¡Hola amigos! ¿How are you guys doing? With this issue I am accomplishing my article number 50!!!!! I remember when I said to myself: “When I accomplish fifty articles I am gonna write an e-book”. Well, it’s on my list now…
Today, I am gonna share with you some of the links of some of the most inspirational TED Talks I have watched about learning languages.
Some of them have influenced me and/or my methodology of teaching, some of them (quite my favorite ones) have changed my point of view about learning languages and/or why to learn languages. ANY LANGUAGE.
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Imagine that with only 20% of vocabulary you could be able to handle 80% of normal conversations. Imagine that instead of trying to memorize 1000 words; 200 would be enough. Imagine that instead of learning and conjugating 100 verbs; 20 would be sufficient.
Well, that’s what the experts call the 20/80 Rule.
Today, I am going to present a longer list of some of the most common words in Spanish.
This list has been generated from subtitles of movies and television series with a total of about 27.4 million words. So, take it seriously 😉
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Imagine that with only 20% of vocabulary you could be able to handle 80% of normal conversations. Imagine that instead of trying to memorize 1000 words; 200 would be enough. Imagine that instead of learning and conjugating 100 verbs; 20 would be sufficient.
Well, that’s what the experts call the 20/80 Rule.
Today, I am going to present a list of some of the most common words in Spanish.
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¡Hola gente! ¿Did you watch the Super Bowl 50? Go Broncos!!!!! Last month we empathized the most important sounds of español: A – E – I – O – U.
This month I am going to share some words that begin with those letters, with those vowels. I am gonna tell you a name of a woman, a name of a man, a place, an animal and a thing.
Just remember: The Spanish vowels each have only one sound, regardless of what letters they precede or follow, or accent marks on the vowels.
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¡Hola gente! ¿How are you guys doing? I hope you are doing alright. This month I wanna talk about the most important sounds of the Spanish Language:
The Vowels = Las Vocales.
Remember: The Spanish vowels each have only one sound, regardless of what letters they precede or follow, or accent marks on the vowels.
There are only five of them so let’s get them straight!!!!!
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By Os
¡Feliz Año Nuevo!
¿How are you guys? ¿How were your holidays? I hope you and your favorite ones had a great last year and I wish you ALL a blessed 2016.
I suppose that there are new readers for this and the other columns from Quepolandia. Well, let me tell you that I have been writing this column “Spanish Sucks” for more than four years. There are (including this) 45 articles and each one is a Spanish Lesson itself… Easy to read, comprehend and follow!
Today, I would like to give you a little summary of the first 22 articles, but first of all, let me tell you that if you want any or all of them, you can go to this link and find them, read them and print them: www.oscostarica.com/my-spanish-articulos/.
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By Os
¡Feliz Navidad!
¿How are you guys? ¿How are you preparing yourselves for the holidays?
This month I want to share with you ”The 7 Secrets of Successful Language Learning”. I cannot take credit for these seven advice, I saw a video from each one in the YouTube channel of Steve Kauffman. He knows his stuff. He has learned more than 11 languages… ¡Four of them since the age of 50! You can listen more about his seven secrets here.
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¡Hola amigos! ¿How is everything going? Last article was brutal, I know. Too many boxes and endings. So today I am gonna present you the three tenses we learn last month in an easy format that you may like it. Check it out:
(Remember that for future tense we just add the ending to the whole verb.
Ex: hablar goes to hablar + ending = hablaré)
-AR endings
| |
PRESENTE |
PASADO |
FUTURO |
| I |
o |
é |
é |
| you, s/he |
a |
ó |
á |
| we |
amos |
amos |
emos |
| y’all guys, they |
an |
aron |
án |
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¡Hola amigos! Three years ago we learned how to play with verbs in present and two years ago we learned how to play with verbs in past. ¿Remember the endings?
Let’s review them…
First of all we will have to “match” the endings of the patterns with these people (personal pronouns) exactly in the following order:
| I |
you, s/he, (it) |
| we |
y’all, they |
Here are the endings of the verbs in PRESENTE:
-AR verbs
-ER verbs
-IR verbs
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¿How do you say “there is” or “there are” in Spanish?
Exactly, say /aɪ/.
The way to say “there is” or ”there are” in Spanish is:
/aɪ/.
¿How do you pronounce it?
/aɪ/.
¿How do you write it in Spanish?
HAY.
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¿How are you guys? ¿How have y’all guys done? 😉 This is the last review of this series. I promise.
Remember that when we want to say something like:
I have spoken / I have eaten / I have lived / I have been / I have had / I have gone / I have driven / I have gotten / I have done something / I have made something / etc, etc, etc…
Because we want to indicate something that has been done in the past. We do have to use the verb:
HABER + p.p.
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HABER is an auxiliary-helping verb that we use in español when we talk about things and/or actions that we have done in the past.
Something like:
I have spoken / I have eaten / I have lived / I have been / I have had / I have gone / I have driven / I have gotten / I have done something / I have made something / etc, etc, etc…
Remember that in español the “H – h” is silent.
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HABER is an auxiliary-helping verb that we use in español when we talk about things and/or actions that we have done in the past.
Do use HABER when saying something like:
I have spoken / I have eaten / I have lived / I have been / I have had / I have gone / I have driven / I have gotten / I have done something / I have made something / etc, etc, etc…
Remember that in español the “H – h” is silent.
HabER = TO have #2
| I he |
you, s/he ha |
| we hemos |
y’all, they han |
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By Os
¡Hola gente! ¿Todo bien? ¿Did you read my last ariticle? It was bout the verb TO HAVE #1 in español. TENER. As it is a very, very important action word, today we’ll review what we learned last month… Let’s start filling the following box.
TenER = TO ______ #
| I |
you, s/he |
| we |
y’all, they |
I hope these you filled it like this one:
TenER = TO have #1
| I tenGO |
you, s/he tiene |
| we tenEMOS |
y’all, they tienen |
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¡Feliz Día de la Amistad amigos! ¿Did your team make it to the Super Bowl? Mine (Broncos) didn’t…
Today we are gonna master the Times Table # 6. Tener.
TenER = TO have #1
|
I ten go
|
you, s/he, it tiene
|
|
we ten emos
|
you all, they tien en
|
Tener means to have but only when you have or don’t have something like in:
“I don’t have a car.”
Tener is useful…
Tener does NOT mean to have when you have done or haven’t done something like in:
“I haven’t spoken with my mother today.”
Tener is NOT useful… Haber is the verb we must use.
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