Synergy Spanish Systems Blog

Why didn’t I think of that!

admin — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 07:12:30 +0000

It’s only taken me 5 years to put 2 and 2 together. An idea so obvious I cant believe I didn’t see it years ago.

Now that I have discovered what was right in front of me for so long, it’s time to share it.

You see, if you have struggled with Spanish in any way, if you have ever doubted yourself or thought you were too old… think again

This new combination of Spanish learning tactics gets anyone speaking Spanish right away.

If you haven’t grabbed the free lessons yet, click here to get started and claim your FREE lessons.

Once, you try them, drop back here and let me know what you think.

Speak Spanish like a diplomat

admin — Mon, 18 May 2009 03:13:53 +0000

Here the FSI Spanish Course FREE. It’s the one the US State Department used to teach diplomats the FBI and DEA Agents.

A warning: it’s intense…

You’ll either love it or hate it.

If it’s not for you, try my step by step lessons at Synergy Spanish testdrive.

If you do like it, you’ll be busy for a while, there’s a complete 60 hour course here.

Download the complete course here (it’s a massive file, 320MB)

If you just want to download the individual lessons, you’ll find them on this website.

Let me know what you think.

Even More Spanish Fluency Patterns

admin — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 13:33:22 +0000

This is the third lesson in our Spanish Fluency Patterns series. It’s the approach to verbs from Bola de Nieve that gets you speaking fluent Spanish.

If you missed any of the previous lessons, here’s a link to the first one – Spanish Fluency Patterns 1.

And the second one showed you More Spanish Fluency Patterns.

To do this third lesson… this is all the theory you need to know

AR verbs change to AS to make the 2nd person informal, for example…

AR verb		2nd person informal
Trabajar	To work	Trabajas	You work
Pasar	To spend (time)	Pasas	You spend (time)
Comprar	To buy	Compras	You buy
Llegar	To arrive	Llegas	You arrive
Cocinar	To cook	Cocinas	You cook
Preparar	To prepare	Preparas	You prepare

Ser o no ser – To be or not to be

One more thing, in Spanish to talk about someone’s characteristics the Spanish verb to be is ser, which has an irregular pattern like this

AR verb		2nd person informal
ser	To be	eres	You are

You’ll learn more by interacting with the audio than by analyzing Spanish verbs, so let’s get started right now, here’s your audio lesson.

Get Your Spanish Fluency Audio 3 Lesson 3 Here

The next audio in this series is the whole enchilada, making the most of Spanish Fluency Patterns for maximum communication. Just fill in the form below and I’ll send it to you as soon as I’m finished.

Spanish Fluency Patterns

admin — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 06:36:11 +0000

This Spanish audio lesson shows you the easy way to start using Spanish language patterns to speak in real flowing sentences.

It’s an extension of the idea that I call horizontal conjugation.

It takes all the confusion out of Spanish verbs and is the foundation of my Bola de Nieve course.

Today, I have for you an all new lessons.

To do this lesson, you should know the most important Spanish verbs and Mortar Words.

Mortar Words are the glue words that make it easy to put Spanish together in fluid sentences. Combine them with Spanish verbs and you can speak with real and useful phrases, right away.

It makes your Spanish flow very naturally, the same way native Spanish speakers use their language. It’s always nice to sound as authentic as possible.

If you know the Mortar Words, you’ll speak along with this lesson right away.

If you don’t know them yet, you should check out my getting started course Synergy Spanish. It teaches you the 138 most important words and easy patterns to combine those words into 88,000 Spanish phrases.

Then once you know the Mortar Words and the most common verbs, it’s really easy to become more fluent. All you need to do is work on one simple conjugation at a time and your Spanish can start flowing more and more each day.

Get your Spanish flowing towards fluency and…

Grab Your Audio Lesson Here

If you have any trouble using the verbs in the lesson right away, take a look my post called kick butt Spanish.

In part two of these lessons, I’ll show you how to add irregular verbs to the patterns you can use fluently. Just enter your name and email address below. I’ll send you part two and 2 extra lessons that show you how to use this system to start speaking even more conversationally with your amigos.

Yearn to Learn Spanish, then maybe traditionl education isn’t for you.

admin — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 07:08:34 +0000

Wasn’t it amazing to hear how the education system didn’t even recognize George and Paul’s talent.

Not only that, they hated the classes.

You know, so many people don’t even know how much Spanish they could be speaking because the traditional methods create a barrier for them.

They never get to experience, even for a moment, the thrill of speaking another language.

It happens to so many people.

It happened to me too…

My Spanish hasn’t always come so easily.

What are the barriers and how can you overcome them?

I’m working on lessons to share my discoveries about what stops people from finding their hidden talents for languages.

I’ll show you what the barriers are that stop you from thriving in the Spanish speaking world.

Plus, I’ll show you how you can blast through the barriers and discover abilities for language you never knew you had.

Just fill in the form below, and I’ll share with you some of written and audio lessons FREE

And the winner is…

admin — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 08:49:19 +0000

There were so many incredible stories, so many great reasons for learning Spanish, so many entries that would be worthy winners of the Synergy Spanish Scholarship 2009.

In fact, I was so overwhelmed by the entries that I’ll be giving out consolation prizes soon.

As they say there can only be one winner… but in this case we have two.

The first winner is Linda from category 1… How will learning Synergy Spanish change your life?

Her passion and determination just jumped off the page and touched my heart.

Here’s her entry

Dear Marcus,

It is very difficult to fully express in words what learning Spanish would mean to me. Spanish is apart of me, apart of my culture and yet for most of my life it has felt out of my reach. My dad was an immigrant from Mexico to the US. My mom is Spanish. My dad was very proud of our culture but he saw kids in our neighborhood struggle with “broken English”- speaking English mixed with Spanish and he thought it would make it easier on me to learn English first. He wanted me to learn Spanish and thought I would just learn later, when I was older. I wish it could have been that easy, unfortunately, “later” never came.

I, being Mexican and Spanish, my family on both sides speak Spanish and I have always lived in Spanish speaking neighborhoods. I lived the culture and I looked like everyone else but still did not belong because of my language barrier. Learning Spanish was something I wanted ever since I could remember, since I was a little girl playing with friends or spend time with relatives that I couldn’t communicate with. Numerous times through my life I have had Mexican people, like me, talk to me in Spanish expecting that I would understand, expecting I could help. You don’t know how bad it felt to have to say time and time again “I’m sorry, I don’t speak Spanish.” And the look on their faces every time was the hardest to take. Just another reminder of how I didn’t belong, that I wasn’t honoring my heritage by speaking the language. It wasn’t for a lack of trying. I grew up watching Spanish TV and my mom’s novelas, understanding so much but I couldn’t speak it to save my life. I have tried every method and course imaginable and each one left me feeling like it was hopeless, like the time for me to learn had passed me by.

Until I found your method.

Your teaching method has truly given me hope. Your method is the only one that has ever made sense to my mind. There are so many courses out there, that I have wasted money on. They make big promises and when you’re done you find you barely “get by” in the language, like a tourist. I have no interest in being a tourist speaker. I want to truly master the language. I want to live with Spanish in my everyday life no matter where I live. Your course holds a common goal to my own- language fluency and dominance. Your way of teaching is so in tune with how people’s minds work and learn. So much so, that what is taught becomes more like second nature and less like the usual struggle, trying to extract from your mind the words to communicate effectively. Without that “second nature” element to learning, I believe true fluency will always elude language learners. Other courses lack the tools that are necessary to become truly fluent and “advanced”. I love your method and will never use another. I have every course book you have released and would love to complete your other courses but right now I can’t afford to continue with Bola de Nieve or sign up for Spanish Ear Training because my husband has been unemployed.

So, what would learning Spanish mean to me? It would mean I would never again have to turn away someone that needs my help and I can open the door for so many other opportunities to serve my Latino community. It means being able to connect to my heritage, to people in my culture and neighborhood and feel like I belong. It means never having to utter those dreaded words ever again- “I’m sorry I don’t speak Spanish”. It would mean never having to see that disapproving expression on some ones face and feeling that same disappointment in myself. I have now seen my daughter have to do the same. People automatically speaking Spanish to her and her having to say she doesn’t understand. Learning Spanish would mean that my daughters could also learn the language while they are still little and they would never have to feel the same disappointment I have.

When I was 14 years old my dad was on vacation and told me the following week we were going to Mexico for my sister and I to visit my family there for the first time. He told me it was very important that we meet them and see where we come from. I can’t tell you how excited I was to go. My parents would have to translate of course, but I would finally meet the people from the letters, pictures and phone calls and see Mexico for myself. It would have been a special trip. Three days after my dad told me we were going he past away suddenly from a massive stroke. As you can imagine, that had a huge impact on my life and made my goal all that more meaningful to me. Learning Spanish would mean fulfilling a wish my dad had for me, one that I also have for my children and myself. I would finally be able to visit my family and feel closer to my dad when we can talk together and share each other’s memories of him. It would mean honoring my father and our heritage. It would mean fulfilling a lifetime goal and dream. It would mean forever being filled with gratitude for the ability I have been given and the desire to use it to the good of those around me. This is what learning Spanish would mean to me and I know in my heart your method is the path I have to take to get there.

Thank you for your consideration, work and generosity,

Linda Sappington

In category 2: How will your learning Synergy Spanish help others?

There would be so many worthy winners. The one that stood out to me was the Gus Bus entry from Pat.

You see, I believe books change lives.

Books contain the knowledge we need to transform ourselves.

In a time when I was reinventing my life, books that I got free from the San Ysidro library changed my life.

I learned how to teach, how language works and how people learn. I also read book after book in Spanish as part of my own path to mastering the language.

I guess I have a bias in favor of the Gus Bus because it can help kids take a different path in their lives.

Here’s Pat’s entry.

I am the project director for a mobile literacy bus called the Gus Bus. We bring a free book bag exchange program and storytime to over 25 at risk, low income neighborhoods in our community. Over 90% of these neighborhoods are Spanish speaking.

In collaboration with our local food bank we recently added a food bag component. Now children and families can come on the bus and hear a story, check out free books and get a bag of health snack food.

We have been serving the community for over 5 years and have become a trusted icon in these neighborhoods. We have become a one stop shopping for the people we serve, matching families with needed resources in the community.

Due to budget restraints I have had to cut staff, letting go of my fluent in Spanish staff member. I am now on the bus and suffer from not being able to communicate effectively with the parents and children. I have repeatedly taken classes and workshops and continue to stumble along. I need to be fluent so our program can continue to make a difference in the lives of our Spanish speaking families in out community. Last year we served close to 1000 children in our neighborhood sites.

I hope you will find me (and our program) worthy of your generous offer.

Pat Kennedy

Congratulations Linda and Pat, bien hecho (well done)

Spanish is a romance language

admin — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 01:48:15 +0000

…and Spanish is a romantic language.

I have a special Spanish Valentine’s Day lesson for you today.

Along with Italian, French Portuguese and Romanian, Spanish is a romance language.

Yes, the term romance is about Spanish deriving from the language of the Romans, but it is also a romantic sound.

So, in honor of St Valentine’s Day this year, I have created a special Spanish lesson for February 14.

Many of the sentences structures use the Synergy verb, Brick verb and Mortar Word patterns form Synergy Spanish.

But even if you haven’t done that course, you’ll still be able to get a lot from this lesson.

And if you have done Synergy Spanish, you’ll see just how easy it is to talk about any theme you want with the patterns you already know.

Here’s the first Spanish that you’ll hear from Elena just before you start interacting with the audio and speaking Spanish.

El Día de San Valentín es una celebración tradicional en la que los amigos, enamorados, novios o esposos expresan su amor o cariño mutuamente. Se celebra el 14 de febrero. En algunos países se llama Día de los Enamorados y en otros Día del Amor y la Amistad.

Here’s the translation

St Valentine’s Day is a traditional celebration in which the friends, lovers, boyfriends and girlfriends, husbands and wives mutually express their love and affection.

It is celebrated on the 14th of February. In some countries it is called day of the lovers and in others day of the love and the friendship.

…and here’s your audio lesson

Spanish is a romance language audio lesson

Spanish is a romance language audio lesson 2

P.S. Chime in with your comment and let me know if these lessons help you out, that way I’ll know what to send you in future.

Make friends and practice with real Spanish speakers

admin — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 02:32:55 +0000

I just found an interesting site that looks like a great way to learn more Spanish, make friends and practice with real native speakers.

Best of all it’s free.

So what is it?

It’s an online community for learning languages. You connect with native speakers from around the world to help each other improve your language skills.

You meet native Spanish speakers, who are learning English, they help you with Spanish, you help them with English… And you do it in a friendly online social network, so you learn in real context as you have a conversation with your new friends.

It sounds like a great idea to me.

Why not check it out? Let me know what you think by leaving a comment here on the blog

One last thing, se me olvidó decirles (It slipped my mind to tell you)… here is the site

www.busuu.com

Let me know what you think.

If you are reading this you could win a success assured $1823.00 Spanish coaching package?

admin — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 00:59:03 +0000

What’s your barrier to learning Spanish?

Are you short of money and can’t afford to pay for lessons?

Do you think you are too old to learn?

Do you believe you have some “blockage” that stops you from learning?

Whatever you may believe is stopping you; I am here to tell you the reason can be blasted away.

I too once had a terrible day when the thought kept rolling around in my head that I couldn’t learn Spanish. I’d been trying to learn for a long time and couldn’t even hold a basic conversation.

Suddenly it dawned on me that every English speaker I knew that had learned Spanish successfully, learned Spanish as a child

I felt totally dejected, and all sorts of doubts crept in. I started thinking maybe all my efforts were a waste of time.

I wondered, is it even possible to learn to speak fluent Spanish as an adult?

You see at the time I didn’t know a single person who learned later in life.

Now I know that those thoughts were completely wrong..

In fact, since then I have taught people of all ages. I know that age is one of the easiest learning barriers to blast away. So far the record for my oldest student is a 96 year old Texan.

Maybe you think you have a “blockage” when it comes to learning languages.

Let me just ask you, you learned your first language didn’t you?

Maybe rather than a “blockage” in you, it’s the approach to learning that is letting you down.

In fact most teaching methods are based on systems never designed to be used to actually speak to anyone.

Sounds crazy, but it’s true.

You see most courses are based on methods to learn Latin.

Not a lot of native Latin speakers around these days…

Think about that.

Have you actually been trying to learn Spanish with methods based on a system that was never meant for use in speaking to a living person?

Is it any wonder you have experienced a “blockage”.

The method itself was your barrier to learning.

But what if we could remove the barriers to learning?

What if there was a way to learn that assured your success?

What if we changed the approach and every barrier to learning suddenly vanished — right now, today — what would your life be like in a month? In two months, on New Year’s Day, 2010?

How many new friends would you have?

How many more places would you go?

Would you go to places that most people find intimidating, remote, or too far off the beaten track?

Would you enjoying being daring and move around freely?

Or would you go to places less remote but no less invigorating, and enjoy mixing with the locals?

How much more would you enjoy travel?

“What would you do?

Where would you go to practice your new Spanish?

Would you go and live in a different country?

Which one would you choose?

Would you live on the beach or in the mountains?

How would it feel to see and be part of a completely different way of life?

How much more fun would it be to travel when you can go anywhere you want and know that you can communicate easily and confidently with the locals?

Isn’t that what the art of living is all about, great relationships with people?

How would you be able to help others with Spanish under your belt?

So many of my students have discovered my methods dissolve any learning barriers. Now they experience Spanish in a whole new way.

For 2 lucky people I am removing every possible barrier

You see, I am opening the Synergy Spanish Scholarship 2009 so you can blast away any learning barriers including financial ones. Let’s make 2009 the year you learn Spanish.

Here’s what the winners of Synergy Spanish Scholarship 2009 get…

Component 1 - The original Synergy Spanish course
- value $67.00

This is your foundation to speaking Spanish freely. Amazingly in this course all you need is 138 words to get by in Spanish. Isn’t that so do-able, just 138 words???? You see, the magic isn’t so much in the words but rather in you learning the easy patterns that let you combine a few words to say a whole lot. Once you learn to combine Synergy Verbs, Brick Verbs and Mortar Words you’ll be able to make thousands of sentences in Spanish. Anyone can learn to communicate in Spanish with this course.

Component 2 - Synergy Spanish informal conversation
- value $27.00

This course has previously only been available to members of my Bola de Nieve program. It takes everything you learned in Synergy Spanish and makes it a piece of cake for you to start speaking informally and conversationally with relatives, children and amigos. Now you have a great foundation it’s time to step up your Spanish fluency level.

Component 3 - Synergy Spanish level 2 - Bola de Nieve
- value $420

This course follows on sequentially from Synergy Spanish. We called it Bola de Nieve because it’s Spanish for snowball. You just take the momentum from Synergy Spanish, and like rolling a snowball down hill, your fluency grows and grows. You’ll easily speak Spanish in flowing sentences, and truly express yourself in your new language. The winner’s membership will be set at module 3 of the 14 modules in the course. That way by New Year’s Eve 2009 you have had the chance to finish the course and start talking up a storm in Spanish. Who knows maybe you’ll celebrate the New Year in a Spanish speaking country filled with new possibilities as you make the most of your new talent. There’s more!

Component 4 - All levels of my Shortcut to Spanish courses
- value $109.00

These courses build your vocabulary fast, plus get you using Spanish right away, and learn thousand of words that you can add to your Synergy Spanish patterns for maximum communication in minimum time.

Component 5 Synergy Spanish - Bola Plus – Spanish Ear Training – lifetime membership
- conservative estimate $1200

Spanish Ear Training - for many people this is the final hurdle, once you can speak and say just a bout anything you want to say, you’ll want to strengthen your ear for Spanish. That way, you’ll keep up with the rapid pace of Spanish, training your ears to tune in and handle anything that’s thrown at you. Bola de Nieve Plus - This course doesn’t exist yet, but so many of my Bola de Nieve students keep asking me to continue the course even further. I have so many ideas to share that I have already developed a blueprint for a high level mastery version of Synergy Spanish. This is for people who can speak Spanish but want to dominate the language. The scholarship winners will get access to any new Synergy Spanish lessons- and all Spanish Ear Training monthly lessons for as long as the programs runs.

Total Value of the scholarship - $1823.00

How to enter Synergy Spanish Scholarship 2009

There are two categories

Category 1 - Synergy Spanish to make your life better

Category 2 - Synergy Spanish to improve the lives of others

Here’s all you a have to do to win, just answer one of these two questions: -

1) How will learning Synergy Spanish change your life?

2) How will your learning Synergy Spanish help others?

The answers I judge to be best in my opinion will receive complete access to all my Synergy Spanish lessons and all the items listed above.

Just answer right here on the blog and make 2009 your breakthrough year…

Entries close January 26, so get started now.

Bola de Nieve Preview

admin — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 15:16:14 +0000

If you’re still undecided about whether or not to join us in Bola de Nieve, here are some preview lessons to help you make the right decision.

Firstly, Bola de Nieve is a direct follow on from Synergy Spanish. If you are new to Spanish then the original Synergy Spanish course is your first step to fluency.

If you already have some experience with Spanish or you have completed Synergy Spanish, then Bola de Nieve follows right on from where Synergy Spanish left off.

In Bola de Nieve, just like in Synergy Spanish, each lesson builds on from the previous ones. Each step makes it easy for you to speak Spanish more confidently.

We start by using my unique verb domination approach. I wrote in my blog about how this simple change in approach makes all the difference. If you have had difficulty with Spanish this small change can transform you.

Here’s a direct link to the first audio lesson from Bola de Nieve,

and here is an action guide for that audio lesson.

Here’s an extra preview lesson.

If you are wondering just how far you can take your Spanish with this course, here’s a preview of a lesson from Module 9.

That lesson might seem a little complex to you now. Yet, once you’ve done the lessons from Modules 1-8, it’s not complex at all. It’s just another easy step in your progress to fluent Spanish.

As I write this there are around 35 positions left in Bola de Nieve, so if you make your decision soon you’ll still have a good chance to join us.

Here’s the page with all the information on Bola de Nieve.

First Name:
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First Name:
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First Name:
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