Telenovela Method Archives - Learn Spanish with Andrew

Let the Language Tell You What You Need to Learn

Andrew — Wed, 13 May 2020 15:11:39 +0000

What this means is:

You need to learn those aspects of the language (words, expressions, grammar, syntax) that are in current use by native speakers.
You need to learn them in order of frequency of use, meaning that the most commonly used words are the most important and should be learned first, then the next most frequent, then the next most frequent, and so on.
The language will take care of all of this for you, presuming you expose yourself consistently to large volumes of it that originate from native speakers.

We’ll delve more deeply into each of these in a moment.

What I’m trying to say here is that you don’t need to know, beforehand, what you need to study. You don’t need anyone else (teacher or textbook) to tell you, either. The language will tell you. When someone who doesn’t speak English begins to study it, they know that they need to figure out what “is, the, he, she, it, they, them, those, here, there, in, on, out” all mean and how to use them correctly because they immediately see (and hear) them used at a very high frequency in all the English-language material they study. You wouldn’t need to know anything about English to know this, you’d just need to start exposing yourself to it and it would become immediately obvious. The language will tell you what you need to learn, and it will teach it to you.

Let’s now go into a bit more detail on the three main points I made above.

You need to learn those aspects of the language in current use by native speakers

I don’t think I need to say much about this, except that we should try to avoid outdated language or, and this is a bit more insidious, language which we are told is more important (more commonly used) than it really is (old textbooks are often guilty of this). This leads me to the next point.

You need to learn words, expressions, and grammar in order of frequency of use (and you don’t need a word list or frequency dictionary for it)

Obvious, right? You want to learn the most commonly used words and phrases first.

One of the problems with using material, like language instruction books (textbooks or otherwise), that teach the language itself is that even if they were published recently they can use sources from years or decades ago that give too much importance to certain words or phrases, e.g. overemphasis of “usted” in Spanish and its corresponding verb conjugations.

To take Spanish as an example: yes, you need to know how and when to use “usted”, and how to conjugate verbs for it, but it’s not as important as a lot of books would lead you to believe because it’s prevalence has dropped substantially amongst native speakers in the past couple of decades. “Usted” is the formal way of saying “you”, and it used to be how people who weren’t intimately familiar with each other would refer to each other, even if they were of the same age and social status. This is no longer the case. It has largely been replaced by either “tú” or “vos”, depending on region, however a lot of textbooks still give more emphasis to “usted” and less to “tú” and “vos” when it should be the other way around.

The language will take care of all of this for you, and it will teach it to you, if you…

…simply expose yourself consistently to it in the form of contemporary media made by native speakers.

I used to say “made by and for native speakers” (because there used to be a lot of rather poor textbooks out there for students) but now there are a lot of really good YouTube channels and podcasts run by native speakers but directed towards students of their language, so I don’t think this is necessary anymore.

I think these YouTube channels, podcasts, etc. work so well because they’re able to be constantly updated and you can see and hear who you’re dealing with. A textbook, on the other hand, was likely written over a period of several years (then throw in another year or two to edit and publish it) by a sixty-five year old professor of Spanish (or whatever language) who teaches the language they learned growing up (presuming they’re even a native speaker) and then said textbook isn’t seriously updated for the twenty years it’s used by the school that buys it, so the students are taught Spanish that is effectively fifty to seventy years old, at least. Most of it will still be current (basic grammar, syntax, and core vocabulary change very slowly) but a substantial minority of it will not be.

Here’s how “the language teaches itself to you”:

As you’re exposed to the language, you focus on what you see the most (at the highest frequency) that you don’t already know. Let’s look, for example, at the following sentence from a news broadcast in Spain, “La política viene marcada hoy por el arranque del actividad en el Congreso. El primer pleno de la legislatura debatirá la convalidación o derogación de dos decretos del nuevo gobierno.”
A beginner should focus on words they know are very common, both because they’ve likely seen them before in Spanish already and because they know that they’re very common words/concepts in their own native language (this works pretty well: the words “dog”, “bush”, “house”, “go”, are all about as common in one language as any other). In this case those would be words such as “viene” (present 3rd person of “venir”, “to come”), “hoy” (“today”), “por” (“by/due to”), “el” (“the”), “en” (“in”), “primer” (“first”), “de” (“of”), “o” (“or”), “dos” (“two”), and “nuevo” (“new”); they’ll look up the other words in order to understand the whole sentence, and that’s fine, but they’ll probably forget all but the most common ones like those I just mentioned, which is also fine, because…
They’ll see them again. An intermediate student should focus on words they’ve seen before, and therefore know are important, but don’t yet know well enough, in the case of the example sentence that would be: “política” (“politics”), “marcada” (“marked”), “arranque” (“kick-off/beginning”), “actividad” (“activity”), “Congreso” (“congress”), “legislatura” (“legislature”), “debatirá” (future 3rd person of “debatir” which means “to debate”), and “gobierno” (“government”). An advanced student would only bother with those words they don’t know, in this case probably, “pleno” (“plenary session”), “convalidación” (“validation” with regards to proposed laws or credentials), “derogación” (“repeal”), and “decreto” (“decree”).
As you continue to consistently study the language (persistent consistency, right?) you are naturally exposed to these same words, syntax, and grammar over and over again at the rate at which they are used in the language (so how commonly something is in a language determines how often you’ll see it, how often you “naturally review it”). The most important things in a language to learn are those which are most commonly used, that is to say that importance corresponds to (and is determined by) frequency of usage, right? This means you don’t need to try to determine what’s important and what needs reviewing when, the language will take care of that for you if you’re consistently exposing yourself to it via natural sources (those sources featuring native speakers speaking naturally). You’ll quickly learn the most important parts of a language, then after that you’ll be able to focus on the next most important parts, and after you’ve learned those you can focus on the next most important parts, and so on and so forth.

This is a very simple method that’s complicated to explain and warrants a complicated explanation because if you don’t fully explain how it works to people then they won’t do it regardless of how simple and easy to execute it might be (walking around in public with a bagel taped to your head is both simple and easy to execute but I’d have a hard time convincing you to do it).

If you’d like to learn specifically how to use popular media to learn Spanish, I wrote a book about that called The Telenovela Method which is available on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback format. I also recommend a service called Yabla that uses popular media to teach languages by taking video clips from shows, movies, etc. and then surrounding them with various language learning tools (subtitles in both the language spoken and English, quizes, click a word in the subtitles and it looks it up and simultaneously adds it to your flashcards for later review, etc.). I did a review of Yabla here if you’re interested.

Let me know what you all think in the comments.

Cheers,

Andrew

The post Let the Language Tell You What You Need to Learn appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.

Spanish-Speaking YouTubers Who Are Excellent for Intermediate Spanish Practice (not lessons, intended for native speakers, great for improving listening comprehension)

Andrew — Thu, 15 Mar 2018 00:49:42 +0000

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:

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

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

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

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

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.

Learn Spanish on YouTube #1: Spaniards in London

Andrew — Sun, 04 Sep 2016 18:36:34 +0000

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 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

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.

Fantastic Source of Free Online Spanish Videos (some with subtitles!): RTVE.es

Andrew — Sat, 03 Sep 2016 00:44:03 +0000

RTVE is Spain’s state-owned corporate television station, very similar to the BBC in the U.K. or PBS here in the U.S. They’re the largest and most popular broadcaster in Spain, and they show a wide variety of news, documentaries, fictional dramas, reality shows, etc. Since they’re state-funded, there’s no profit motive and therefore less motivation on their part to restrict who can watch their products, from where, and through which medium. Consequently, their website, RTVE.es offers a lot of material that’s all in Spanish and free to view by anybody, anywhere in the world.

It should be noted that not all of their videos can be viewed outside Spain, but many of them can. It seems that, with the exception of news, the more recent a show is the more likely it is to not be available outside Spain.

News

What I’ll recommend first and foremost is the news show Telediaro. There are usually several segments per day, and most of those will include Spanish subtitles (intended for the hearing impaired, but we know who else they’re useful for!) you can activate in the bottom right corner of the video screen. It should be noted, however, that if you want the subtitles you’ll probably have to wait a day or two for them (a human has to

do them manually, which is a good thing because it means they’re done right, machine translation is still a long way from being as good). So if you want the subtitles, pick a show from a couple days ago, if you don’t care and want the latest news then choose the most recent transmission.

Personally, what I’m really fond of is the daily morning show Los desayunos (it’s kind of a summary of current news with the added bonus of an interview segment at the end that’s about 20-30 minutes long). This one also includes Spanish subtitles, however you’ll have to wait a couple days for them just like with the above.

Documentaries

Additionally, they offer a ton of great documentaries, which you can see via the preceding link or by clicking “Documentales” in the menu at the top of their site. All of the ones I’ve seen so far include a transcript (verbatim of what’s said) on the right hand side of the video screen (note that you can click on a piece of dialogue there and it’ll skip the video to it). The thing with these is that they’re not all available outside of Spain. What I think the pattern is here, is that all the more recent stuff (3 months? 6 months? I have no idea, something like that) is restricted to

people in Spain and then once it ages beyond that point they open it up to everyone. So, in other words, look for shows that are at least 6-12 months old and those will almost certainly be available.

One I’m watching right now that’s a lot of fun (and available to everyone and has Spanish subtitles) is Los colores del jamón (“The colors of the ham”), which is about jamón in Spain.

Drama

You can view these by clicking ‘Television’ in the top menu or just going here. As you can see they have quite a lot available.

Two that I’m partial to are Isabel and Carlos, Rey Emperador, both historical fictions (I like those because you learn a lot of Spanish history while you’re at it). Both of these offer Spanish subtitles, though again the same thing I said above about the more recent episodes not being available outside Spain yet seems to apply here as well.

Other

I’m really not into reality shows so I can’t comment on those, but I do know that Masterchef, for one example, is extremely popular in Spain right now.

They have a whole area called Recetas (“recipes”) for you cooks out there. Note the little menu at the top where it says “Recetas Programas” – “recetas” are just the recipes (you can have Google Translate help you out by just coping and pasting the URL into Google Translate and it’ll translate the whole page for you, or even better you can use Readlang to learn

some Spanish while you’re at it), whereas “Programas” are actual TV programs.

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 Fantastic Source of Free Online Spanish Videos (some with subtitles!): RTVE.es appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.

Learning Spanish Through TV: HBO’s “In Treatment” and its Argentine Remake “En Terapia”

Andrew — Tue, 03 Feb 2015 00:35:25 +0000

I’ve got an excellent guest post for you today very much in line with my methods and previous posts, enjoy.

-Andrew

Watching Spanish-language TV series and movies is one of the best ways to improve your Spanish. First, you’ll be engaged and entertained, which will keep up your motivation. Second, you’ll hear people speak as they do in real life, which will give you invaluable exposure to natural speech — something you can’t extract from a textbook. And finally, you’ll gain not just linguistic knowledge, but cultural knowledge as well, as the stories and attitudes of the characters will shed light on the culture that’s being portrayed.

For learning about language and culture, there’s no better series than En Terapia (“In Therapy”), which consists of 30-minute dialogues between a therapist and his patients. In fact, En Terapia is an Argentine version of an English-language series In Treatment, which makes it a great educational tool for a variety of reasons. First, given that En Terapia is essentially a scene-by-scene remake of In Treatment, you can see directly how certain words and phrases are translated by comparing the two versions. And second, you can compare how characters handle the same situations, which illuminates interesting differences between the two cultures.

Image via TV Pública Argentina

Scene Analysis: Marina / Laura

To see what I mean, let’s analyze a scene! I’ll write out the dialogues below; if you’d like, you can follow along with these videos.

English-language video: click here (start from the beginning)

Spanish-language video: click here (start from 21:20)

Laura, one of the patients of In Treatment, is a young, intelligent woman who is having problems in her relationship, as you can see in the dialogue below:

PAUL: You were the one who made it specific: get married or to split up. That was your ultimatum.

LAURA: No no no, he had this thing with this on-and-off . . . the ultim- . . . yeah, okay. I was the first one to say it, you’re right. But he jumped all over it. I said, I didn’t know what I want, and he said you have a day or two, max, to decide what you want, and I said fine. And then he started crying, and . . . blah blah blah. The whole thing was really scary to him, I think.

PAUL: What about you? Weren’t you scared?

LAURA: Of what?

PAUL: Of splitting up.

LAURA: I wasn’t suggesting that we split up, that’s not the point.

In En Terapia, Laura’s equivalent is named Marina, and she describes basically the same dilemma:

GUILLERMO: Vos lo llevaste algo específico: casarse o terminar. Vos pusiste el plazo de uno o dos días para contestar.

MARINA: No. Él dio el ultimátum. O sea . . . Bueno, está bien . . . Yo di el ultimátum. Pero él aprovechó y me dijo que si no le contestaba en uno o dos días, se iba. Y después se puso a llorar. Como si se hubiese asustado de lo que dijo.

GUILLERMO: ¿Y a vos no te asustó?

MARINA: ¿Qué cosa?

GUILLERMO: Con la idea de separarse.

MARINA: Es que esa no era la idea.

There are a few notable points to look at in comparing these two scenes. First, you get a beautiful example of the Argentine dialect, which you might recognize from popular Argentine movies like El secreto de sue ojos or Relatos salvajes. You’ll see the use of the pronoun “vos” (which is used instead of “tú” in Rioplatense Spanish), and you’ll hear the distinct pronunciation of the letters y and ll, which sounds like “sh”.

There are also plenty of insights in vocabulary that you can take away from comparing the two clips. In the English-language version, Laura says that her boyfriend “jumped all over” the ultimatum. How would you translate a complex colloquial expression like that? Given that no exact translation of “jump all over” exists in Spanish, the writers of En Terapia decided to use a more common verb — aprovechar — to achieve the same effect.

Even in just these few lines of dialogue, we see more solutions to these tricky translations. For example, “splitting up” translates to “separarse”, and the question “Of what?” translates to “Qué cosa?”. This offers us an inside look as to how a Spanish speaker would naturally produce common utterances.

Laura, from the United States version of In Treatment

Later in that episode of In Treatment, Laura and Paul discuss an argument that Laura had with her spouse the night before. Paul suggests that Laura may have been the one who started the fight:

LAURA: I didn’t initiate anything.

PAUL: No, you may not have meant to, but you did. It sounds like you wanted to bring this relationship into crisis. I-I know you say that Andrew hates uncertainties, but perhaps you’re the one who can’t live with them. I mean, why did you choose this particular time to bring things to a head?

En Terapia progresses in the same way:

MARINA: Yo no empecé la pelea.

GUILLERMO: Quizás no te diste cuenta, pero sí, la empezaste vos. Como si quisieras llevar la relación al límite. A lo mejor, Andrés le puso palabra, pero la que no puede vivir en ese indecisión sos vos. ¿Por qué te parece tan importante tener una definición en este momento en particular?

Again, comparing the two scenes gives you an insider’s look at the challenging task of translating colloquial expressions. “Bring a relationship into crisis” becomes “Llevar la relación al límite”; “bring things to a head” is reduced to “tener una definición”. Here, you can also see some expressions that don’t exist in the American version, such as “ponerle palabra”, which translates to “put it into words”.

Marina, from the Argentine version of En Terapia

Finally, in En Terapia, the episode culminates in the moment when Marina admits that her relationship problems stem from the fact that she is in love with her therapist:

MARINA: Lo estoy engañando hace mucho tiempo.

GUILLERMO: Es interesante porque nunca lo mencionaste aquí.

MARINA: Sí que lo mencioné. Está presente todo el tiempo. ¿Me vas a decir que no te diste cuenta?

GUILLERMO: No . . . no creo . . . entender lo que querés decir.

MARINA: Entonces, te lo digo claramente. Yo estoy enamorada de vos.

But the same scene in the English-language version is a bit less climactic:

LAURA: Cause he’s right. Andrew’s right. I am being unfaithful to him.

PAUL: You mean what happened last night, at the club.

LAURA: Not just last night. I’ve been unfaithful to him for a long time.

PAUL: So why haven’t we talked about this before?

LAURA: I think we have. It’s been here all along. You mean to say you’ve never noticed it?…You’re surprised.

PAUL: No, I’m not surprised, I just…I don’t follow what you mean.

In both versions, a confession of love has occurred, but only in the Argentine version does Laura say it explicitly — “Estoy enamorada de vos”. This taps into the cultural insight that you can gain from Spanish-language TV series. Whereas people from the United States tend to be more implicit and subtle with expressing their feelings, there’s none of this beating-around-the-bush in Argentina. The writers of En Terapia decided that it would be more realistic if Laura stated her feelings “claramente”, instead of simply giving hints.

Are you intrigued by the dramatic storyline? Episodes of In Treatment can be viewed or purchased on HBO; episodes of En Terapia are available on the website for Argentina’s public television channel — it’s free for those in Argentina; outside of Argentina, episodes can be found easily on Google and YouTube.

The scenes that we’ve reviewed in this article are just a few seconds of an entire 30-minute episode that’s chock-full of dialogue, idiomatic expressions, and dramatic love confessions. This makes En Terapia ideal for improving your Spanish-language comprehension. Further, watching both versions is perfect for beginners who would prefer some English-language guidance before fully immersing themselves in Spanish television. Ultimately, En Terapia is a perfect choice for the Spanish-language learner who seeks to be enlightened both linguistically and culturally.

Paul writes on behalf of Language Trainers, a language tutoring service offering personalized course packages to individuals and groups. Check out their free Spanish-language level tests and other resources on their website or send them a quick inquiry to find out more about their tailor-made lesson plans.

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 Learning Spanish Through TV: HBO’s “In Treatment” and its Argentine Remake “En Terapia” appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.

Spanish Learning Resources & Tools: These Are My Top 9 Most Used, Most Valuable, and Most Recommended

Andrew — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 00:21:27 +0000

The following list of resources are the ones that I use the most, by far. These are my “daily tools”, that is things that I use every. single. day. to learn more and more Spanish, and that I’ve been using for a very long time now. They are time-tested and proven. These tools are essential if you’re using The Telenovela Method–that’s how I learn, that’s my own personal method–but this is an excellent list that will be immensely valuable to any Spanish-learner regardless of which method or technique(s) you’re using.

1. A modern source of Spanish in a form that you enjoy using

This is the crux of the Telenovela Method (you need a source of modern, contemporary Spanish that you’ll enjoy watching, listening to, or reading) and the only item on this list that you might want to skip if this isn’t the method you’re using, but even then I doubt it since just about every person I’ve encountered interested in learning Spanish is interested in finding out where they can get Spanish-language movies and TV shows, especially those with Spanish subtitles, as well as Spanish-language books, newspapers, magazines, and even comics.

To find free online TV shows as well as many other videos in Spanish I highly recommend you consult the two lists that I’ve put together and currently maintain and am constantly updating:

List of Websites Where You Can Watch Spanish Videos with Spanish Subtitles or Transcripts Online for Free

and

List of Best Free Sites to Watch Spanish-Language TV Online (these generally do not have Spanish subtitles, though there are a lot more of them simply due to the fact that most videos available online don’t have subtitles for them)

For children’s books and cartoons (which I highly recommend for beginning adult language learners, see here to learn why), see the following:

The Awesome Language-Learning Resource that is Children’s Books

Learn Spanish with comics! Do you like Garfield, Calvin & Hobbes, Cathy, Foxtrot, Marmaduke, etc.? I’ve got something for you!

It’s mentioned in the above list of websites where you can watch Spanish videos with Spanish subtitles but it deserves another mention here because it’s perfect for beginning learners (adults and children) and also falls under this category: Bookbox, which is a site that turns traditional children’s stories into cartoons in various languages with subtitles in that language.

For newspapers simply go to NewspaperMap.com, filter by language, and then pick a newspaper (I would go with one in the country that you’re interested in traveling to).

2. Dictionaries and a verb conjugation tool or book

Just use SpanishDict. Trust me, I’ve used all the online dictionaries and several paper ones in addition to verb conjugation books and the only one I use anymore is SpanishDict, they’ve got everything you need right there on that one single site and it’s better organized and set up than anything anyone else has got. If you’ll just go to their homepage you’ll see that they’ve got a big search box right up at the top that functions as the search for their dictionary as well as three different translation engines they use all in one, just enter any word or sentence and it’ll detect whether it’s a word to look up in the dictionary or a phrase that needs translating and then take the appropriate action. Additionally, when you look up a verb in the dictionary you’ll see a short conjugation in the form of a table at the bottom of its definition with a link to the full conjugation (right under the table will be a link to “Complete [verb] conjugation”, e.g. “Complete ser conjugation” if the word you looked up was the verb “ser”). There’s also a conjugator on there that you can just go straight to if you’ve got a verb you want conjugated (note the “Conjugate” button in the bar at the top of every page). Here’s a 12-minute video of me explaining precisely why SpanishDict is so good and how to use all the various features of it:

Of course, you can also use any other similar reference that you want: you’ll need a dictionary (if you want a recommendation for a good paperback one, this one by Merriam-Webster is my favorite that I used for years before primarily switching over to online dictionaries), conjugator (e.g. the one on SpanishDict’s site) or a book of Spanish verb conjugations such as Barron’s 501 Spanish Verbs (I have it, it’s excellent), and a translator will help though it’s not absolutely necessary if you don’t have internet access at the time.

3. Google Translate

There are several web-based translators and translation programs you can download, I’ve yet to find one that beats Google Translate. When looking up the definitions of the individual words doesn’t tell you the actual meaning of what was said, this should be your next tool that you try. It can not only translate any text you enter into it, but it can also translate entire webpages for you: simply copy and paste the URL (the web address that starts with “http://”) into the box on the left and click the link that shows up in the box on the right. Here’s a short video I did on using Google Translate:

4. Urban Dictionary

Didn’t expect to see this one on here, did you? Urban Dictionary is, by far, the best reference for looking up Spanish slang and curse words that I’ve ever found. It doesn’t have everything, but it has a lot of things. If you run across a word or expression that the dictionaries and translators can’t crack, run it through Urban Dictionary and see what happens. Here’s a short video I did on using Urban Dictionary to look up slang:

5. Google

Yes, seriously. If you can’t figure out what a word or phrase means through any of the above resources, just google it like this: “what does [“Spanish stuff”] mean”, e.g. “what does ‘buenas noches’ mean” (I do recommend putting the Spanish in quotation marks when you do your search that way you get only exact matches for that phrase). I’ve rarely had this fail and, interestingly enough, I’ve found that frequently the first result, or at least the first relevant result, you’ll get will be to a WordReference forum post explaining the item in question (I’ll get to the WordReference forums in just a minute). Occasionally it’ll be a Yahoo! Answers page or something else that does actually give you the answer you were looking for. Regardless, my point is that if the above obvious references fail to turn up what you’re looking for, just run it through Google, you’d be surprised how often this works.

6. Forvo

Forvo is a website where people volunteer to make recordings of words in their native language so that people who don’t speak that language can hear how to correctly pronounce them. It’s brilliant, it perfectly solves the age-old problem of not knowing how to pronounce things when you’re reading in a foreign language. I’ve found it to be utterly indispensable, I use it constantly when reading in a language that I’m just learning where I don’t yet know how to pronounce most words.

Forvo covers 299 different languages and currently has 57,100 words (this goes up every day) in its Spanish index that you can look up and hear a native speaker pronounce for you. Here’s a video I did on what Forvo is, how it works, and how to use it:

7. WordReference forums

The WordReference forums are a great place to ask questions about anything related to language-learning: a word or phrase you don’t understand, anything regarding the how or why of what a native speaker said (i.e. grammar and syntax), general language-learning advice regarding your techniques, etc. They’re very friendly and eager to help, just be sure to search to see if your question has been asked already: do this first.

If you do find that you need to post a question there, just leave the tab open and reload it a few minutes later: I find that I generally have several responses to my question within ten to fifteen minutes of posting it. Like I said, it’s a fantastic resource and excellent forum. Here’s a video I did demonstrating the use of the WordReference Forums and talk about when and how it should be used:

8. Places to look up any grammar or syntax you don’t understand

You’ll need some way of learning any Spanish grammar or syntax that you don’t understand, and there are so many ways to do this via so many different free online resources it’s ridiculous, I’ll try to cover some of the main ones right now that I think are the best:

YouTube – Yes, just YouTube in general, there are so many Spanish lessons and courses and individual explanations of single concepts (e.g. tu vs. usted, the preterite, the subjunctive, etc.) I can’t possibly list them all but I’ll tell you one of the most effective ways of utilizing YouTube when you want a concept in Spanish taught to you is to simply search YouTube for that specific concept because I can almost guarantee you there will be a video out there (probably several, which allows you to have the same thing explained to you several different ways thereby significantly increasing your understanding of it) made for the sole purpose of addressing that specific aspect of the Spanish language. Here is my short list of outstanding YouTube channels that focus on teaching Spanish:

Señor Jordan’s Spanish videos
The Spanish Blog
SpanishDict’s channel
Spanish Ben (this is Ben of Notes in Spanish fame, a website with tons of free Spanish podcasts that I highly recommend)
Spanish Sessions

Additionally, you have excellent written resources such as:

SpanishDict’s section on Spanish grammar and syntax – This is a great little list of various Spanish grammar and syntax components. They have good, easy to understand explanations and a quiz at the end of each one.

Wikipedia’s Spanish grammar section – This is an excellent reference for looking up specific concepts once you know what they are (or have a good general idea), but I would advise against attempting to utilize it as something like a set of lessons or a course in Spanish grammar—you can, but it’s very dry and things are explained as concisely as possible with only a few examples per concept (great for a reference, again, but not so much as a full and proper lesson). Also, note that the above link just goes to the general Spanish grammar section and that they have separate and more detailed sections on:

9. An SRS such as Anki or paper flashcards.

We’re going to need some way of actually noting everything that we look up and initially learn so that we can study it later and won’t forget it (that way it will be available for us to use when we’re trying to understand a Spanish TV show, movie, or song, or trying to talk to a native speaker, and that particular bit of Spanish gets used), and of course you don’t want to be stuck trying to memorize everything you look up (vocab, grammar, etc.) as soon as you do so, you want to just quickly look it up, understand what’s being said, note it for later study, and then move on with your movie, show, or book, right? Of course. Trying to learn it all the very second you look it up would mean you’ll spend an hour on a single sentence, it’ll be horribly tedious and boring, and that’s the opposite of what we want. So we need some way of noting what we learn for later review so that we can move on without getting bogged down: this is where our SRS comes in…

I highly recommend Anki (click here to go to their site and download the software). Anki is a Spaced Repetition System, or SRS, that is essentially a software version of flashcards. The way a SRS works is on the principal of spaced repetition where review of previously learned material is spaced at longer and longer intervals which allows the student to learn large quantities of small individual data or facts and retain them indefinitely. It takes advantage of what’s known as the “spacing effect” which is the psychological effect where people will learn things better if they’re reviewed a certain number of times over a long period of time than if they’re reviewed the same number of times over a much shorter period of time. This, of course, makes it perfect for learning vocabulary, grammar, sayings and idioms, and just foreign languages in general. The above was just a summary on Anki and how to use it, I highly recommend that you go read my full-length post that I did on Anki, what it is, how it works, how to use it, and which includes a 12-minute video of me demonstrating everything which I will also put below here for you:

If you really want, you could use paper flashcards instead, though I don’t know why you would.

What we’re going to do is have Anki open while we’re watching our movie or reading our book, in addition to SpanishDict or a similar reference to look up what we need to look up, and as we learn what we need to in order to understand what’s being said, we’re going to put that information into Anki in the form of flashcards for later review. Just put whatever you need to in there: vocabulary words, grammar rules, expressions and their meanings, etc., then move on—you’ll review that stuff later.

Optional but recommended:

The BBC’s Spanish site, particularly their basic grammar explanations.

If you really want an organized grammar book to refer to (having a physical book can come in handy if you’re, for example, reading a book in Spanish and don’t have a computer handy to look things up with), I will happily recommend Baron’s Spanish Grammar by Christopher Kendris, it’s fantastic, I’ve got half a dozen books on Spanish grammar and this one is by far the clearest and easiest to understand and it has the added bonus of being very compact such that it’s slightly larger than a wallet and can easily be carried in your pocket. Of course, you can always look up Spanish grammar online but I know that a lot of people prefer to have a hard copy book as a reference since it’s a bit faster and easier under some circumstances (pretty much anytime you’re not right in front of a computer).

Some workbooks I really like are The Practice Makes Perfect Series of workbooks, and I’ve personally completed several of them and they’re excellent. The easiest, cheapest way to do this is the Practice Makes Perfect series of workbooks that you can find on Amazon for around $7 each. These are excellent choices for learning the must-know fundamentals and, unlike other workbooks, have space in them to write the answers (that’s a pet peeve of mine: workbooks that don’t do this so you have to keep a separate notebook for all your work, just makes things so much harder to keep organized). I especially recommend you get the Basic Spanish workbook and the Spanish Verb Tenses workbook.

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 Learning Resources & Tools: These Are My Top 9 Most Used, Most Valuable, and Most Recommended appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.

Telenovela Method Archives - Learn Spanish with Andrew

Let the Language Tell You What You Need to Learn

You need to learn those aspects of the language in current use by native speakers

You need to learn words, expressions, and grammar in order of frequency of use (and you don’t need a word list or frequency dictionary for it)

The language will take care of all of this for you, and it will teach it to you, if you…

Here’s how “the language teaches itself to you”:

Spanish-Speaking YouTubers Who Are Excellent for Intermediate Spanish Practice (not lessons, intended for native speakers, great for improving listening comprehension)

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

Further Reading and Recommended Resources

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

What to Do

How to learn conversational Spanish with perfect pronunciation

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

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

Improvements in the 2nd Edition

The Print Edition – Please Help Me!

Thank You

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

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

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

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

Learn Spanish on YouTube #1: Spaniards in London

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

Fantastic Source of Free Online Spanish Videos (some with subtitles!): RTVE.es

News

Documentaries

Drama

Other

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

Learning Spanish Through TV: HBO’s “In Treatment” and its Argentine Remake “En Terapia”

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

Spanish Learning Resources & Tools: These Are My Top 9 Most Used, Most Valuable, and Most Recommended

1. A modern source of Spanish in a form that you enjoy using

2. Dictionaries and a verb conjugation tool or book

8. Places to look up any grammar or syntax you don’t understand

9. An SRS such as Anki or paper flashcards.

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