Spanish Archives - Learn Spanish with Andrew

How to Say “Tour”in Spanish: Well…it depends on what kind of tour you mean.

Andrew — Thu, 30 Jan 2020 20:07:24 +0000

I know you probably got here from googling “how to say tour in Spanish” so I’ll be very brief here and just get you the answer you want. Unlike English which uses one word for both of these things, Spanish has two different words depending on what kind of tour you’re talking about: “un tour” and “una gira”. Also, it bears clarifying what “giro” means because that’s also a word in Spanish which means something completely different and you don’t want to confuse them. I shall provide memory aids along the way to help you remember which words refer to what.

“Un tour”: bus tour, guided tour, sightseeing tour, etc.

That’s what “un tour” is. It’s (obviously) a loanword they took from English. There’s really no other word used for this to the best of my knowledge, and it’s the same throughout the Spanish-speaking world (Spain and Latin America, in other words). This is very simple to remember and I don’t think we need any memory aids or mnemonics here, though I have included an image to illustrate for you on the left.

“Una gira”: a series of performances by an artist in different locations

This is the “to go on tour” kind of tour, like what a musician, band, or theater group would do. Very easy to remember: “Shakira hace una gira” (“Shakira” and “gira” rhyme, I’ll give you pronunciation help in a minute), which is Spanish for “Shakira does a tour”. It’s also how you would say that someone is “on tour”, so “Shakira hace una gira” could also be translated as “Shakira is on tour”. “Hacer”, for those who don’t know, means “to do”, and “hace” is the third-person, present, indicative form of the verb. Here are pronunciations of “Shakira”, “hace”, and “gira” by native Spanish speakers if you need help with that:

“Shakira”:

“Hace”, Spanish (from Spain) pronunciation (the “c” is pronounced differently in Spain than elsewhere):

“Hacer”, Latin American pronunciation:

“Gira”:

Bonus, “Hacer una gira” (“to do a tour” or “to go on tour”):

If you’re learning Spanish…

There’s a great service called Yabla (this is my review of them) that takes popular media like TV shows and short video clips in the language you’re learning (they offer several) and embeds the video in a special platform specifically designed to help students learning that language do so from that video. You get subtitles in both the language spoke and your native language, you can click on any word in the subtitles to see a definition of it and have it automatically added to your flashcards they provide for you to review later what you learned, you can have quizes and games based on the language used in the video, etc. It’s really good, check out their site here or, again, you can see my review of them here.

Also, I wrote a book about how to learn Spanish from popular media (movies, TV shows, music, etc.) that you can get on Amazon in Kindle or paperback format. If that interests you and especially if you’d like to support my work, I’d really appreciate if you could check it out here on Amazon, it’s called The Telenovela Method.

Hope that helps, please consider subscribing to my emails (sidebar on the 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

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Spanish Conversation Connectors: “it seems to me”, “all joking aside”, “I presume”, etc. – 4 Pages Worth!

Andrew — Tue, 12 Sep 2017 21:42:44 +0000

A recent conversation with a subscriber to my email list, Michael Rosenthal, led to him sending me a document that I think the rest of you will find useful. It’s a list of what Anthony Lauder calls “conversational connectors”. Anthony runs the site FluentCzech and was featured in a blog post by Benny Lewis, which is what led Michael to this list.

He converted the list (originally a list of Czech conversational connectors) into Spanish, so this is a list of Spanish conversational connectors. I’m talking about such expressions as “frankly speaking” (hablando francamente), “between you and me” (entre nosotros), “I presume that” (supungo que), etc. It was send to me originally as a PDF file, which I’ve embedded below:

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 Spanish Conversation Connectors: “it seems to me”, “all joking aside”, “I presume”, etc. – 4 Pages Worth! appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.

Learn Spanish for Real #9: Four Ways to Say Somebody Is Naked!

Andrew — Tue, 13 Jun 2017 22:46:02 +0000

1. En pelotas

This literally means “in balls” (hence the photo) per the modern definition of “pelota”, but that’s not what it refers to at all (it’s not using the modern definition of “pelota”). Contrary to what many people think, “pelota” here doesn’t mean “ball” at all.

Its origin actually stretches back to at least the 14th century, possibly earlier. It started with the phrase “en pellote”, which meant “naked”; the word “pellote” is an antiquated word that means “skin”.

The problem is, that I alluded to above, is that in modern times it has come to be associated with “balls”, that is a man’s testicles. This results in people incorrectly assuming it only applies to men, or only originally applied to men and has since been expanded to refer to women as well. This is completely incorrect, “pelota” refers to an outdated Spanish word for “skin”, and the phrase isn’t the least bit sexist.

Source (and if you’d like to read more, be warned that it’s in Spanish and contains a photo of naked people, though): https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_pelota

Some contextual, real-life examples from Reverso Contexto:

Tengo que poner la piel de gallina a una dama en pelotas.

(I have to give a naked lady goosebumps.)

Que no te pillen en pelotas.

(Don’t let them catch you with your pants down. Lit. “Don’t let them catch you naked”)

Te he visto mil veces en pelotas.

(I’ve seen you naked a thousand times.)

2. En Cueros

This is almost certainly a spin-off of the first one. “Cuero” means “leather” or “hide” and is being used as a slang term here for a person’s skin.

Some contextual, real-life examples from Reverso Contexto:

Dónde todo el mundo me ataco mientras soy en cueros.

(Where everyone attacks me while I’m naked.)

Cálmate. Nadie quiere verte en cueros.

(Chill. Nobody wants to see you naked.)

¿Por qué estás leyendo un libro de cocina en cueros?

(Why are you reading a cookbook naked?)

3. En Bolas

This is another spin on the original “en pelotas”, but unlike “en cueros”, it’s a bad one. “En cueros” uses the original representation of “in the skin”, this one just literally means “in balls” and obviously refers to “en pelotas” but using the modern definition of “pelota” which is not the one used by the expression “en pelota”. So it’s really kind of nonsensical, only retaining meaning in referring to a misinterpretation of the original idiom. The language nerd in me hates this phrase for this reason.

This is like if it became popular to say “my throat of the woods” to refer to the area that you’re in. It’s only understandable because of the original idiom it refers to (“my neck of the woods”) and they’ve used a completely different (and wrong) definition of “neck” here, so now it just really doesn’t make sense anymore.

Some contextual examples from Reverso Contexto:

Así que al quitarme los pantalones me quedé en bolas.

(So that when I took my trousers off I was naked.)

Que cuando está en bolas parece un oso.

(When he’s naked he looks like a bear.)

No estoy acostumbrado a las tías en bolas.

(I’m not used to naked girls.)

4. Como Dios me/te/le trajo al mundo

This one’s very similar to “birthday suit” or “naked as when I was born” in English. It literally means “like when God brought me into the world”.

No clue as to the origin though honestly I doubt there really is one, it’s just one of those phrases where it was immediately obvious what it meant and, not surprisingly, became a very common way of saying that someone was naked in many different languages.

Some contextual examples from Reverso Contexto (I’m not advertising for them, I’m just linking to the specific page I used so you can see more examples if you like):

Y algunas de ti como Dios te trajo al mundo, con 6 meses.

(And some [photos] of you naked, when you were six months old.)

Estás como Dios te trajo al mundo.

(You’re naked as the day you were born.)

No hay nada como quedarte como Dios te trajo al mundo y tomar un buen baño caliente.

(There’s nothing like stripping naked and having a nice, hot bath.)

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

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

Cheers,
Andrew

The post Learn Spanish for Real #9: Four Ways to Say Somebody Is Naked! appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.

Spanish Pronunciation: Quickly Learn to Pronounce Any Spanish Word No Matter How Difficult

Andrew — Fri, 21 Apr 2017 01:10:43 +0000

This is a simple technique I developed on my own as part of the Telenovela Method years ago and I’ve just never gotten around to writing about it because it never occurred to me how much trouble most people have learning Spanish pronunciation (note: this actually works on any foreign language). This is a simple, obvious (once you understand it) technique that’s very easy to learn and, in my experience, will let you pronounce anything (I’ve used it successfully with Spanish, German, and Russian so far). Let’s get started and learn how to pronounce Spanish words. I did a quick video demo for you that I’ve included at the bottom.

What to Do

In summary: Break the word or phrase down into the smallest possible pieces, master each one individually, then slowly start connecting them into progressively larger chunks, finally speeding everything up.

In detail:

Start at the beginning of the word and master just the first syllable. Let’s use the word “aeropuerto” as an example. Click the link to hear native speakers pronounce it on Forvo. This is a word I had trouble with years ago when I was first learning Spanish and it was actually several months before I could pronounce it properly. First, just learn to say the initial “ae” sound correctly, it just sounds like the English word “eye”.
Next: “ro”. Don’t stick the two together yet, go slow…piece by piece. “Ro, ro, ro…ae, ae, ae…ro, ro, ro…ae…ro…ae…ro, ae-ro, ae-ro, aero, aero, aero”.
Now let’s do “pue”, it’s like “p-weh”. Just say “Pue” several times until you’re pronouncing that one particular syllable just like the native speaker.
Let’s go back and review. Say “ae-ro” again a few times, slowly speeding up to “aero” until you’re saying it just like the native speaker and just as quickly.
Let’s do “erto” now. It’s just “air-tow” with a rolled “r”. Say: “er, er, er, er-to, er-to, erto, erto, erto”.
Let’s make bigger chunks by putting them together. How about “puerto”? Say: “Pue…pue…pue…erto…erto…erto…pue-rto…pue-erto…puerto…puerto…puerto”, starting slowly and then speeding up.
Let’s slowly put them all together to form the whole word we want to say: “Ae…ro…ae…ro…ae-ro…ae-ro…aero…aero…pue…erto…pue…erto…pue-erto…puerto…puerto…aero…puerto…aero…puerto…aero-puerto…aero-puerto…aero-puerto…aeropuerto…aeropuerto…aeropuerto…aeropuerto…aeropuerto, aeropuerto, aeropuerto, aeropuerto, aeropuerto”.

That’s how you do it. The above looks tedious and it probably took you several minutes to go through all of that, doing it yourself, but that’s because you were learning how to do it and simultaneously trying to do my example of it at the same time. When you’re doing this yourself it’ll usually take something more like 15-30 seconds for a word and a couple of minutes for a whole phrase or short sentence. Here’s a video demonstration of me doing it (takes about 4 minutes but keep in mind I’m going very slowly and explaining what I’m doing along the way):

It’s really very simple: just break it down into the smallest possible pieces, master each one individually, then slowly start putting them together and speeding up. That’s it.

How to learn conversational Spanish with perfect pronunciation

If you’re particularly interested in learning spoken, everyday Spanish, with a focus on pronunciation, I strongly recommend you check out “the mimic method”, it’s detailed here on the guy’s site. I’ve tried the Spanish version myself and thought it was excellent (I’m thinking about doing the Russian one now). The inventor, Idahosa Ness, has learned five languages this way and is frequently mistaken for a native speaker. If you’re into music you’ll really like it because he tells you how to incorporate that and he himself initially learned languages by singing them.

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

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

Cheers,
Andrew

The post Spanish Pronunciation: Quickly Learn to Pronounce Any Spanish Word No Matter How Difficult appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.

Best Way to Find Language Exchange Partners While Traveling

Andrew — Wed, 19 Apr 2017 16:14:39 +0000

Ask a local.

No, not for a language exchange. Ask a local for a place to post a request for one. You want a bulletin-board/classifieds type setup run by either the city or a local university. In particular, look for where local university students (and just people around that age in general) are posting such things as requests for study partners, rooms for rent, couches for sale, jobs, volunteer positions/offers, etc.

Here’s the perfect example, it’s what I used while I was in Zaragoza, Spain for three months in 2015: Anuncios de Juventud / CIPAJ (Centro de Información Juvenil).

Oh, and who’s the chick on the left with the eagle? That’s Azucena (the name comes from a Spanish term for the Madonna Lily). She’s one of my language exchange partners that I found through the above site. The reason she’s holding an eagle is because we were having lunch in a small park in Zaragoza when a “cetrero” (“falconer” or, more specifically since it’s an eagle, “austringer”) employed by the city to scare away pigeons (they poop on everything and spread disease) appeared with his eagle. She asked to take a picture of it and he offered to let her actually hold it (I took the pictures). Very cool.

When I first arrived, I was using language exchange sites (the ones you’d normally use to set up an exchange via Skype like iTalki and The Mixxer) and not turning up a whole lot, but I knew there was a ton of demand for native English speakers to help people learn English: English is by far the most popular second language in Spain (and most of the rest of the world for that matter). It was just an issue of: where to find them?

A bright idea occurred to me after a few days: oh, perhaps I should ask someone.

I did. It worked. The above site was their first (and immediate – they knew exactly what I needed) recommendation. I posted an ad saying I was an American learning Spanish looking for language exchange partners, that it was free (you help me, I’ll help you), and I could meet most times during the day around where I lived. Three days later I had to contact the above website and ask them to pull the ad because my inbox was swamped with enough offers to last me six months at the rate of an exchange a day.

If you go somewhere that doesn’t have English as its native language, I can guarantee you there will be a ton of people around (unless you’re in a really rural area) who will want to learn English and will therefore be happy to help you learn their native language in exchange for help with their English. All you have to do is find them, which actually amounts to you having to figure out how to find them, which actually amounts to: you have to figure out where they’re going to be looking for language exchange partners.

This is usually a bulletin board or classified ads run by the city, a local university, or local newspaper.

How do you find it? Ask a local.

Oh! And one more thing, since “ask a local” is probably a bit irritating since it’s not very specific: search the language exchange sites like iTalki and The Mixxer for people in your specific location (e.g. Zaragoza, Spain). Those are people who not only live there but, specifically, are interested in learning another language (probably English). Even better if they’re around university-age (I just find they’re most likely to know about the sort of thing you’re looking for, especially since it’s frequently intended either for people their age as the above site in Zaragoza is or it’s run by a local university).

Bonus Eagle Video

Definitely post in the comments any sites you find that others can use if they visit that same location. I’m hoping to make a thorough list for all medium and large cities in the Spanish-speaking world as an appendix for the third edition of my book but that’s not going to be coming out for at least another year or so. Maybe if we get enough here I’ll make a list out of it as a separate post that I’ll add to as more are found.

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

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

Cheers,
Andrew

The post Best Way to Find Language Exchange Partners While Traveling appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.

The 2nd Edition of The Telenovela Method is Out! Both Paperback and E-book Available!

Andrew — Thu, 09 Mar 2017 23:45:25 +0000

I finally got the 2nd edition of my book published (was supposed to happen last fall, turns out self-publishing was a lot more complicated than I thought it was going to be). A lot of you had asked if a print version of the first edition was available, so that was one of the main reasons I went with an actual publisher (BookBaby) for the second edition instead of just publishing it in e-book-only format like I did with the first one. It’s also available through a lot more distributors (“Can I get it from ___?” – odds are the answer is “yes” at this point).

Improvements in the 2nd Edition

Now available in print! It’s a 298 page paperback that retails for $16.99 (vs. $9.99 for the e-book).
Whole new chapter on lessons learned in Spain, including how to get an unlimited supply of language-exchanges with locals (the first two months I was there I averaged 2 language exchanges per day during the week).
Two new appendices (one on miscellaneous free online resources and one on recommended products) plus the others have all been significantly updated (especially the appendix listing free online lessons and courses).
The method itself has been slightly revised (nothing major but I’ve backed off a bit on how much I think you need to note for review, e.g. in Anki).
Cleaned up significantly (lots of typos fixed, reads easier). A few people complained about the overly casual, “blog-style” of writing, and I agreed: it needed to read like a book and I’ve edited it to that end.
New resources added, old links that stopped working removed, most resources now appear at the end of each chapter, making things a bit more readable and organized.

You can now (right now) get the e-book (I cover the print edition below) from:

The Print Edition – Please Help Me!

The print edition is currently in what’s known as “pre-order status”, and this is where you guys can not only really help me out but also ensure that you get a copy of the print edition as soon as possible. If you’re interested in a physical copy of the book (paperback, 298 pages), please place your order now.

The way this works when new print books come out is that booksellers (Amazon, B&N, etc.) have a pre-order period during which they determine how many copies they’re going to order based on the demand for the given title. They’ll bulk order (from the printer) more copies than they received orders for to ensure they have enough in stock to meet future demand, and they predict future demand based on current demand (right now that means pre-orders). So the more pre-orders they get, the more copies of my book they’ll order in bulk (e.g. if they get 300 orders for it they might order 400). Amazon is saying they’ll have it in stock by March 23rd, so you won’t have to wait long, and how many pre-orders I get over the next couple weeks is really important. Please help me by placing your order now! Here’s where you can do that:

If you’re someone who buys books wholesale (retailer, library, etc.) BookBaby tells me it’s also available through the following wholesale networks: “Baker & Taylor, Ingram, NACSCORP, Book-a-Zine, Partners, Diamond Comic, BPDI and many others.”

I’m not remotely close to wealthy, and this (writing about how to learn languages via my blogs and books) is what I do for a living. I desperately want to travel continuously for the next few years, all while learning new languages and helping you all learn those languages through my blog posts, books, e-mails, videos, tweets, facebook posts, and instagram videos. I can’t do this for free because that stuff takes time, time which if I’m not being paid for I can’t afford to spare because I’ll be too busy working “a real job” (this is a real job damnit, I work six days a week, take me seriously, grumble grumble).

I really believe in this method. I used it to learn Spanish which I then tested for 3 months in Spain, I’m currently using it to learn German (quick tip: Lola Rennt is a great movie to learn German from, so much fun), and I plan on using it to then learn French, Italian, Tagalog, Japanese, and who knows what else!

Thank You

All of you who read what I write, watch my videos, and especially who buy my book (including those who bought the 1st edition, of course): thank you. I genuinely wouldn’t be able to do this without you.

It’s also vital, for one to be able to continue in their chosen occupation, knowing that other people value what you’re doing–that really means a lot (I’d have long since quit if I thought I wasn’t helping anyone).

Cheers,

Andrew

P.S. If you do buy the book I would greatly appreciate any review you could leave for it (on whatever site you bought it from), books live and die by their reader reviews, you guys have enormous influence over whether someone else will buy the book.

P.P.S. Yes, I know the site is old (this theme is 7, 8 years old now?) and ugly as hell. I’m in the process of completely revamping it right now…along with the newsletter…while learning Spanish and German…and figuring out how/when I’m going to get to Colombia in a few months…and how to unload all my crap I don’t need before I leave and make some cash in the process (anybody wanna buy some weight plates or a cocktail shaker?).

The post The 2nd Edition of The Telenovela Method is Out! Both Paperback and E-book Available! appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.

Finally: Affordable, Unlimited, Online Spanish Group Classes for Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced Students | GoSpanish Review

Andrew — Wed, 01 Mar 2017 01:21:59 +0000

I just finished trying a new service called GoSpanish and I’ll cut to the chase: flat rate of $35 per month for unlimited Spanish classes at four different levels with high-quality teachers, class sizes averaging 2-6 students, and which you can participate in from any device with internet (works on desktop, laptop, and smartphone – I tried all 3). DO IT.

A few more details…

Cost

The $35 per month is their cheapest plan (Silver) but even the cheapest plan gets you unlimited classes. I suspect they’ll change this in the future but those who get in on the original deal will probably be able to keep their original plan at the original price (in other words: they’re low-balling themselves, get in now). The two additional plans are at $59 and $79 per month and they merely get you some private classes (2/month and 4/month, respectively).

For those of you wondering how that compares with what you’d pay for a 1 hour class with a good tutor on iTalki: fear not, I have done the math for you. A good Spanish tutor on iTalki will run you about $10-15/hour, with GoSpanish going from the $35 plan to the $59 one gets you 2 private, 1-hour classes (with good teachers in my opinion) for an additional $24 (59 – 35 = 24), or $12/class. Pretty reasonable. If you go for the Platinum plan at $79/month, that nets you 4 private classes for an additional $44 (79 – 35 = 44), or $11/class–so a slightly better deal.

Honestly, that’s pretty good: that’s at the low end of what you’ll find on iTalki if you find a good teacher for that rate (you can, but you’ll likely have to try a few first). If you want private tutoring, the upgrade is probably worth the premium, yes. If you don’t, it’s not. You’re not going to do much better than $11-$12/hour anywhere else.

Classes

The classes are broken down by level and there are four of them: Beginner, Upper Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced. “Beginner” is for people starting from scratch who speak absolutely no Spanish whatsoever, Upper Beginner is for those who are still beginners but can at least find their way around a bit (corresponding to A2 of the CEFR scale for those familiar). Intermediate and Advanced are the classes I took and I would place their Intermediate Class at B1 on the CEFR and their advanced class at B2 (you’ll be hard-pressed to find anybody running C1 or C2 level classes for any language outside of expensive tutors who specialize in teaching people to pass those exams). You need to be conversational if you’re going to take the intermediate or advanced classes.

There are 15 classes held per day by my count, each one is 1 hour long. That typically means 2-3 per day of each level, except Advanced. From what I saw there was only one Advanced class per day and it was the last one of the day at 8 PM my time (CST, I’m in Texas, so that’s 9 PM EST and 6 PM PST). I’ll post a screen shot of their class schedule below.

Teachers

The teachers were all very good by my measure, and I’ve got years of experience with dozens of tutors at this point. They’re all native speakers and all of the ones I had were Argentinean, for what that’s worth. They all spoke very clear, neutral, South American Spanish. None of them had the strong, stereotypical Argentinean accent (the “che”/”she” thing).

How It Works

The teachers have basic lesson plans and, at least at the intermediate and advanced levels, do an approximately 50/50 mix of exercises and casual conversation, which I think is just right. At the beginner level (I did not take a beginner class) there is probably more structure and less conversation simply because beginners don’t yet have a strong enough command of the language to hold a conversation for very long.

They make a point of calling on the students equally, in order, so that everybody gets about equal participation (unless you choose to merely listen in, which you can do).

The way the exercises function are basically as springboards into conversation about the subject they address, e.g. a recent session I did (which I have a video of) talked about estuaries in Argentina and the animals that inhabit them, which led to a discussion about wildlife and parks in both Argentina as well as in the places the students lived, so we all had an interesting discussion about that and learned not only some Spanish but also a bit about the different regions the teacher and students were located in like the everglades, alligators, and manatees in Florida where he lived (all of this was in Spanish, of course).

You start off by reading (the teacher has each student read a portion out loud, correcting any mistakes they make) about the topic of the day, in this case estuaries in Argentina:

Then you do some exercises together:

During this time things naturally diverge into normal conversation with the teacher guiding and directing as necessary. Like I said, it ends up being about 50% exercises and 50% spontaneous, natural conversation. I think this is the right way to do this: you do need some kind of outline for what to talk about otherwise you might have a lot of awkward fumbling, struggling to think of things to say, and consequently a lot of wasted time, but you don’t want to have a script that must be strictly adhered to either.

The conference call itself is done via Adobe Connect, which is free, and you just need to install it as either a plugin for your browser or app for your mobile phone. I took classes both ways (desktop computer and from my phone) and it worked perfectly each time.

Functionality (from my phone?! yes please!)

I tested it from my desktop, laptop, and phone (a Motorola Moto X running Android): it worked fine on all three. I was especially impressed with how well it ran on my phone. To me, that’s a real breakthrough because it allows students to massively expand where and when they can do a class. Check out the video below if you’d like to see me trying it out (it’s about 6 minutes, includes some observations and tips):

A few quick notes (I’ll save you some time if you don’t feel like watching the video)

It worked really well. No lag, I could hear them clearly and they could hear me clearly, it just worked. This seems like a big deal to me, that people can now take foreign-language group classes (small class size) from their phones. That makes this available to a lot more people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to find the time and opportunity to do it. It makes it much, much more convenient.
I had it on speakerphone and when I switched on my microphone it automatically went out of speakerphone mode and back into regular (?) phone mode such that I had to hold it up to my ear in order to hear. This may very well be a quirk that’s specific to my phone (Motorola Moto X, unlocked, Android) and, regardless, this would work better (and most people would do this) with earbuds or headphones of some sort, which would preclude this from happening in the first place, so it’s really irrelevant. Plus, it’s really not a problem even if it does happen, you just put the phone up to your ear when it’s your turn to talk.
You can easily read all the exercises and see all the buttons you need to press. There’s one to “raise” your virtual hand (signaling the teacher you wish to speak) and another to turn your microphone on and off – those are the two you’ll be using most.

Conclusion

Again, this all worked really well, I have very few criticisms. Perhaps they should consider having students test out to a certain level, that is make them take a placement exam to ensure people end up in the right classes (I mention why in the video: the people in the intermediate level classes, oddly, seemed more advanced than those in the advanced classes). I would say that they’ll really need to watch out for increasing class sizes as this gets more popular but that really shouldn’t be something that’s difficult to handle since there’s a glut of Spanish teachers available at the moment so they’re plentiful and cheap (cheapest language to learn via tutor on iTalki from what I’ve seen). This is likely due to Spanish being such a common language (main spoken language of 23 countries) and those countries where it’s spoken having a relatively low (relative to the U.S. and W. Europe) cost of living which means labor in general from those areas is going to be cheap.

I would also say I think they’re going to find themselves having to up their rates, but that’s just a guess ($35/month for unlimited Spanish classes seems unsustainable to me). So not only would I recommend you give them a try because they’re good but also because the price is probably going to go up in the future and you can likely lock in your monthly rate now if you’re interested in this type of service. Their website: GoSpanish.com.

Hope that helps, tell me what you think in the comments.

Cheers,

Andrew

The post Finally: Affordable, Unlimited, Online Spanish Group Classes for Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced Students | GoSpanish Review appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.

Learn Spanish for Real #7: “Pain in the neck/ass”

Andrew — Mon, 19 Sep 2016 03:41:55 +0000

I remember talking with a language exchange partner years ago and I wanted to say that something was, as we colloquially say in English, a “pain in the neck”, so I made the mistake most inexperienced language learners make in such situations and just translated the English literally by saying “dolor en el cuello” – it didn’t work. I got a funny look and a complete lack of comprehension from my partner.

Spanish speakers don’t say “pain in the neck” to mean pain in the neck, they say that something is a pain in the molars, they say: “dolor de muelas” (well, Spanish speakers from Spain do, I’ll get to an alternative in a minute). “Dolor” means “pain”, “de” means “of” (in this case it’s giving possession of the pain to the molars), and “muela” means “molar”.

Additionally, and I suspect this is more common in Latin America, you can also say “dolor de cabeza”, which just literally means “pain of head”, or “headache“.

And the one you’ve all been waiting for…

“Pain in the ass”.

Is there something…a bit stronger in Spanish than “dolor de muelas”, but which means basically the same thing? Do they have an equivalent to “pain in the ass”, in other words?

Yes…and I like it, it’s rather graphic and self-explanatory.

“Grano en el culo” means, literally, “pimple on the ass”.

“Grano” properly means “grain”, as in a grain of sand, but it’s also slang for a pimple. “Culo” is the direct equivalent of “ass” – it’s not the polite term for that area of the body, it’s slang and profane slang at that (I’m telling you to be a bit careful about when you use it).

Ok, that’s it. Sorry I don’t have any cool history or stories about these for you but there’s just nothing like that I could find for these two.

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

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

Cheers,
Andrew

The post Learn Spanish for Real #7: “Pain in the neck/ass” appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.

Learn Spanish from the News #1: Common Political Terms in Spain

Andrew — Wed, 14 Sep 2016 03:49:59 +0000

I love these “learn Spanish from ___” series I do, they’re great for generating short, quality blog posts when I’m equally short on ideas for new content, plus they’re immediately useful, quickly digestible, and direct, so people tend to like them.

This one is going to be based on news and political TV shows from (at the moment) Spain that I watch on RTVE.es (highly recommended). I try to watch at least an hour of Spanish-language video every day and I usually just default to one of these programs with my morning coffee because it’s new content every day and RTVE is really easy to use and free. Plus, I like using such programs to learn languages because news presenters tend to be well-spoken without being “stiff” and you’re extremely unlikely to learn anything wrong, “low class / maleducado”, or that you shouldn’t say in polite company – you won’t pick up bad Spanish, in other words.

Today we’re just going to cover a few of the most common terms related to politics in Spain that I’ve been hearing over the last few months, this should really help you if you regularly watch the news from there:

“Comparecencia” – This translates to English as “appearance” but it’s a very specific kind of appearance, that is one before a judge, court, or congress. Generally if you’re making a “comparecencia” (notice how often it’s used to mean “arraignment” or “hearing”) it’s because you’re being accused of doing something wrong, or are at least being questioned about something fishy. You don’t want to have to make a “comparecencia”, generally speaking.
“Cohecho” – This is just the word the Spanish use to mean bribery. Bonus: a common slang term for this is “mordida“, which literally means “little bite”.
“Prevaricación” – This one’s tougher as there’s no exact English equivalent. It means that someone in a position of government power and public trust abused that power and trust in some way. You could translate it as “breach of trust” or “betraying the public trust”.
“Comicios” – Just another term for elections, which you’ll hear referenced a lot in Spanish news right now since there’s the very real possibility of a third election in December because they were unable to get things straightened out the first two times (for those familiar with how parliamentary democracies work: the elected representatives have been unable to agree on a head of parliament and so cannot form a government, nobody has enough votes to do it right now, and so Spain will automatically default to holding elections again and again until someone does).
Prever, previsible, previsto – To predict, predictable, predicted. You’ll hear these three used fairly frequently. Note that “prever” is a verb and so there’s a whole conjugation you need to know.
“Manifestación” – Protest or demonstration. There have been a lot of these in Spain lately, the most recent I can recall being for “La Diada”, the national day of celebration for Cataluña.
“Impugnar” – To challenge or refute. Politicians do a lot of that it seems. Very common.
“Imputar” – To accuse someone of something, to impute.
“Votar en blanco” – Literally “to vote in white”, what this means is that you don’t fill in any of the choices on the ballot, or practically: you just don’t vote. It means to abstain from voting, which it’s said a lot of Spaniards will do if there are a third round of elections this December.
“Abstención” – Abstention, to refrain from voting. Representatives in the Spanish Congress are doing this because they can’t politically afford to vote for whoever’s proposed for President (right now that’s Mariano Rajoy), many Spaniards are, as I said above, supposedly going to do it this December if there’s another election, etc.
“Apostar por” – Literally it means “to bet for” but what it really means is “to opt for” or “to bet on”, meaning that somebody has chosen to do the following action. Very common to hear “so-and-so ha apuesto por…” or “Rajoy apuesta por…”, etc.
“Dimitir” – To resign. I don’t need to explain why you’ll hear this a lot in political news.
“Destituir” – To dismiss (nice way of saying “to fire somebody”). Again, same as above.
“Pugna” – Fight or conflict. There are lots of “pugnas” in politics.

Had enough yet?

I have. There are tons more political terms but those are just some that came to mind for me as ones I’ve heard a lot lately, so I hope that helps you out. Future articles of this series will probably focus more on a specific story but I just thought we’d try this to get started. I hope that was interesting, 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 from the News #1: Common Political Terms in Spain appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.

Learn Spanish from Garfield! Spanish Garfield Comics Now Available as E-book and Paperback

Andrew — Wed, 07 Sep 2016 03:20:17 +0000

I was contacted some months ago by the publisher of this, Amp Comics (check out their site there, they have other similar stuff if you like this), who had seen my post about learning Spanish from comics and knew I was a Garfield fan (have been since I was about 7 or 8, easily my favorite comic), and wanted to send me a couple copies for review. I said “sure, go ahead” and have been meaning to write something up for a few months now because it’s something I know a lot of people would like, it’s very much “what you see is what you get” (it’s just…Garfield comics in Spanish, that’s it), and it’s quite affordable (about $7 on Amazon for either the paperback or e-book).

Now, as I mentioned in that post of mine above that I linked to, you can read tons of (Spanish and English) Garfield comics online for free at GoComics.com, but I really like having a physical paperback version of most books and this is definitely one of them. First of all, comics don’t work well in an e-book format for numerous reasons: differing screen sizes and resolutions means they’ll display properly on some people’s devices and not others, the comics in this book are all in color and many e-readers are black-and-white only, and it’s just nice to have a physical copy to hold in your hands many times. Some books are actually better as e-books, however this is not one of them (to be fair, I haven’t viewed the e-book version so I don’t know how good/bad it is but I know it won’t look as nice on my black-and-white Kindle as it does in color hard copy in front of me).

So far I’m perfectly happy with my copy in terms of the physical quality of it: color, pictures, alignment, paper weight, durability, etc. are all very good. I’ve been reading it for several months and it’s held up just fine (no pages falling out, no spine failure, etc.).

As I noted in my post about using comics in general, they’re typically great for beginners (or those of us more advanced but who don’t want to exert a lot of effort e.g. at bedtime) because they use very simple language, are short, and funny. Plus, there are several pictures per comic which act as visual memory aids with which you’ll associate any new words you learn – Spanish in the context of a funny comic (or movie or TV show, which is why I wrote a book about how to learn Spanish using such things) is much more likely to be remembered than Spanish in the context of a textbook or mere flashcard or something. Context matters.

Anyway, I just thought I’d quickly share this with you as it’s something I thought some of you would like and it’s very cheap if you want it. Let me know what you think! 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 from Garfield! Spanish Garfield Comics Now Available as E-book and Paperback appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.