it is not about doing more in less time. It is not about maximising efficiency. In fact, it is almost the exact opposite.
Too often we are focused on the dreaded “to-do” list. We come up with new ways to organise the to-do list. We look for apps and computer software to automate our schedule. But sometimes it isn’t about maximum efficiency.
Sometimes the best way to approach the concept of productivity and doing more is by doing less.
The best tip that I ever received is to take a look at your schedule and start to work out what can be eliminated. It almost goes against human nature to remove things. We are so used to adding things all the time. New clothes, new software, new technology, new gadgets, new furniture etc. But when we get these new things we sometimes forget that we need to eliminate the old things first to make way for the new things.
The same goes for you daily, weekly or monthly schedule. If you want to find time to learn Spanish, one of the best ways is to start by working out what you can remove.
In today’s episode of the podcast I look of the strategy of the “not to do” list and how you can apply it in your routine. I will also tie the modern idea of the “not to do” list with an old zen proverb.
The quote from this episode:
“Knowledge is learning something every day. Wisdom is letting something go every day.” – Zen Proverb
Tips 027: Are You The Best? An Introduction To Spanish Superlatives
Aug 28, 2014
It’s one thing knowing what is best. It is another thing saying it in Spanish. The key is in knowing Spanish superlatives.
Expressing a form of superiority is the topic of this weeks podcast. If you don’t already know the grammar constructions for superlatives then this weeks topic will be of use. Being able to express the superiority of a person or thing is a very common idea and you will want to be able to use these forms in your conversation training.
In a follow up to last weeks episode on comparatives, this week we will be looking at Spanish superlatives. We will also be clearing up some typical problems with the comparative constructions that were raised in last weeks episode. There are a few tricky comparison forms that I forgot to mention (better late than never).
The errors that Spanish students typically make with comparatives is when saying things are better, worse, older or younger.
The adjectives that are never used are as follows:
Más bueno -> Mejor
Más malo -> Peor
Más viejo -> Mayor
Más joven -> Menor
Examples from the episode:
Mayor – Older / Elderly
Viejo / Vieja – Old
I have an older brother – Tengo un hermano mayor
Elderly people – Los mayores
It’s a program for old people – En un programma para mayores
An old person – Una persona vieja
I have an antique seat – Tengo una silla vieja
It’s an old book – Es un libro viejo
Tu español es más bueno que el mío (INCORRECT)
Your Spanish is better than mine – Tu español es mejor que el mío
La comida en españa es más bueno que la comida en los estados unidos (INCORRECT)
The food in Spain is better than the food in the United States – La comida en españa es mejor que la comida en los estados unidos
Este libro es más malo que el ultimo libro (INCORRECT)
This book is worse than the last book – Este libro es peor que el ultimo libro
This book is mucho worse than the last book – Este libro es mucho peor que el ultimo libro
Él es más viejo que yo (INCORRECT)
He is older than me – Él es mayor que yo
Mi hermano es más joven que yo (INCORRECT)
My brother is younger than me – Mi hermano es menor que yo
There are two kinds of superlative: relative superlatives and absolute superlatives. There constructions are as follows:
Relative Superlatives Structure – El / La / Los / Las + más + adjective + de
Absolute Superlative Structure – El / la es muy + adjective – Adjective + ísimo
Examples from the episode:
Carla is the most intelligent in the class – Carla es la más lista de la class.
Carlos is the tallest in the school – Carlos es el más alto de la escuela.
These books are the most interesting in the library – Estos son los libros más interesantes de la bibliotics.
My friend is the oldest in the team – Mi amigo es el mayor del equipo.
Juan is very tall – Juan es muy alto.
Juan is really very tall – Juan es altísimo.
The food is very good – La comida es muy buena.
The food is really very good – La comida es buenísima.
Always he is really very happy – Siempre él es felicísimo.
Sofia is really very pretty – Sofia es guapísima.
Quote from the episode:
“Prefiero ser el peor de los mejores que el mejor de los peores” – Kurt Cuban.
What examples can you give using Spanish superlatives?
It is often very tempting to simply look for the shinny new things. To assume that what come before is well understood and not worth another look.
But in this episode of the Real Fast Spanish Tips podcast we will pause to reflect. The podcast has been going now for about three months. There has been a lot of discussion about conversation hacking with plenty of Spanish tips and tricks, so in this episode we take a quick look back at what we have already covered.
I also ask you this question:
How well do you know all of the topics covered so far in the Real Fast Spanish Tips podcast?
In the podcast I mention episode number five, your first 10 spanish words, and ask whether you know the six verbs mentioned in this episode backwards.
If you don’t know these words backwards go back and have another listen to that episode. Have a look at the conjugations for these verbs. Do you know them in the first person, second person, third person etc.? Can you conjugate them in past, present and future. If not, it is worth taking another look.
It is much better to know 100 words very well than 1000 words poorly. It much better to know 10 words really well than 100 words poorly. This is what conversation hacking is all about – knowing the most useful words and knowing them well.
If you don’t already have one, a process for revision and repetition is an incredibly useful tool. My friend who speaks 5 different languages attributes the discipline of repetition as being one of the most critical to his success.
So if you haven’t already, this episode is about looking at your Spanish routine and seeing where you can put in a regular spot for revision and repetition. It could be one of the best habits you use to boost you Spanish skills quickly.
The quote from this episode:
“Repetition is the mother of all skill.” – Tony Robbins
How do you implement repetition into your routine?
Tips 025: How Do You Compare? An Introduction To Spanish Comparatives
Aug 21, 2014
In this episode of the Real Fast Spanish tips podcast, we will be looking at Spanish comparatives.
If you can’t yet make a comparison between one thing and another in Spanish then this tip will be valuable to you. Making comparisons is something that we do every day and it’s one of the best ways to explain to somebody things about your life, your country, your friends, your job or anything that requires a measure against something else to be better understood.
There are three groups of Spanish comparatives. The first group is used for saying something is more than something else. This could mean something is bigger, wider, taller, stronger etc. The next group is used for saying something is less than something else. And the last group is saying something is as much as, as big as, as small as, as smart as etc.
Spanish Comparative Constructions:
– Something is more than something else
Más + adjectivo + que
Más + sustantivo + que
Verbo + más que
– Something is less than something else
Menos + adjectivo + que
Menos + sustantivo + que
Verbo + menos que
– Something is as much as something else
Tan + adjectivo + como
Tanto/a/os/as + sustantivo + como
Verb + tanto como
Examples from today’s episode:
The United States is much bigger than Spain – Los Estados Unidos son más grandes que España
Spain has more inhabitants than Australia – España tiene más habitantes que Australia
Europe is colder than Australia in January – Europa es más frío que Australia en enero
He is more handsome than his brother – Él es más guapo que su hermano
You study more than me – Tú estudias más que yo
Pedro has more books than Juan – Pedro tiene más libros que Juan
Marco has more energy than a bull – Marco tiene más energía que un toro
I listen to less music than you – Yo escucho menos música que tú
My sister is (less tall) or shorter than me – Mi hermana es menos alta que yo
He is quite a lot less silly than me – Él es bastante menos tonto que yo
The coffee is less delicious than chocolate – El café es menos delicioso que el chocolate
She is as beautiful as her sister – Ella es tan guapa como su hermana
I am as tall as you – Soy tan alto como tú
She is as smart as her mother – Ella es tan lista como su madre
Sonia spends as many hours as Nicolas at work – Sonia pasa tantas horas como Nicolás en el trabajo
We eat as much meat as the United States – Comemos tanta carne como Estados Unidos
I drink as much wine as beer – Bebo tanto vino como cerveza
We study as much as them – Estudiamos tanto como ellos
She eats as much as her brother – Ella come tanto como su hermano
This episodes quote:
“Nada hay más surreal que la realidad.” – Salvador Dali
Tips 024: Improve Your IQ With This Unusual Tip
Aug 18, 2014
Would you like to boost your IQ?
Probably a silly question. So moving on quickly, in this podcast episode I will introduce another technique that will help improve your IQ. This is, of course, backed up by science.
In a previous episode of the Real Fast Spanish tips podcast, I talked about improving your brain with exercise. Well in this tip there will a different approach. This approach is also likely to be of use because it involves improving your IQ.
In this episode, I’m going to introduce something known as the Mozart Effect. If you have never heard of the Mozart Effect before, it may be strangely intriguing to you that you can improve your brain simply by listening to music.
For me, this doesn’t come as a huge surprise because music has a profound effect on us. When we listen to sad music it tends to make us sad. When we listening to happy music it tends to make us happy. Music with a heavy bassline and beat tends to make us want to dance. So it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that listening to a certain type of music with a specific level of complexity created by a musical genius makes us smarter.
So in this episode, I will introduce the topic, I will refer to two resources (listed below) and then I will play about 30 minutes of Mozart.
For those of you who are interested the piece that I play in this episode is called: “Symphony No. 40 in G minor”
Tips 023: Getting To Know Prepositions Of Movement
Aug 14, 2014
How well do you know prepositions of movement in Spanish?
If you can understand and use prepositions correctly you can do anything! Prepositions are tough because they don’t translate well. They tend to cause English students grief. But in this episode of the podcast we will be looking at a few examples to try and make things a little bit easier.
There are lots of Spanish prepositions that you will need to get to know overtime. But you maybe able to find some solace in the fact that there are lots of language students out there that are struggling to learn prepositions going from any language to any other language – it doesn’t just apply for English to Spanish.
To break things down, in this episode we will be looking at prepositions of movement.
What this means is that we will be looking at things like: arriving to, leaving from, coming to, entering into etc.
Now in that last sentence can you see the prepositions – to, from, to, into – think about someone learning English and having to understand that you enter “into” not enter “in” or enter “to”. Hopefully, you can see here that they are tough and that you should definitely be kind to yourself if you make mistakes with these.
Tips 022: 4 Tricks To Lift Your Spanish Using Body Language
Aug 11, 2014
I thought I was speaking clearly but he had no idea what I was saying.
We have heard it before, right? There is much more said in the unsaid than the said. But have you considered how your body language is telling a different story to what you are actually saying?
In the latest episode of the Real Fast Spanish tips podcast, we will be discussing the topic of body language as the mindset discussion for this week.
Body language is important and it is even more important when you are uncertain of a language because if you can’t tell the full story with what you are actually saying then you need to make up the rest with your body language.
I had a bit of shock early in my language learning journey when a good friend of mine told me that my body language was awful when I was speaking Spanish. “Look me in the eyes” he said. I didn’t realise that when I was practicing my Spanish my eyes darted to the ground, the confidence in my tone of voice dropped, my shoulders slouched and I crossed my arms.
He told me that even if my spanish is disjointed and broken, he could still understand more clearly if I looked him in the eye and conveyed more with my body language.
It is amazing what your body will do if you aren’t conscious of it and if you aren’t confident in what you are saying. Public speakers practice this regardless of their confidence level in a topic. It is critical to getting your point across and it is absolutely worth practicing with your Spanish.
Tips 021: How to Avoid Mistakes With The Letter “A”
Aug 07, 2014
In the latest episode of the Real Fast Spanish tips podcast, we will be looking at another Spanish word that can cause confusion for English students.
Is the letter “a” is a letter or a word? It’s is up for debate. But debates aside, in today’s episode of the Real Fast Spanish tips podcast we will discuss how to use “a” in a Spanish sentence and what some of the common pitfalls are.
Tips 020: How To Build Confidence In Spanish
Aug 04, 2014
In this episode of the real fast spanish tips podcast we look at a big mindset topic.
If you have ever struggled with confidence or maybe looking to build your own confidence even though you may have an okay level of confidence to start with then in this mindset tip we are looking at this topic.
Confidence is an important topic for language students because you need it if you want to be understood and convey your own level or ability as accurately as possible.
I have seen students with a low level of ability out perform students with a far higher ability purely because of this one difference alone. It’s that the student with a higher ability may be afraid or just not be confident in their own ability and this comes across when it comes time to demonstrate what they are capable of.
So if confidence is about anything it’s that you need it to at least achieve your potential based on what you have done with your practice in your spare time.
Confidence doesn’t outweigh hard work and practice but it is necessary to get the most out of the hard work and practice you have been putting in.
Quote from this podcast episode:
“Confidence is the memory of past success” ― Chris Judd
How can you improve your own confidence in Spanish?
Tips 019: 3 Ways To Use “Lo” In A Sentence
Jul 31, 2014
In the latest episode of the Real Fast Spanish tips podcast, we will be looking at a common Spanish word that can be used in a number of different contexts.
One of the reasons that this word causes students trouble is that it can mean slightly different things in different scenarios. But is a high use word that comes up often so it is worth getting to know.
But, before I talk about the uses of “lo” in this episode I mention some of the more colloquial phrases that I have been learning recently with some of my friends here in Spain. And these colloquial expressions mentioned in this episode all relate to milk.
The phrases:
Hoy va a ser la leche
Literal: Today is going to be the milk
Actual: Today is going to be awesome.
Ir a toda leche
Literal: To go to all milk or to go to all the milk
Actual: To be going at top speed (all engines firing)
Tener mala leche
Literal: To have bad milk
Actual: To have a bad temper
Estar de mala leche
Literal: To be of bad milk
Actual: To be in a bad mood
¡Qué mala leche!
Literal: What bad milk!
Actual: To have bad luck
Back to the theoretical topic for this episode and moving on the uses of “lo”.
Examples from today’s episode:
I buy a book – Compro un libro
I buy it – Lo compro
I have a car – Tengo un coche
I have it – Lo tengo
I want the food – Quiero la comida
I want it – La quiero
I want to buy a book – Quiero comprar un libro
I want to buy it – Lo quiero comprar
or
I want to buy it – Quiero comprarlo
I like to eat chicken – Me gusta comer el pollo
I like to eat it – Me gusta comerlo
or
I like to eat it – Lo me gusta comer
Do you know? – Sabes?
I know – Yo sé
I know it – Yo lo sé
That which is good – Lo bueno
That which is the best – Lo mejor
That which is the same – Lo mismo
What, that, that which – Lo que
What I want is to speak Spanish – Lo que quiero es hablar Español
I know what you want to do – Yo sé lo que quieres hacer
I know that you want to do something – Yo sé que quieres hacer algo
Tips 018: How To Improve With Little And Big Steps
Jul 28, 2014
In this episode of the real fast spanish tips podcast we look at a concept called little and big steps.
Why should you know about this concept? It is worth knowing because when you consider what constitutes a big or little step you will be able to adjust your own mindset around how you are approaching your own spanish training.
Taking your spanish to a high level will in the end be a combination of big and little steps. Whether you like it or not. Or whether you are conscious of it or not.
A little step is one that involves pushing you spanish forward in a way that could be considered routine. An example may be getting into a daily practice routine.
A big step might be flying to the other side for an immersion experience in a country that doesn’t speak English.
Here’s the thing, both big and little steps are improvement for improving as fast as possible. Have a listen to today’s podcast to hear how to use both of these ideas.
Quote from this podcast episode:
“It is better to take many small steps in the right direction than to make a great leap forward only to stumble backward.” ― Louis Sachar
How can you improve your fitness to benefit your Spanish?
One critical element of conversation hacking is being able to share your thoughts and ideas as quickly as possible. A common set of ideas that you may want to able express is talking about the future.
In this episode of the real fast spanish tips podcast we add a further piece of the puzzle to conversation hacking theory.
We will look at another sentence from the 13 Spanish Grammar Hacking sentences. In the previous theoretical episode we looked at one sentence that allowed you to express actions that occur in the past without having to memorise every past tense verb conjugation.
Today, in this tip we discuss a very similar idea. Using a compound expression, we will hack talking about actions in the future without having to memorise all future tense verb conjugations.
Expression for hacking the future:
Ir + a + infinitive = something is going to happen
Infinitives are verbs in their most basic form, for example in english “to speak”, “to eat”, “to want” in spanish “hablar”, “comer” and “querer”
Conjugations of the verb ‘ir’
I go – Yo voy
You go – tu vas
He goes – él va
She goes – ella va
We go – nosotros vamos
You-all go – vosotros vaís
They go – ellos van y ellas van
As a general rule of thumb, the spanish drop the pronoun:
I go – Voy
You go – Vas
We go – Vamos
You-all go – Vaís
They go – Van
Grammar hacking sentence:
I am going to know tomorrow – Voy a conocer mañana
Also the sentence could be:
I am going to get to know it tomorrow – Voy a conocerlo mañana
I am going to get to know Barcelona tomorrow – Voy a conocer Barcelona mañana
Examples from the episode:
Are you going to the market today? – ¿Vas a ir al mercado hoy?
I am going to go tomorrow – Voy a ir mañana
When are you going to be ready? – ¿Cuando vas a estar listo?
I will be ready in two minutes – Voy a estar listo en dos minutos
Voy a estar lista en dos minutos (female)
This afternoon I’m going to speak with my friends – Esta tarde voy a hablar con mis amigos
Do you want to eat now? – ¿Quieres comer ahora?
I’m going to eat later – Voy a comer despues
When are they going to leave? – Cuando van a salir?
They are going to leave next week – Van a salir la semana que viene
The week that comes (next week) – la semana que viene
This episodes quote:
“Todo va a estar bien.” – Bob Marley
In today’s episode, we talked about another sentence from the Spanish grammar hacking sentences. To see the others check out the conversation hacking guide.
How can you use today’s tip to talk about the future?
Tips 016: How To Improve Your Brain – Hint: It’s Not What You Think
Jul 21, 2014
This tip is close to my heart. It is one that has given me a lot of value over the years and I’m sure it will for you too. We all know about the main subject of today’s podcast but many forget how important it is (myself included).
In this latest episode of the Real Fast Spanish Tips Podcast you will learn about one of the most effective ways to improve your brain. Obviously learning a language takes a lot of brainpower with a sustained focus spread across some period of time. Therefore any activity that improves brain function is going to be of use for language learning.
It is a fantastic book that looks at the important topic of exercise and hot it affects the brain. It addresses some of the critical byproducts associated with exercise and fitness and how these have a positive impact on the brain. In the book, John describes how the body and the brain should be thought of as one in the same. And any improvement in the function of the body is going to have a positive impact on the brain.
If ever find yourself with wandering attention and struggling to focus then one way to dial that back is to improve your fitness. The book talks about a number of ways exercise can fight many brain-related issues such as lack of focus, stress, anxiety and depression.
In this episode, I also discuss how the topic has affected me deeply and how I encountered my own rude awakening when I forgot about the importance of exercise.
There are lots of ways to talk about the past in Spanish. In today’s episode of the Real Fast Spanish tips podcast you will learn about a hack for talking about actions that have occurred in the past.
This hack for talking about the past is in fact one of the common Spanish grammar hacking sentences. For conversation hackers it is worth knowing about this past tense conjugation to help keep a conversation going if you don’t know all of the spanish past conjugations.
At the start of this episode I mentioned a common mistake for english speakers. This common mistake is that we tend to translate the word “another” to “un otro” in Spanish. This is a common mistake worth avoiding if you can because it tends to annoy native speakers and it is easy to correct if you are a way of it.
A few examples:
I have another example – Tengo otro ejemplo
I have another thing – Tengo otra cosa
I would like to speak about another thing – Quiero hablar de otra cosa
I want to learn another language – Quiero aprender otra idioma
In today’s episode we talk about the past perfect if you want to use the past perfect you need to become familar with the verb “haber”
“Haber” is conjugated as follows:
I have – Yo he You have – Tu has He has / She has – El / Ella ha We have – Nosotros hemos You-all have – Vosotros habeis They have – Ellos / Ellas han
The next thing you need to know is have to form the past participle:
Comer – Comido (Eaten) Querer – Querido (Wanted) Vivir – Vivido (Lived) Poder – Podido (Abled) Ir – Ido (Been/Went/Gone)
The present perfect can now be used:
I have spoken – He hablado I have eaten – He comido I have lived – He vivido You have studied – Has estudiado He / she has found – Ha encontrado
Here are a few irregular past participles you should know:
Decir – Dicho (Said) Hacer – Hecho (Done) Ver – Visto (Seen)
The Spanish grammar hacking sentence:
I have eaten the apple – Me he comido la manzana
The appropriate use of the present perfect:
Today, I have eaten an apple – Hoy, me he comido la manzana.
This week, I have done many things – Esta semana, he hecho muchas cosas.
This weekend, I spoke with my friends – Este fin de semana, he hablado con mis amigos
Starting to form some ideas in the past to tell stories, here is the example from today’s podcast:
What did you do on the weekend ? – ¿Que has hecho el fin de semana?
I did a lot of things – He hecho muchas cosas.
My girlfriend and I went to the market – Mi novia y yo hemos ido al mercado
My girlfriend bought some things – Mi novia ha comprado algunas cosas.
She bought a new dress and shoes – Ella ha comprado un nuevo vestido y los zapatos.
Later, we bought some food for dinner – Después, hemos comprado comida para la cena.
Another thing, I found a very interesting book. But I didn’t buy it because it was very expensive – Otra cosa, he encontrado un libro muy interesante. Pero no he comprado el libro porque es muy caro.
Also, we went to the cinemas and we saw a movie – También, hemos ido al cine y hemos visto una película.
This episodes quote:
“Cada vez que conoces a alguien tu vida cambia y, tanto si te gusta como si no, nosotros nos hemos encontrado; yo he entrado en tu vida y tú en la mía.” – Federico Moccia (Esta noche dime que me quieres)
In today’s podcast, we talked about one of the important grammar hacking sentences. To see the others, check out our free conversation hacking guide.
How can you use today’s tip to talk about the past?
In this episode of the Real Fast Spanish Tips Podcast, I share my thoughts on an idea I call ‘The Gap.’
The gap is something that affects all language students, I see it everywhere and in everyone. It is something that will cause you frustration unless you have a tactic for dealing with it. In this tip, I’ll explain what the gap is and how you can overcome it.
This episode is, in fact, a summary of a blog post I put together on the topic of the gap. I needed to share the idea in a blog post first because it is a difficult concept. And I didn’t want to do the idea a disservice.
The gap is something that has frustrated and affected me and I see that I am not the only one. I hope that with this episode you will have a better feel for the gap and how you can respond to it.
In this tip you will learn:
What the gap is
Why you should know about it
What to do about it
Quote from this podcast episode:
“Instead of achieve to be happy – happily achieve.” – Anthony Robbins
Reflexive verbs can cause confusion amongst Spanish students. But they don’t have to.
As a follow up to the previous podcast episodes on Spanish verbs, this episode presents the reflexive form of Spanish verbs. In order to get a good understanding of reflexive verbs, we need to start back a the most basic sentence structure. Have a listen to today’s podcast to see how you can start to use these types of verbs in your Spanish conversations.
In tip number 7, I broke the types of Spanish verbs down into two groups of three.
Reflexive verbs are formed when the subject and object of a sentence are the same thing. They could apply whether the subject is a person, place or thing. What you need to know to form reflexive verbs is a different form of Spanish pronoun.
The Spanish pronouns for reflexive verbs are called object pronouns and are as follows:
Me – Me
Te –You
Se – Him / Her
Nos – Us
Os – You-all
Se – Them
As you can see, these are very similar to the indirect object pronouns discussed in the earlier episode for use with verbs like gustar.
One thing to note with Spanish verbs, in general, is that the majority of verbs can be used in both a normal or reflexive form. But it is not worth getting hung up on lots of different verb forms, for conversation hacking, it is worth knowing the high use reflexive verbs first. So become familiar with the verbs discussed in today’s episode before you start to worry about the thousand of reflexive verb possibilities.
Verbs discussed in the episode:
Llamarse – To call oneself
Irse – To go away / to leave
Acordarse – To remember
Levantarse – To get out of bed
Quejarse – To complain
Examples from the episode:
I speak with you – Yo hablo contigo
I’m hungry – Yo tengo hambre
I like the tapas – Me gustan las tapas
My name is (I call myself) – Me llamo Andrew
How do you call yourself – ¿Cómo te llamas?
I call you over Skype – Te llamo por Skype
I go to the market – Voy al mercado
I have to … = Tengo que …
I have to leave = Tengo que irme
You have to go = Tienes que irte
I have to go to the market = Tengo que ir al mercado
We agree to speak in private = Acordamos hablar en privado
I agree = Estoy de acuerdo
I don’t remember = No me acuerdo
I lift something from the table = Levanto algo de la mesa
I get myself out of bed = Me levanto de la cama
I don’t want to complain = No quiero quejarme
My friend complains a lot = Mi amigo se queja mucho
It’s better not to complain = Es mejor no quejarse
Quote from the podcast episode: “Los que se quejan de la forma como rebota la pelota, son aquellos que no la saben golpear.” – José Ingenieros (1877-1925)
Additional Bonus Examples For Extra Practice:
What are they called? – ¿Cómo se llaman?
I leave the house (I am away from home) – Me voy de la casa
I get out of bed at 7 am – Me levanto de la cama a las siete
When are you going to get out of bed? – ¿Cuándo se levanta de la cama?
Why do you complain? – ¿Por qué te quejas?
Do you remember when we have to leave? – ¿Te acuerdas cuando nos tenemos que ir?
Verbs that are reflexive end in “se” in the conversation hacking guide you can see the verbs mentioned in this episode with the (se) in brackets and the alternative meaning in English also highlighted in brackets.
Tips 012: Are You Suffering From Perfectionism?
Jul 07, 2014
In this episode of the Real Fast Spanish Tips Podcast, we will discuss the topic of Perfectionism.
Perfectionism is related to procrastination but in a weird way. Both of these ‘P’ words tend to be the habits of two very different types of students yet both students will end up with the same results.
Are you suffering from perfectionism? Have you thought about it before?
What is perfectionism and where does it come from?
Perfectionism is something that will slow down your progress in Spanish. But, overcoming perfectionism isn’t easy. It takes a mindset shift and another level of self-awareness. If you can avoid perfectionism then you can go out and make mistakes that are necessary for progressing your Spanish. Mistakes are critical for feedback and if you fear that critical feedback then you won’t be able to push your Spanish forward quickly.
In the podcast episode, I will discuss how you can shift your mind to think differently about the process and outcomes. You will also hear about how the difference between your expectations and your reality can cause stress, frustration and worry.
“Understanding the difference between healthy striving and perfectionism is critical to laying down the shield and picking up your life. Research shows that perfectionism hampers success. In fact, it’s often the path to depression, anxiety, addiction, and life paralysis.” – Brené Brown
Lastly, I would hugely appreciate a review on iTunes here, if you have the time to leave a review it helps out the podcast and it would mean a lot to me.
This tip “estoy por” is the second part of a two part series on the words: ser, estar, por y para.
In this episode of the podcast you will learn about the other two words: estar y por. If you haven’t listened to the first part, which was episode 9 – para ser, then make sure you go back and listen to that episode first before you listen to this one. Similar to the first episode I provide a list of common expressions that will allow you to convey ideas straight from English in a conversational way.
Tips 010: Beating Procrastination – What Has Worked For Me
Jun 30, 2014
In this episode of the Real Fast Spanish Tips Podcast you will hear about tactics for dealing with procrastination.
Procrastination can be a silent killer. If you have ever found yourself procrastinating then this will be holding you back. It could be stopping you from achieving your goals in Spanish. It could be slowing you down. If you want to tackle the problem of getting to a conversational level in Spanish then beating procrastination is an important part of the answer.
As I often say, mindset is so important for learning a second language. In the last mindset monday podcast, I gave away my best tactic for beating procrastination and it a little unconventional. I recommended that you listen to that tip before you listen to this one. But if you are familiar with what I talked about in that episode then have a listen to this one.
You will learn that if the distractions that you can control are a bit too tempting there are a few things you can put in place to deal with your wandering attention.
In this tip you will learn:
A strange tactic for avoiding procrastination that didn’t work.
Another tactic to do with breaking down big tasks.
Can you start to become self aware?
How Tony Robbins suggest overcoming procrastination.
“Procrastination is one of the most common ways to avoid pain. But usually if you delay taking action, you only create more pain for yourself later on. ” – Anthony Robbins
Also mentioned on the episode, you can contribute to the podcast by leaving a review on iTunes here.
In this episode of the Real Fast Spanish Tips Podcast you will get to hear a fresh approach to an old problem.
Words such as ‘ser’ vs ‘estar’ and ‘por’ vs ‘para’ tend to cause a lot of confusion. One of the reasons that I believe these words tend to cause so much confusion is that they are always taught side by side. Meaning that when you learn these words you tend to be given a list of situations that ‘ser’ should be used and another set of situations where ‘estar’ should be used at the same time and then later you need to recall these two lists in order to apply the right word.
When you reach a higher level of Spanish these words tend to become more intuitive, so in this episode I’m going cover these words in a different way in an effort to help you get to an intuitive level faster.
Rather than list them side by side with a set of rules, in this episode we introduce only ‘ser’ and ‘para’ and a set of common expressions that will allow you to express your ideas without the need to refer to a set of rules.
I will cover ‘estar’ and ‘por’ in a later episode.
So for this tip you will learn:
Some common expressions for using para
Some common expressions for using ser
Some expressions that combine Spanish-English cognates and a passive voice with ser
How to state your country of origin and a tip for working out the gender of your country.
Mentioned in this episode:
– For more information on the etymology for ‘ser’ and ‘estar’ in Spanish and ‘to be’ in english have a look at this interesting article on Wikipedia on ‘Romance Copula‘
– For the gender exercise head over to https://translate.google.com/ and use the sentence “She is American” or replace american with your country of choice to determine the proper gender of your country.
Expression examples from the episode:
For me – Para mí
For you – Para ti
It’s for me – Es para mí
It’s not for your, it’s for me – No es para ti, es para mí
It’s not for him, it’s for me – No es para él, es para mí
It’s not for her, it’s for me – No es para ella, es para mí
The food is not for her, it’s for me – La comida no es para ella, es para mí
I have food for you – Tengo comida para ti
I have something for you – Tengo algo para ti
I have food for you for tonight – Tengo comida para ti para esta noche
It’s possible – Es posible
It’s interesting – Es interesante
It’s horrible – Es horrible
It’s important – Es importante
For me it is interesting – Para mí es interesante
For me it is not necesario – Para mí no es necesario
For me it is interesting – Para mí es interesante
In order to have money – Para tener dinero
In order to have money you need to find a job – Para tener dinero necesitas encontrar un trabajo
In order to find a job you need an education – Para encontrar trabajo necesitas una educación
In order to speak Spanish you need to practice – Para hablar español necesitas practicar
In order to have a conversation you need to practice – Para tener una conversación necesitas practicar español
The man leaves for the restaurante – El hombre sale para el restaurante
The man leaves for Madrid – El hombre sale para Madrid
I’m Australian – Soy Australiano
I’m from Australia – Soy de Australia
I’m American – Soy Americano
I’m American (female) – Soy Americana
I’m from the United States – Soy de Estados Unidos
I’m Japanese – Soy Japonés
I’m Japanese (female) – Soy Japonesa
I’m from Japan – Soy de Japón
He is English – Él es inglés
She is English – Ella es inglesa
I’m a teacher – Soy maestro
I’m a doctor – Soy medico
In order to be – Para ser
I study in order to be a teacher – Estudio para ser maestro
I study in order to be a doctor – Estudio para ser medico
Quote from this podcast episode:
“No hay mejor momento para ser feliz que ahora mismo” – Unknown Author
Tips 008: How A Stolen Surfboard Will Help Your Spanish
Jun 23, 2014
Today I introduce another mindset strategy for learning Spanish faster. In this tip I share another story from my life and how you can apply this lesson to your Spanish training.
It’s Monday again and what better way to kick off the week. The idea I introduce this week is powerful if you can put it into practice. It’s about understanding some of the forces that are pulling you in certain directions that you may or may not have control over. And despite these forces how you can still get your work done in a deliberate progression towards your goals.
In this episode:
The story of the stolen surfboard
How this caused two big distractions
A tip to help avoid distraction and how I was still able to get the podcast out on time
How you can learn from the stolen surfboard story
A different way to think about time and productivity
Quote from this podcast episode:
“If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavourable. Favourable conditions never come.” – C.S. Lewis
Tips 007: How To Use Verbs Like Gustar To Express Your Ideas
Jun 19, 2014
Verbs like gustar operate in a group of their own. In this episode of the podcast, I discuss ‘gustar’, other similar verbs and how they are used.
This theoretical Thursday builds on last week’s tip including more useful vocabulary that can be used for conversational Spanish. The verbs discussed fit in well with the conversation hacking framework as they are included in the top 1000 most useful Spanish words.
Spanish verbs, in general, can be categorised into two groups of three.
Group 1:
Ar verbs
Er verbs
Ir verbs
Group 2:
Normal verbs
Verbs like Gustar (discussed in this tip)
Reflexive verbs (coming in a later episode)
Verbs discussed in the episode:
Gustar – Is pleasing to (to like)
Costar – Is costly to (to cost)
Doler – Is painful to (to hurt)
Importar – Is important to (to matter)
Parecer – Is seeming to (to seem)
Indirect object pronouns explained in the episode:
Me – Me
Te –You
Le – Him / Her
Nos – Us
Os – You-all
Les – Them
Examples from the episode:
Me gusta la comida – I like the food
No me gusta la comida – I don’t like the food
Me gusta hablar – I like to speak
Me gustan los colores – I like the colours
Me cuesta hablar – I find it difficult to speak
Me cuesta hablar Español – I find it difficult to speak Spanish
Me duele la cabeza – I have a headache
Me importa la fiesta – The party is important to me
¿Que te parece la idea? – How does the idea seem to you?
Me parece bien – It seems good to me
Me parece mal – It seems bad to me
Quote from the podcast episode: “Me gusta la gente que habla claro desde el principio, que son honestos con lo que sienten, piensan y se muestran tal y como son.” – @BuenaFraseEs
Other verbs that behave in this way are highlighted by using similar definitions as the ones described in this episode in the conversation hacking guide.
Tips 006: How To Find Your Spanish Drive – The First Mindset Monday
Jun 16, 2014
This episode of the Real Fast Spanish Tips Podcast is the first mindset monday.
What has worked really well for me to improve my Spanish has been getting into the right mindset. If you want to learn Spanish quickly there are far more things that you need to learn than just verb conjugations and vocabulary.
In this tip I share my story and give you some insights into the drivers that have helped me push my Spanish forward.
Quote from the podcast episode:
“Monday is an awful way to spend 1/7 of your life.” – Steven Wright
In this tip, you will learn about:
How working on your mindset on Monday will help accelerate your Spanish
Cultural differences – Do the people from Spain feel the same way about Monday as us?
How learning a language can be driven from a place of appreciation
Some of the experiences that you could experience with a new language
Tips 005: Your First 10 Spanish Words
Jun 12, 2014
In this episode of the Real Fast Spanish Tips Podcast I introduce the first 10 words of the conversation hacking high frequency vocabulary.
These first ten words are chosen based on the a combination of frequency, utility and my own personal experience with using the language during my Spanish adventures.
Quote from the podcast episode:
“Pero no hablar contigo es como tener el mismo mal día, una y otra vez.” – Carolina Pineda
In this tip, you will learn about:
The new routine for the podcast
The first important 10 Spanish words
Basic verb conjugations
#
Español
English
1
yo
I
2
querer
to want
3
este
this
4
sí
yes
5
no
no
6
poder
to be able to
7
hablar
to speak
8
encontrar
to find
9
tener
to have
10
necesitar
to need
Examples from the episode:
– First person conjugation of “Querer”: Quiero (I want)
– Yo quiero este (I want this)
– Yo quiero esto (I want this unknown gender for this)
– Quiero este (drop the pronoun “yo”)
– No quiero este (I don’t want this)
– Hablo Español (I speak Spanish)
– No hablo Español (I don’t speak Spanish)
– No puedo hablar Español (I can’t speak Spanish)
– No necesito este (I don’t need this)
– Quiero encontrar este (I want to find this)
– No puedo encontrar este (I can’t find this)
If you want to learn more check out the conversation hacking guide here.
Tips 004: An Introduction To The 7 Principles Of Conversation Hacking
Jun 07, 2014
In this episode of the Real Fast Spanish Tips Podcast I introduce the 7 principles of conversation hacking.
Conversation hacking is one of the best techniques I know to get to a conversational level in Spanish as fast as possible. If you are learning Spanish and haven’t reached a conversational level yet then it is worth reviewing the principles of the conversation hacking method.
Quote from the podcast episode:
“Love without conversation is impossible.” – Mortimer Adler (1902 – 2001)
In This Tip, You Will Hear About:
2 Approaches you can take to learn a language – read more here
Tips 003: The Third And Final D Of Language Learning
May 28, 2014
In this episode of the Real Fast Spanish Tips Podcast, I discuss the last and final D of language learning.
When you are struggling to execute, when you are trying to propel your Spanish forward and not seeing results it could be that you haven’t applied the third D of language learning.
Quote from the podcast episode:
“God provides the wind, but man must raise the sails.” – St. Augustine (354 – 430 AD)
In This Tip, You Will Hear About:
How the third D could be the missing link between theory and achieving your goals in Spanish
What can happen if you don’t apply the third D of language learning
A simple tip for implementing the third D from a polyglot friend
4 tips to implement if you are having trouble executing the third D:
If you are having trouble with doing then take another look at definition
If you have a good definition of what you are trying to achieve have another look at desire
Find 5 words that haven’t used before and use them on another Spanish student, a friend or record it on a computer. Leverage this small action to grow into bigger things.
Tips 002: The Most Important D Of Language Learning
May 20, 2014
In the second episode of the Real Fast Spanish Tips Podcast I discuss one of my most important tips for Spanish students, the second D of language learning and why it is critical for any spanish student.
How do I know this tip is so critical to learning a second language, because it’s what help me back more than anything else. And when I was able to hack it I was able to accelerate my Spanish forward.
Quote from the podcast episode:
“Don’t let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use.” – Earl Nightingale (1921 – 1989)
In This Tip, You Will Hear About:
A language learning metaphor – another way to think about the first two D’s of language learning
Tips 001: How To Get A Quality Start In Spanish With The First D Of Language Learning
May 15, 2014
This is the first episode of the Real Fast Spanish Tips Podcast. In this episode I discuss the first D of language learning and why it is important to help you reach your spanish goals faster.
I’m going to give an example how using this first D will help you to use your mind to find the most relevant and important information to help solve language problems faster.
Quote from the podcast episode:
“If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.” – Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955)
In This Tip, You Will Hear About:
A bit about my background in Spanish
How the first D of language learning is Definition
How better defined goals make them easier to achieve
A demonstration of how definition helps focus your mind
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In today’s mindset podcast you will hear part 2 of the two part interview with John Fotheringham. In the second part of the interview we discuss how to manage frustration due to a lack of progress. We talk about what separates a good language learner from a great language learner. And we debate the merits of the language learning classroom and how you can get the most out of one.
In this week’s podcast tip we are going to look at the verb ‘caer’. We will look at the differences between ‘caer’ and ‘caerse’ and give a few spanish phrases using this common verb.
What can Jerry Seinfeld teach us about learning Spanish?
In this podcast episode I’m going to give away the secret to success. I’m going to share the one thing you need to know to be successful at learning a language.
In this episode of the real fast spanish tips podcast we look at a big mindset topic.
In this episode of the real fast spanish tips podcast we look at a concept called little and big steps.
