Spanish Sucks | Quepolandia in Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica

¿To be or not To be? Parte I.

By Os

To be, or not to be; that is the question:

Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles…

¿To be or not To be? That is NOT the question.

¿Ser or Estar? ¡That’s the question!

Today it’s not about Hamlet or Shakespeare. Today it’s about the verb TO BE.

Filed under: Os, Spanish Sucks on May 9th, 2013
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I have a question = Tengo una pregunta

By Os

¿How are you guys? ¿Cómo están? ¿Did you get some rest during the Semana Santa? I hope you did.

Before we start I need you to be sure that you can both understand and say these lifesaving pregunta words.

Filed under: Os, Spanish Sucks on April 24th, 2013
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Putting things together. Parte III.

By Os

Hola amigos. ¿How is everything going on? This is the third and last article of this series. So let me ask you this question again:

Guys: ¿Do you know how to make a Wh. question in inglés? ¿Do you start the question with an action word (verb), with the subject (subject), with the helping guy (auxiliary), with something else (the rest) or with a Wh. word? Let’s see:

Filed under: Os, Spanish Sucks on March 8th, 2013
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Putting things together. Parte II.

Feliz día de la amistad y del amor – Happy Valentine’s Day. Let’s start with some lines that you may use this febrero:

Estoy enamorado(a) = I’m in love.

Te amo = I love you.

Te quiero mucho = I love so much.

Quiero darte un beso = I want to give you a kiss.

¡Qué cursi! = ¡How corny!

Filed under: Os, Spanish Sucks on February 14th, 2013
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Putting things together. Parte I.

By Os

¡Feliz Año Nuevo gente! = ¡Happy New Year people! I hope you had a Feliz Navidad and everything is all right. ¡Bendiciones=Blessings!

Students and friends always tell me that they don’t know how to put the things together in Spanish. Well, let’s start the year learning that, ok? ¡It’s time to begin linking your words together!

Filed under: Os, Spanish Sucks on January 5th, 2013
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Feliz Navidad = Merry Christmas

By Os

¡Feliz Navidad amig@s! Let me show you some vocabulario for these dates:

Regalo = gift. Presente = present.

Árbol de navidad = X-mas tree. Portal = Nativity.

Noche Buena = X-mas Eve.

Papá Noel = Santa Claus.

Aguinaldo = An extra payment that employees get in diciembre.

Tamal = Tamale. A kind of small dumpling, stuffed with meat and other eatables, and wrapped in banana leaves.

Rompope = Eggnog. Ponche de huevo. Huevos, leche, vainilla y ron… I’m getting drunk… ¡Salud!

Just for this month (because it is Navidad) I am gonna show you AGAIN something sweet about Spanish: The pronunciation of the stuff.

Filed under: Os, Spanish Sucks on December 24th, 2012
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Feliz cumpleaños = Happy Birthday

By Os

Hola amig@s. ¿Todo bien? Today this column is celebrating one year of being around. Muchas gracias for reading it, and saying good things about it. You can find this and the other 11 (once) articles on this website: www.OsCostaRica.com

Last month there were two little (but VERY important) mistakes in some of the patterns we learned. Specifically #2, the –ER Pattern and #3, the –IR Pattern. One of the endings shown there, instead of being an “A” it should have been an “E”. (Just for the record, the endings of a verb are called CONJUGATIONS). Let’s review the three patterns we learned last month very quickly.

Filed under: Os, Spanish Sucks on November 29th, 2012
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