Learn Spanish on YouTube: Recommended Channels, How to Do It, Lessons Based on YouTube Videos - Learn Spanish with Andrew https://howlearnspanish.com/learn-spanish-on-youtube/ I learned Spanish entirely on my own, online, and I'll show you how you can, too! Tue, 02 Mar 2021 04:17:36 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.1 https://howlearnspanish.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/cropped-spanish-flag-32x32.jpg Learn Spanish on YouTube: Recommended Channels, How to Do It, Lessons Based on YouTube Videos - Learn Spanish with Andrew https://howlearnspanish.com/learn-spanish-on-youtube/ 32 32 Spanish Lessons from YouTube Videos #2: “Reglas de Comportamiento en Alemania” by Mariebelle TV https://howlearnspanish.com/spanish-lessons-from-youtube-videos-2/ https://howlearnspanish.com/spanish-lessons-from-youtube-videos-2/#respond Tue, 30 Jun 2020 20:38:06 +0000 https://howlearnspanish.com/?p=6139 The post Spanish Lessons from YouTube Videos #2: “Reglas de Comportamiento en Alemania” by Mariebelle TV appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.

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In this series of articles I call, Spanish Lessons from YouTube Videos, I take a video, typically something made by and for native speakers (not a Spanish lesson), and then use it to teach you a bit of the Spanish they use (words, phrases, expressions, grammar, syntax).  At the end of this post, for the first time ever, I’ve put a short (5 questions) quiz to help you remember what you just learned.

I can, of course, only cover a bit of the Spanish used in the space we have here (and you don’t want to spend 6 hours reading a 53-page long blog post dissecting every single thing they said), so you learn in manageable chunks that will only take you about 5-15 minutes, and I get to keep my sanity by not having to write a short novel.  However, please note that you can always click the “CC” (“closed-captions”) button in the bottom right of the video player to turn on the Spanish subtitles (if they’re not Spanish click the gear icon next to the “CC” button to change settings) and continue learning on your own.  Let’s get started.

Today’s video is from one of my favorite YouTubers, Mariebelle, a Mexican who married a German and now lives in Germany.  She makes videos about her experiences in Germany and all the various, interesting cultural characteristics of the country that she observes.  In this video she talks about some of the “rules of behavior” (“reglas de comportamiento”) in Germany.  I’m going to embed it below but if you’d simply like to have it open in another tab, here’s the link to it.

No Meter la Pata

Let’s start with one of the first things she says which is a common colloquial expression in all Spanish dialects, so it’s really worth learning: “no meter la pata”.  In this context, “pata” literally means “leg of an animal” (the word pierna is used to refer to the leg of a person), and the verb, meter, means “to put or insert”, so literally it means “to not insert the leg”.  What it actually means in modern speech is, “don’t screw up”.  Here’s the context in which it’s used in the video:

…algunas reglas de comportamiento que son bien vistos por los alemanes que creo que pueden ser interesantes para ustedes, sobre todo si tratan con personas alemanas, para no meter la pata…

What this translates to is:

…some rules of behavior that are well-regarded by the Germans that I believe could be interesting for you all, especially if you deal with German people, in order to not make any mistakes…

To help you remember it, and because I know a lot of people just enjoy learning about this type of stuff, I’ve just finished researching the etymology of this expression, and boy are you all in for some fun.  Feel free to skip to the next phrase below (“dar la mano”) if you prefer.

There are 3 possible explanations, none of which appear to have much in the way of credible, original documents to support them:

  1. It refers to when an animal puts its leg in a trap set by a hunter and becomes trapped so that it can later be killed by the hunter when he returns.
  2. It comes from an ancient expression, no longer in use: “no mentar a Pateta”.  Mentar is a verb that means, “to mention”, and is hardly ever used any more (first time I’ve encountered it), and Pateta is an ancient name for the devil, so what it’s literally saying is, “don’t mention the devil”.  This became contorted, misconstrued, over time in daily speech to the more commonly understood, “no meter la pata”.  You see this same phenomenon in English where people hear phrases and mistake certain words for others that sound very similar and with which they’re more familiar, e.g. the famous “France is Bacon” incident, and “for all intensive purposes” instead of, “for all intents and purposes”.  Here are some more examples in English if you’re interested.
  3. In the 14th and 15th century in Spain, “pata” could refer simply to the foot of a person (instead of the leg of an animal, as it does now), and they also had these devices known in English as “chamber pots” because, of course, there was no indoor plumbing and if you had to urinate or defecate in the middle of the night, you wouldn’t want to have to leave the house and walk all the way to the outhouse to do it.  If you got out of bed in the middle of the night and weren’t careful of where you stepped, you might literally put your foot in a puddle of your own urine and feces, hence “meter la pata” meaning, “to screw up”.

Sources for the above:

Right, well that was fun.  Moving on…

Dar la Mano

This literally means “to give the hand” and it’s how they say, “to shake hands” in Spanish.  The phrase as you hear it used here around 1:11 is:

Es que saludas a la otra persona dandole la mano.

Which translates to:

It’s that you greet the other person by shaking their hand

Literally she says, “[it] is that you greet the other person giving them the hand”.  “Dando” is the Spanish gerund of “dar” – the gerund is what is colloquially known in English as “the -ing form”, e.g. running, singing, sleeping, etc.  The “le” that you see tacked onto the end of “dando” here such that it reads, dandole, is the indirect personal pronoun that can mean either “him”, “her”, or “them” (I would translate it as “them” in this case as that seems to be her intent, she’s not specifying anyone in particular).  The reason it’s indirect is because what you’re giving them, the direct object, is “la mano”, the hand, and so the person it’s being given to is the indirect object in that the action is being directly performed on the hand and indirectly performed on the person it is given to.  Make sense?  Check out this article on direct vs. indirect object pronouns in Spanish if you need more help.

¡Que Onda!

This is a super Mexican expression, it’s very popular in Mexico and if you’re interested in learning Mexican Spanish in particular you’ll want to learn it.

You hear Mariebelle use it around 3:24 when she says:

Ya después de varios años que estoy viviendo aquí, yo sí he llegado a verlo de varias personas que llegan y les hablan de “tú” a la otra persona y yo, como que me quedo “¡Que onda!”, ¿no? Se me hace super super raro eso…

The whole translation of all that being:

Already after living here several years, I’ve seen it from various people that come and refer to you informally with the other person, and I’m like, “What the hell?!”, right?  It’s super weird to me…

For clarification she’s talking about somebody speaking about you with another person and referring to you with the informal personal pronoun, “tú”.

Now, “qué onda” literally means “what [a] wave!”, where “wave” here means something more like “vibe” in English, it’s talking about the “vibes” you’re getting from a particular person or situation.  It’s also commonly used as a greeting, similar to, “what’s up?” in English, probably coming from the meaning of “what’s vibing here?” or “how’s the vibe here?”.

Acostumbrar a

This is the manner in which one says, “to be accustomed to” in Spanish.  Note that this is simpler than how we say it in English – they only need two words to get the job done (“acostumbrar a”) whereas we need a minimum of three (“is/are accustomed to”).  Let’s look at the context from the video where she uses this expression.  It occurs at around 5:11:

Los alemanes, al contestar el teléfono, o al hablarle por teléfono a otra persona, acostumbran a saludar de una manera muy distinta…

This translates to:

The Germans, upon answer the telephone, or talking on the phone with another person, are accustomed to greeting [them] in a very distinct manner…

Yes, you can also say it in a manner more similar to that of English by saying instead, “estar acostumbrado a” – this literally means, “to be accustomed to”.  Many English speakers tend to do this because it’s more natural to them to phrase it like this, which is fine if you prefer as it’s also a very common way that native speakers will say it, though not in this example (from the video).

Added note: There’s a very slight distinction in meaning between acostumbrar, when used as a transitive verb as it is here, and the pronominal version of the verb, acostumbrarse, and that is that the mere acostumbrar means that one is accustomed to something, whereas the pronominal acostumbrarse means that one becomes accustomed to something (very minor distinction but it is a distinction).  This is per the RAE’s definitions of the word (look at definitions #2 and #3, ignore #1, that’s for something else entirely).  To be fair, I suspect most native Spanish speakers aren’t even aware of the slight difference in usage and simply tend to use one or the other to mean either definition and you just have to discern which they mean from the context.

La plática

This is just a cute little informal way of saying, “the chat” or “the conversation”.  It comes from the verb, platicar, which is an informal way of saying, “to chat”.  Its use here occurs at 6:26 when she says:

…entonces, ya empieza la plática.

which means:

…then, now the chat starts.

Costarse

This is a very common expression throughout the Spanish-speaking world (common in all such countries) that means, literally, “it costs me”, but often does not refer to money.  It can refer to money, e.g. “Me costó tres cientos pesos” (“It cost me three hundred pesos”), however it’s more often used to mean that something costs somebody effort.  We would typically express this via expressions such as, “I find it difficult to”, “I find it hard to”, “I have trouble…”, or “It’s draining to have to…”.  Let’s look at how she uses it in the video:

Suena mi teléfono y yo contesto con mi apellido y eso me costó mucho, mucho trabajo porque al principio pues yo siempre contestaba con un “Hallo” o un “Guten Tag”…

This translates to:

My telephone rings and I answer it with my last name, and this is really difficult for me [she literally says that it costs her a lot of work], because in the beginning I always answered with a “Hallo” or “Guten Tag” [German for “Good day”].

So you can say that something is difficult for you and requires a lot of effort or patience by simply saying, “me cuesta”, or you can specify what it costs you as she did here by saying that it cost her a lot of work: “me costó mucho, mucho trabajo”.

Ok, I have to stop here.  This has gotten long enough for both of us.  Oh but we’re not done yet: there’s a quiz!

Yes, that’s right, I’ve decided to start putting quizzes at the bottom of posts such as these because they’re fantastic for helping people learn what was just taught because they make you recall and apply what you just learned.  These quizzes are short and free.  After the quiz I’ll repost the video so you can play it again and see how much more of it you can understand now (remember to turn on the subtitles if you need them).

Welcome to your "Reglas de comportamiento en Alemania" quiz.

1. 

What does, "meter la pata" mean in modern Spanish as it is used in this video?Deselect Answer

2. 

What does, "¡¿Qué onda?!" mean as it's used in this video?Deselect Answer

3. 

"Acustumbrar a", as it is used in this video, means to be .

4. 

"La plática" is an informal term that means what?Deselect Answer

5. 

When Spanish speakers use the expression, "costarse", e.g. "me costó mucho trabajo", as Mariebelle said in this video, they mean that something was very for them.

Are you learning Spanish?  Would you like to use popular media like the above video, as well as movies, shows, music, etc. to do it?

I literally wrote the book about how to do that: it’s about how to learn Spanish from popular media like YouTube videos, Netflix series, movies, music, books, etc. You get to pick things that interest and/or entertain you, that are made by and for native speakers, and I’ll teach you how to learn Spanish from them.  If that interests you and especially if you’d like to support my work, I’d really appreciate if you could check it out, it’s called The Telenovela Method.  It’s currently available in both e-book and paperback from:

Hope that helps, please consider subscribing to my emails (sidebar on the top right) or at least push notifications for when I put up new blog posts.  Also, for more posts of this type check out the Learn Spanish on YouTube category.  My social media accounts are on the slidey thing on the left (I’m active on YouTube, Instagram, Tiktok, Pintrest, Facebook, and Twitter).

Cheers,

Andrew

The post Spanish Lessons from YouTube Videos #2: “Reglas de Comportamiento en Alemania” by Mariebelle TV appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.

]]> https://howlearnspanish.com/spanish-lessons-from-youtube-videos-2/feed/ 0 Spanish Lessons from YouTube Videos #1: “Tipos de Hermanos” by Videópatas https://howlearnspanish.com/spanish-lessons-from-youtube-videos-1-tipos-de-hermanos/ https://howlearnspanish.com/spanish-lessons-from-youtube-videos-1-tipos-de-hermanos/#respond Thu, 04 Jun 2020 19:00:49 +0000 https://howlearnspanish.com/?p=6074 The post Spanish Lessons from YouTube Videos #1: “Tipos de Hermanos” by Videópatas appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.

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This is by one of several YouTube channels I’m subscribed to which is in Spanish and intended for Spanish speakers (it’s not intended for non-native students so they speak at a normal rate and don’t explain the language they’re using).  It’s a comedy sketch channel called Videópatas and I think most of their videos are fairly entertaining.

A side note: YouTube’s automatic subtitles have gotten much more accurate over the years and, as long as the audio quality is good and there’s not too much ambient noise or multiple people speaking at once, they’re more than sufficient, so definitely hit the “CC” button in the bottom right hand corner of the video player to turn them on (you should get Spanish subs, if not then click on the gear icon next to the CC button to change the language settings).

“Tipos de hermanos” means, “types of siblings”.  This particular video is of a genre that they do quite often, which is, “Types of ________”, where they portray certain behaviors or personality types in a comedic or entertaining way.  This one is about siblings and some of the different ways in which they behave that are funny and most of us are familiar with.

Now, obviously there is no way I can cover all of the Spanish used in it.  It’s only 3m24s long, yes, but there is still a ton of dialogue.  What I’m going to do is explain the labels they use for the different types of siblings that you see pop up in a funny text box at the beginning of each portrayl.  You can turn on the subtitles, like I said, and then look up whatever else you have trouble with.  You don’t need to be able to understand a lot of the Spanish they use in order to be able to understand the video because you’ll be able to glean the basic gist of it from the context that you can see.  Even someone who speaks no Spanish at all could basically understand what’s happening here.  Let’s have a look at it:

“La Hermana Gorrona”

Spanish tends to make nouns and adjectives out of verbs, English does the opposite: we make verbs out of nouns (e.g. “game”, the noun, came first, then the verb “to game” and “gamer”, someone who plays video games, came much later).  The only time you see Spanish doing the opposite (turning a noun into a verb like English) is with anglicisms (words imported from English into other languages), e.g. the way you say “to tweet” in Spanish is “twitear”, which came from the English verb, “to tweet”, which came from the English noun, “a tweet” (something posted on Twitter).

Gorrona is an adjective that originates from the verb, gorronear.  Gorronear is defined by the RAE as:

1. intr. coloq. Comer o vivir a costa ajena.

2. tr. coloq. Conseguir algo a costa de alguien. “Gorronea los cafés a sus amigos siempre que puede.”

Translation:

  1. Eat or live at someone else’s expense.
  2. Obtain something at someone’s cost.  “They mooch coffees off their friends as often as they can.”

So it means, “to mooch, freeload, or scrounge”.  Here are some more examples from Reverso Context if you’d like to see them.

So the adjective, gorrón/gorrona, just means someone who does this thing: a mooch, a freeloader.  As you likely already know, hermana just means “sister”.  So what do you think “La Hermana Gorrona” is going to be about?

The sister who mooches off you, of course.  She borrows without asking, she steals food, she begs for money constantly (which she doesn’t repay), etc.

Bonus for this scene: “Estaba entre la ropa tendida” means “It was amongst the hung clothes” (tender can mean to lay or hang something and the past participle is tendido/tendida, so “ropa tendida” is literally “laid/hung clothes”, I would presume here this means the clothes on the clothes line).  Searching Google Images for “ropa tendida” tells us all we need to know 😉

“El Hermano Adoptado”

I doubt this needs much explanation, but the verb for “to adopt” in Spanish is adoptar, and of course the past participle (the “-ed” form of the verb, e.g. “adopted”) is adoptado/adoptada (adoptado if the person is male, adoptada if the person is female).  So what do you think el hermano adoptado means?

“The adopted brother”, of course.

“La Hermana Gemela”

So you already know that hermana means “sister”, now what could gemela mean…?

Well…geminus is the latin word from which it is derived which means “twin, paired, or double”, so I think you’ve already guessed that gemelo/gemela is the Spanish adjective for “twin” (it’s actually both the noun and the adjective for “twin”), so hermana gemela means “twin sister”.

Bonus: Maldición means “curse, damnation”, so “Por favor, mátala y líbrame de esta maldición” means, “Please, kill her and liberate me from this curse” 😉

“El Hermano Competitivo”

I doubt you need much help here, but competitivo means “competitive”, so el hermano competitivo means “the competetive brother”.

Also, you see “Te he ganado” – this is how you say “to beat someone [at something]” in Spanish.  Yes, ganar literally means “to win”, but the way they say that a person or team has “beaten” another one in some type of competition is to literally say that they have “won” them.  A couple more examples from Reverso Context:

Y el 9 de marzo, en la segunda vuelta: “Por un pelito les ganamos”.

Translation:

And in the second round on March 9, “We beat them by a hair.”

Another:

¡Les ganamos una vez, y podemos ganarles otra vez!

Translation:

We beat them once, we can beat them again!

Oh, and with regards to, “¡Tomaaaaa!”: that’s the imperative (aka “command form”) of the verb tomar, which means “to take”.  In this context it means, “Take that!”.

Quiz time!

Applying what you’ve just learned greatly helps you retain it in your long-term memory, I strongly recommend you take the, maybe minute or so it’ll require, quiz below that tests you on the above Spanish you’ve just learned.  It’s only ten questions, most of which are multiple choice with a couple fill-in-the-blank questions.

Welcome to your "Tipos de Hermanos" Quiz.

The verb, "gorronear" means what?

When someone is described using the adjective, "gorrón" (for a man) or "gorrona" (for a woman), what does this imply about them?

"La ropa tendida" are clothes that...

If someone is "adoptado" (for males) or "adoptada" (for females), that means they are .

"La hermana gemela" means "the sister".

"El herman competitivo" is "the brother".

These next two are a bit harder, don't feel bad if you don't get them.

"Ganar" literally means "to ".

"Te he " is how you say "I beat you" (like at a game).

What does "maldición" mean?  Here's the context from the video for a clue:

"Por favor, mátala y líbrame de esta maldición"

When someone in the video yells, "¡Tomaaaaaaa!", what does it mean in that context?

Now have a look at the video again and see how much more of it you can understand.  Don’t forget to turn on Spanish subtitles if you want.

Are you learning Spanish?  Would you like to use popular media like the above video, as well as movies, shows, music, etc. to do it?

I literally wrote the book about how to do that: it’s about how to learn Spanish from popular media like YouTube videos, Netflix series, movies, music, books, etc. You get to pick things that interest and/or entertain you, that are made by and for native speakers, and I’ll teach you how to learn Spanish from them.  If that interests you and especially if you’d like to support my work, I’d really appreciate if you could check it out, it’s called The Telenovela Method.  It’s currently available in both e-book and paperback from:

Hope that helps, please consider subscribing to my emails (sidebar on the top right) or at least push notifications for when I put up new blog posts.  My social media accounts are on the slidey thing on the left (I’m active on YouTube, Instagram, Tiktok, Pintrest, Facebook, and Twitter).

Cheers,

Andrew

The post Spanish Lessons from YouTube Videos #1: “Tipos de Hermanos” by Videópatas appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.

]]> https://howlearnspanish.com/spanish-lessons-from-youtube-videos-1-tipos-de-hermanos/feed/ 0 A YouTube Channel You Should Check Out if You’re Learning Spanish: Spanishland School https://howlearnspanish.com/spanishland-school/ https://howlearnspanish.com/spanishland-school/#respond Thu, 04 Jun 2020 15:16:37 +0000 https://howlearnspanish.com/?p=6095 The post A YouTube Channel You Should Check Out if You’re Learning Spanish: Spanishland School appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.

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I thought I’d do something a bit shorter today, especially since I’ve got another post scheduled to come out in a couple hours (I use a short comedy sketch on YouTube to teach you some Spanish, definitely keep an eye out for it!), so I’m going to briefly recommend you a YouTube channel I’ve had an eye on for a while: Spanishland School.

The channel is run by Andrea Alger, who is Colombian, and her American husband, Nate.  The videos overwhelmingly feature Andrea since she’s the native Spanish speaker.  I’ve kept a weather eye on them for a couple of years now and noticed how consistent they’ve been in putting out content and how the quality of that content has consistently increased.  I’ve embedded one of their most popular videos about Colombian slang there below so you can have a look.

Beyond the videos, the actual service they seem to be offering is a monthly membership that gets you weekly group lessons and also includes some exclusive bonuses (podcasts, videos, transcripts, etc.).  I have not sampled any of this and therefore cannot comment on it much beyond that, I’m mainly recommending their YouTube videos because they’re quite good for anyone in the A1-B1 stages (that’s complete beginner to low intermediate on the CEFR scale).  They also have a free podcast called Españolistos you can check out and which I presume is available on the common podcast networks.

If anybody wants to add anything else about them you think is missing, if you’ve taken their courses or had other experience with them, please leave a comment.  I hope that helps you and you have a good day (weekend’s almost here, just hang on a bit longer!).

Cheers,

Andrew

The post A YouTube Channel You Should Check Out if You’re Learning Spanish: Spanishland School appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.

]]> https://howlearnspanish.com/spanishland-school/feed/ 0 Spanish-Speaking YouTubers Who Are Excellent for Intermediate Spanish Practice (not lessons, intended for native speakers, great for improving listening comprehension) https://howlearnspanish.com/youtube-for-intermediate-students/ https://howlearnspanish.com/youtube-for-intermediate-students/#respond Thu, 15 Mar 2018 00:49:42 +0000 https://howlearnspanish.com/?p=3658 The post Spanish-Speaking YouTubers Who Are Excellent for Intermediate Spanish Practice (not lessons, intended for native speakers, great for improving listening comprehension) appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.

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This is what a lot of people are looking for but they either don’t know it or don’t know how to describe it: Spanish-language videos that are interesting/entertaining, intended for native speakers (that is, these videos are not over-simplified for Spanish-students), but which are not extremely difficult, and so would serve as excellent intermediate Spanish practice for students who have surpassed the beginner’s stage but are not yet advanced (“advanced” here means they can understand nearly everything in Spanish that they hear).  For those familiar with it, I’m talking about students in the high-A1 to B2 range per the CEFR scale.

 

What you want are Spanish-speaking YouTubers who make interesting/entertaining videos in which they speak clearly, not too fast, but are still using their normal, everyday, native-level Spanish.

I know this was something that I wanted at that stage and which helped improve my Spanish immensely, it’s excellent intermediate Spanish practice.  Beginners and low-intermediate students would also benefit from my list of sites with Spanish videos and Spanish subtitles.  This is media that you might have really struggled with as a beginner, having to look up nearly every word, having to replay a sentence dozens of times before you could understand each word and the overall meaning from beginning to end, etc.  Well, you’re not at that level anymore.

Now, with this sort of stuff, you’re missing one word out of every seven, fifteen, or twenty (depending on your general level in Spanish, the difficulty of the language the speaker is using, and how quickly they’re speaking as well as how similar their accent/dialect is to the one you’re most acclimatized to).  On a related note regarding word frequency and priority, I recommend you check out my article on how many words you need to know to be fluent in Spanish (and which ones you should focus on and when).  You can probably get the general gist of what they’re saying without subtitles, without having to replay it a dozen times, you can just sit and listen and generally get what they mean…but you don’t get all of it, and you know it.  You know you need to improve.  This is what you need.

Let’s get started with some Spanish-speaking YouTubers I can recommend.  I’ll include a link to their channel, a short description, and a single video to serve as a sample for you so you can see if they might be what you’re looking for or not.

Here’s the list for you (these are all channels I watch and am personally familiar with and, as such, can recommend):

Japón con Jamón

Fantastic vlog by a married couple living in Japan about the culture there and their interaction with it. The man is Spanish and his wife is Japanese. They speak Spanish during the videos. One of my favorites.

Mariebelle TV

Vlog by a Mexican girl living in Germany, mostly about German and/or Mexican culture. Really well done and she speaks slowly and clearly (well, slowly compared to Spaniards).

 

Inesmellaman

Vlog by a Spanish chick. I believe she claims to be the longest continually running Spanish vlog or something like that (10 years as I recall)? Pretty interesting, she may seem annoying at first, but give her a chance (I like the intro, I think it’s cute, but that’s me).

 

Videópatas

Very popular channel that does skits. They’re all Spanish and based in Spain (I forget which city).

 

Mal Vistos

Ditto (same as above, some people from one sometimes even make appearances on the other’s channel).

 

Christian Corom

Basically it’s a travel channel. He’s Spanish and loves amusement parks. He loves them so much he recently moved to Orlando, Florida. He speaks surprisingly slowly for a Spaniard, it’s one of the reasons I like his channel.

 

Ruti Beauty and Vlogs

Forget the name, she does almost nothing with beauty/makeup on this channel, it’s all vlogs about her and her family living in Japan. She’s Mexican, husband is Japanese. Slower and not edited as well as Japon con Jamón, but still interesting.

Vanfunfun

Literary/linguistics channel. He talks about books and languages. Be warned: he’s Spanish and sounds like it, meaning he talks fast.

One final resource I want to suggest isn’t a YouTube channel but a site that uses a lot of videos from YouTube and other places and which I think may interest you if you’re at the advanced-beginner-to-intermediate level that this blog post is targeted at: Yabla.  This is a fantastic site but of everything I’m recommending here it is the one thing that’s not free, you do have to pay (~$10/month).  What they do is take or make videos by native speakers that are different levels and then insert them into their own purpose-made interface for you to use to learn Spanish from said videos.  You’re supplied with subtitles in both English and Spanish that you can turn on and off (you can turn on/off either or both), when you click on any word in the Spanish subtitles you’re provided with a definition via the dictionary on the right side of the window (video is in the center) plus that automatically adds the word to your flashcards for later review.  There are quizzes and games and all sorts of other things as well.  Check out my review of Yabla here that includes many screenshots of the interface so you can see what you’re getting, descriptions of all the video genres they have available, how they organize the videos by dialect and difficulty, pricing information for teachers/organizations, as well as a lot of other information.

And that’s all I’ve got for now.  I’m just putting this post up quickly because something’s better than nothing and I’ve had a lot of people asking me for recommendations for intermediate Spanish practice.  I absolutely will add more Spanish-speaking YouTubers later.  Also, be sure to check out my list of Spanish YouTube Lessons (mostly for beginners), that is to say YouTube channels that teach Spanish.

Also!  Keep in mind that using popular media like this to learn Spanish, though an excellent technique (it’s how I initially did it) can be done much more effectively, efficiently, and with far fewer problems and frustrations if you have a solid guide to help you do it (how to imitate the speakers so you’re actually talking like them, how to quickly note down vocabulary and learn it so you don’t forget it, which resources to use and where to find them, etc.), and it just so happens I’ve written a book that does precisely that…

If you thought the above was at all useful and you want to learn (or are learning) Spanish, please give me a chance and read what I have to say about my book below!  Stick around after (or skip past it) because I’ve got a list of related resources and further reading (on this site and others) for you that may be of interest.

 

I learned to speak conversational Spanish in six months using TV shows, movies, and even comics: I then wrote a book on how you can, too

I have a whole method and a book I wrote about it called The Telenovela Method where I teach you how to learn Spanish from popular media like TV shows, movies, music, books, etc. that you can all find online for free.  It was the #1 new release in the Spanish Language Instruction section on Amazon for nearly a month after it came out and currently has 17 reviews there with a 4.9/5 stars average.  It’s available for $7.99-$9.99 for the e-book version depending on who you buy it from (Kindle version on Amazon is now $7.99) and $16.99 for the paperback (occasionally a bit cheaper, again, depending on who you buy it from).

It’s currently available in both e-book and paperback from:

Further Reading and Recommended Resources

 For more Spanish-learning resources on YouTube, I have a whole section on my site for you called Learn Spanish from YouTube: Recommended Channels, How to Do It, Lessons Based on YouTube Videos.

I also have two lists of sites with videos in Spanish that may help you:

I also wrote a whole post about why I recommend the Spanish, state-owned RTVE so much and what some of my preferred programs are on there.

The /r/Spanish subreddit on Reddit

On this “subreddit” (as the individual sections about select topics are called) you will find lots of resources and many people to interact with and talk to about learning Spanish (currently has ~52,400 subscribers).

Lastly, Lindsay Does Languages maintains a similar list of her top 10 such channels here.

Thank you so much for checking out my blog and I hope you’ve enjoyed my writing.

Cheers,

Andrew

 

The post Spanish-Speaking YouTubers Who Are Excellent for Intermediate Spanish Practice (not lessons, intended for native speakers, great for improving listening comprehension) appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.

]]> https://howlearnspanish.com/youtube-for-intermediate-students/feed/ 0 List of Best YouTube Spanish Lessons – Short Description and Sample Video Included https://howlearnspanish.com/spanish-lessons-on-youtube/ https://howlearnspanish.com/spanish-lessons-on-youtube/#respond Tue, 18 Jul 2017 19:48:22 +0000 https://howlearnspanish.com/?p=2903 The post List of Best YouTube Spanish Lessons – Short Description and Sample Video Included appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.

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Ok, I’m going to start a list of YouTube Spanish lessons I recommend, that is to say YouTube channels that teach Spanish and, in my opinion, do a good job of it.  This list will be continually updated and maintained (as it will need to be in order to remain current and useful) in the same vein as my list of websites where you can watch Spanish videos that have Spanish subtitles (or transcripts).  That list was first published back in 2012 but has been updated many times since then to include new sites and remove old, defunct ones.  This will work the same way.

These will be channels specifically designed and intended to teach Spanish or at least to help people learn Spanish.  This includes not just

channels directly teaching Spanish (e.g. grammar lessons) but also those where the Spanish is intentionally spoken in such a way as to make it easier for non-native speakers to understand (slower than normal, avoids complex, less common words and syntax).

These channels will not be ordered in any particular way.  I’ll provide a short description and reason for why I like them along with a single video from their channel that I think does a good job of representing them.  Let’s get started.

Señor Jordan

This is a long-time favorite of mine, and what’s nice is that he’s been around forever and still consistently puts out videos.  The amount of content he offers is enormous.  He’s a Spanish teacher (no idea what level, I’m guessing middle/high school) who just makes videos over his summer break.  He’s been doing this so long (since 2007) that at this point he’s covered the overwhelming majority of commonly used Spanish.  Nearly any topic you’d like to learn about, he’s got a video on it.

He picks a single topic for each video and does an excellent job of explaining it.  His explanations are clear, slow, and include lots of examples and visuals to help you remember the material.  Check out his video below about the present perfect in Spanish to see what I mean:

Since YouTube’s not great at organizing large volumes of videos like what he has, I strongly recommend you go to this page on his website where he’s done it for you.  The videos are primarily organized by level – for the student – such as “basics”, “advanced”, and “more advanced”.  Oh, and I should point out that his Spanish is almost entirely Latin American (principally Mexican), where that makes a difference (rarely, except in pronunciation).  If you’re a beginner it doesn’t much matter which dialect you start with because the basics of a language are almost completely the same throughout the various dialects (if there were major differences then they wouldn’t be two dialects of one language but two different languages altogether).

 

Spanish Sessions

She’s a teacher at a Spanish school (that is, a school for foreigners that teaches Spanish) in Madrid.  She’s a native speaker (unlike Señor Jordan), and obviously the Spanish she teaches is the Iberian dialect, specifically that from Madrid.  What I like about her is that she not only speaks slowly and clearly, and provides Spanish subtitles for all her videos, but especially that she makes most of her videos out of lessons with actual students.  That is, you learn a concept along with the student she’s teaching who is also learning it, that way the tempo of the instruction is matched to that of such a student, plus they tend to ask the same questions and have the same problems that you likely will have.

Check out her video about tan/tanto to see what I mean:

SpanishDict

Yes, the dictionary.  They have their own YouTube channel where they’ve put a lot of fairly high-quality content, mostly about various grammar concepts and common phrases.  I will warn you that most of their videos are fairly old and as such the audio and video quality is not so great, but the explanations are pretty good.  The below video illustrates this (yeah, that’s 240p):

Butterfly Spanish

These are much more recent/modern, and very well-made.  God does she love her whiteboard, though (not criticizing).  She’s a native speaker, Latin American, though I’m not sure from which country.  She’s covered a ton of topics already, explains things slowly and comprehensively, and does so mostly in English (though I notice that subtitles are provided for when she speaks Spanish!  excellent!).  Check out this video on describing how you feel in Spanish:

SpanishWithPaul

He’s a native English speaker living in (I believe) Spain at the moment.  He makes fairly long videos (30-45mins) explaining various Spanish concepts, principally using very simple, Powerpoint-like graphics.  He does a good job of explaining things though and people seem to think he’s a very good teacher.  See his explanation of the preterite tense in Spanish below for an example:

SpanishPod101

Yes, the professional podcasting company.  For what it’s worth, by the way, I think their podcast lessons are excellent and it’s absolutely worth the money to get a membership.

They tend to focus more on how to say various common phrases, expressions, how to talk about certain subjects and events (New Years, your birthday, vegetables, vehicles, “kitchen vocabulary”, etc.), than grammar – if you’re looking for YouTube Spanish lessons for beginners this is an excellent choice.  This is what some people prefer so it’s a nice change from most of the rest that do largely focus on grammar.  Check out their video below on fruit to see what I mean:

Professor Jason

I’ve just spent nearly an hour watching this guy’s videos and I’m pretty impressed overall, but I will add the significant forewarning that his style definitely will not suit some people: it’s very grammar-oriented and he presumes that you already know all the relevant grammatical terminology that he uses (e.g. “dependent clause”, “relative pronoun”, “modal verb”, “imperfect tense”, etc.).

Other than that, I must say that he does an excellent and thorough job of explaining the concepts that he does.  His videos tend to be long (20-40 minutes) but given what they’re about that’s a good thing, even a necessary one I would say.  The concepts he discusses are complex and cover a lot of ground, they need time and plenty of examples to be explained properly.  When you finish one of his videos you’ll feel like you not only have a good understanding of the topic discussed but also like it’s had a chance to sink in fairly well, not like it wasn’t just crammed down your throat as quickly as possible.

Check out his video below about the differences between aquí, acá, allí, and allá for an excellent example of what I’m talking about: it’s thirty minutes long but is probably the best video you can find online about this topic.

 Español en Episodios

This is one of those series like Destinos or Extr@ that’s formulated to help people learn Spanish, so they speak slowly and clearly and at a level slightly below what adults normally would.  They do seem to offer a transcription they’ll email you, but they want a small donation for it.  Have a look at the first episode:

Spanishland School

This is a channel run by a Colombian lady who operates a Spanish school specifically for intermediate and advanced students.  The videos are very well done with explanations in English, e.g. the following about Colombian slang:

 

Dreaming Spanish

This is a really interesting channel, his method reminds me of that of Ramses who used to do a blog called “Spanish Only”: he really emphasizes listening first, that is to say a sort of “silent period”, as it’s been called, where you just listen to the language and don’t try to speak it.  Whether you agree with this or not (I don’t), you should really give his channel a shot because he speaks very clearly and only somewhat slowly (not so much that it’s silly or annoying).  The topics of his videos range from language-learning advice and techniques to history to scenarios such as how to deal with a taxi in Spanish.

The sample video is below but if you’re interested in learning more about this method, here’s a blog post on it by a redditor who commented on the submission of this channel in the /r/LanguageLearning subreddit (highly recommended if you’re on reddit).

 

An excllent Spanish course based on video and audio lessons, focuses on teaching you to speak conversational Spanish…

I really recommend you check out my review of Rocket Spanish, it might be a good choice for you considering the article you just finished reading: it’s quite affordable given what you get, it’s online so you just log into their site from your web browser and start the lessons, the lessons are based on videos and audio recordings of native speakers who teach natural, everyday, conversational Spanish, not some boring, technical textbook.  I also talk about who it isn’t for, what some of its problems are, etc., so if you’re considering it and want a critical review please have a look.

Additional Resources and Further Reading

I have a whole category devoted to learning Spanish from YouTube you should check out, it’s full of posts you’ll find useful: Learn Spanish on YouTube: Recommended Channels, How to Do It, Lessons Based on YouTube Videos.

I particularly recommend you have a look at the following related posts:

Also see:

11 Awesome Channels to Learn Spanish on YouTube, by FluentU (good blog, excellent language-learning service, check it out).

The 17 Best YouTube Channels to Learn Spanish.  Solid list, a few that are present here and few that aren’t.

Ok, hope that was helpful to you all.  Please, if you know of a YouTube channel that wasn’t on this list and you think it should be, tell me in the comments!  I’m happy to check it out and add it to my list of YouTube Spanish lessons if I think it ought to be here.  Also…  If you thought the above was at all useful and you want to learn (or are learning) Spanish, please give me a chance and read what I have to say about my book below!  Thank you so much for checking out my blog and I hope you’ve enjoyed my writing.

 

I learned to speak conversational Spanish in six months using TV shows, movies, and even comics: I then wrote a book on how you can, too

I have a whole method and a book I wrote about it called The Telenovela Method where I teach you how to learn Spanish from popular media like TV shows, movies, music, books, etc. that you can all find online for free.  It was the #1 new release in the Spanish Language Instruction section on Amazon for nearly a month after it came out and currently has 17 reviews there with a 4.9/5 stars average.  It’s available for $7.99-$9.99 for the e-book version depending on who you buy it from (Kindle version on Amazon is now $7.99) and $16.99 for the paperback (occasionally a bit cheaper, again, depending on who you buy it from).

It’s currently available in both e-book and paperback from:

Cheers,
Andrew

The post List of Best YouTube Spanish Lessons – Short Description and Sample Video Included appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.

]]> https://howlearnspanish.com/spanish-lessons-on-youtube/feed/ 0 Learn Spanish on YouTube #3: Christian Corom https://howlearnspanish.com/learn-spanish-from-youtube-3/ https://howlearnspanish.com/learn-spanish-from-youtube-3/#respond Fri, 16 Sep 2016 03:25:58 +0000 https://howlearnspanish.com/?p=3144 The post Learn Spanish on YouTube #3: Christian Corom appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.

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christian corom youtube spanishThis channel is just my sort of thing, and I suspect it will be for a lot of you as well.

Are you interested in traveling?  Are you interested in learning about foreign cultures and people?  Are you interested in the perspective and first impression a foreigner has when they travel to another country, particularly your country?

If so, and if you speak Spanish or want to learn to, boy have I got a channel for you.  Oh, and if you have a thing for amusement parks then you’re really going to be ecstatic about this.

Christian Corom’s YouTube channel is what you want.  His shtick his very simple: he travels to places in the world he wants to go, that interest him (important because it means he’s enthusiastic and interesting himself), and then brings a camera along and tells you all about it as he goes.  You get his first impression and therefore genuine reaction and thoughts about things.  He’s a Spaniard (from Bilbao, specifically) and speaks very clearly and, I must say, surprisingly slowly for a Spaniard (these together are a godsend for those language learners who aren’t at an already advanced level).

He’s got a thing…

…for amusement parks…

…like Six Flags…

…and Tokyo Disney Land…

…oh, and apparently he really likes Harry Potter.

But he goes elsewhere as well!

The Grand Canyon!

The inside of the Statue of Liberty!

The largest (passenger) airplane in the world!

You get the picture: he goes many places and talks about it.  Specifically, he makes a ~10 minute video about it that includes lots of shots of the place in question interspersed with his impressions and opinions of what he sees.  I actually rather like that the talking has intermissions breaking it up, that way a language learner who’s having to really exert some effort to follow along only has to do so for 30-45 second bursts and then they get a break.  That’s another happy coincidence for us that make his videos suited to our purpose.

You can see more on his channel and learn more about him and his journeys on his website (as well as sort his videos by destination, see the menu at the top called “Destinos Visitados”).  I hope you guys liked this and found it useful, there will be many more of these to come, let me know what you think in the comments.  Oh!  And speaking of which, if you know of any good Spanish-language videos/channels (or videos/channels that teach Spanish) that you think I should include in this series, be sure to let me know.

Also, be sure to check out my list of Spanish YouTube Lessons, that is YouTube channels focused specifically on teaching Spanish.

Also…  If you thought the above was at all useful and you want to learn (or are learning) Spanish, please give me a chance and read what I have to say about my book below!  Thank you so much for checking out my blog and I hope you’ve enjoyed my writing.

I learned to speak conversational Spanish in six months using TV shows, movies, and even comics: I then wrote a book on how you can, too

I have a whole method and a book I wrote about it called The Telenovela Method where I teach you how to learn Spanish from popular media like TV shows, movies, music, books, etc. that you can all find online for free.  It was the #1 new release in the Spanish Language Instruction section on Amazon for nearly a month after it came out and currently has 17 reviews there with a 4.9/5 stars average.  It’s available for $7.99-$9.99 for the e-book version depending on who you buy it from (Kindle version on Amazon is now $7.99) and $16.99 for the paperback (occasionally a bit cheaper, again, depending on who you buy it from).

It’s currently available in both e-book and paperback from:

Cheers,
Andrew

The post Learn Spanish on YouTube #3: Christian Corom appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.

]]> https://howlearnspanish.com/learn-spanish-from-youtube-3/feed/ 0 Learn Spanish on YouTube #2: Professor Jason https://howlearnspanish.com/learn-spanish-on-youtube-2/ https://howlearnspanish.com/learn-spanish-on-youtube-2/#respond Mon, 05 Sep 2016 20:42:24 +0000 https://howlearnspanish.com/?p=3113 The post Learn Spanish on YouTube #2: Professor Jason appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.

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learn spanish from youtubeProfessor Jason is a channel that just directly teaches Spanish (and some Brazilian Portuguese), that is you just get a series of Spanish lessons on particular subjects (e.g. preterite, subjunctive, irregular verb conjugations, etc.).  There are many of those.  The reason I’m featuring this one is because:

  • It’s straightforward and clear, easy to understand.
  • He doesn’t babble or carry on for too long.  This doesn’t mean the videos aren’t long sometimes, e.g. his video on why and when to use the subjunctive is 38 minutes long, but I thought it was quite good and it’s one of his most popular videos.  This kind of reminds me of R for Russian’s video that teaches the entire Russian alphabet all in one go and lasts 2 1/2 hours but still manages to hold your attention the whole time, leaves you feeling like you really did just learn the whole Russian alphabet in 2 1/2 hours, and is consequently very popular.
  • He’s not in any way irritating.  This is very subjective, but many YouTube language teachers will do things that some people like (usually in order to keep your attention or help you remember things) but which others find very annoying, whether it’s their odd vocal intonation, over the top fake enthusiasm, goofy graphics, or just an odd format.  He doesn’t do anything like that, he just clearly teaches you the lesson at hand as quickly as possible but takes all the time he needs in order to do so well – like I said, his videos aren’t necessarily short but there’s almost no wasted time or unnecessary babbling or diatribes, it’s all straight to the point with lots of good, relevant examples.

Recommended Videos

Those are just a few I noticed, thought covered subjects that people would like (particularly that one on ‘to become’ in Spanish, that’s a really common problem native English speakers have and which I haven’t seen anyone else address), and which I thought explained well the topic at hand.

Also, be sure to check out my list of Spanish YouTube Lessons (mostly for beginners), that is to say YouTube channels that teach Spanish.

I learned to speak conversational Spanish in six months using TV shows, movies, and even comics: I then wrote a book on how you can, too

I have a whole method and a book I wrote about it called The Telenovela Method where I teach you how to learn Spanish from popular media like TV shows, movies, music, books, etc. that you can all find online for free.  It was the #1 new release in the Spanish Language Instruction section on Amazon for nearly a month after it came out and currently has 17 reviews there with a 4.9/5 stars average.  It's available for $7.99-$9.99 for the e-book version depending on who you buy it from (Kindle version on Amazon is now $7.99) and $16.99 for the paperback (occasionally a bit cheaper, again, depending on who you buy it from).

It's currently available in both e-book and paperback from:

Cheers,
Andrew

The post Learn Spanish on YouTube #2: Professor Jason appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.

]]> https://howlearnspanish.com/learn-spanish-on-youtube-2/feed/ 0 Learn Spanish on YouTube #1: Spaniards in London https://howlearnspanish.com/spaniards-in-london/ https://howlearnspanish.com/spaniards-in-london/#respond Sun, 04 Sep 2016 18:36:34 +0000 https://howlearnspanish.com/?p=3104 The post Learn Spanish on YouTube #1: Spaniards in London appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.

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This is the first in a series of posts I’ll be doing where I cover as many great channels for learning Spanish on YouTube as I can find.  There are many such channels and new ones are being created all the time, not just for Spanish but many other languages as well (if you’re interested in German, check out Deutsch für Euch, my favorite at the moment while I’m learning German), so I don’t think I’ll ever run out of channels to recommend and I think this is something a lot of people will enjoy and find useful.  Let’s get started with the first one.

spaniards in london, learn spanish on youtubeSpaniards in London is a series of shows made available on YouTube about the fictional experiences of several Spaniards recently arrived in London while they live with a British flatmate, work, flirt, date, audition for acting and signing roles, and of course get into various shenanigans.  It’s entertaining enough and excellent for beginners and intermediates because:

  • You won’t only hear Spanish since they end up talking to locals a lot who speak English to them and they reply (as best they can) in English, so although most of it is in Spanish, the student does get a bit of respite and a bit of help here and there with some carefully chosen English interspersed in.
  • The Spanish they use is intentionally basic and spoken slowly and clearly.  This was obviously a series designed and written expressly for beginning Spanish students (a bit like Destinos, in that regard).  Also, the actors are all native speakers from Spain (if you’re particularly interested in Iberian Spanish this is a plus for you).
  • They’re reasonably short, about 10-15 minutes per episode.
  • They have hardcoded subtitles that…are rather interesting.  What they do is show English subtitles for Spanish and Spanish subtitles for English.  Not how I would’ve done it, but it’s better than nothing (and especially useful for beginners).

Also, I’ve just been watching one of the episodes and I’ll say this for it: it’s shockingly funny.  Why do I say “shockingly”?  Because you don’t usually get that from these sorts of things (educational series made specifically to teach a language), they’re usually cheesy, overly sanitized and politically correct, and the humor attempted reminiscent of a ’90s era G-rated family show like Full House or something.  One of the guys just cracked a joke about doing some nude modeling while looking for auditions because one of the ads said “natural nude male models wanted” and he said “well…I’m very natural looking!”.

It’s not especially racy or anything, but it’s obviously intended for adult students and not fourth graders, and the themes and humor of the show reflect that, which is nice.  It probably helps that I suspect it was aimed more at a British audience than an American one (they’re less prudish than we are overall).

Also, be sure to check out my list of Spanish YouTube Lessons (mostly for beginners), that is to say YouTube channels that teach Spanish.

So that about covers it, I really like this channel and hope it stays up and they continue making new episodes.  I hope you take a look and it ends up helping you, let me know what you think in the comments (and would like me to write about in the future), also…  If you thought the above was at all useful and you want to learn (or are learning) Spanish, please give me a chance and read what I have to say about my book below!  Thank you so much for checking out my blog and I hope you’ve enjoyed my writing.

I learned to speak conversational Spanish in six months using TV shows, movies, and even comics: I then wrote a book on how you can, too

I have a whole method and a book I wrote about it called The Telenovela Method where I teach you how to learn Spanish from popular media like TV shows, movies, music, books, etc. that you can all find online for free.  It was the #1 new release in the Spanish Language Instruction section on Amazon for nearly a month after it came out and currently has 17 reviews there with a 4.9/5 stars average.  It’s available for $7.99-$9.99 for the e-book version depending on who you buy it from (Kindle version on Amazon is now $7.99) and $16.99 for the paperback (occasionally a bit cheaper, again, depending on who you buy it from).

It’s currently available in both e-book and paperback from:

Cheers,
Andrew

The post Learn Spanish on YouTube #1: Spaniards in London appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.

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