It’s good to be part of the Spanish-speaking world right now. You can get double presents. You get Christmas gifts and then tomorrow Jan 6 even more presents. Mañana is el Día De Los Reyes. It’s more exciting than Christmas for many Spanish-speaking kids. Why not make 2012 the year you join them in the ...…
There’s a part of Tijuana that is actually good. Nothing like it’s seedy reputation. Unfortunately, these days Tijuana is only famous for drug cartels, prostitution and drunkenness. And if you just crossed the border from the USA and turned right, that perception would be pretty close to reality. You’d head to a strange twilight zone ...…
Here’s a quick quiz. Q) What’s the similarity between a Spanish onion and an elephant? A) Both are red, except for the elephant. Q) What the similarity between Chinese and English? A) They are both languages Q) What’s the similarity between Spanish and English? A) There’s a lot more than you might imagine. Yes, Spanish ...…
Everything was going well with the local butcher in Australia until he called me that horrible word. I was home for my dad’s 70th birthday. As I’m the closest thing to a Mexican in those parts I was asked to make the carne asada. Yes, I was the taquero. (The guy on the taco stands ...…
Did you know that just 100 words make up 70% of all spoken Spanish? You can start with those. Most Spanish courses grind you into the ground with 14 tenses and thousands of verb conjugations. Yet with the right patterns you can make 88,000 phrases from just 138 words. It’s time to make Spanish simple ...…
In Spanish speaking countries Split bills are much less common than in the English-speaking world. And there’s always a check dance. It’s goes something like this: pago yo I’ll pay No, no, no no, no, pago yo. Yo te invito. No, no, no, no, no, (saying no 5 times has a good Latin rhythm) I’ll ...…
Do you speak grammarian? When was the last time you heard a mother tell her four year old, “You should have used the indirect object pronoun instead of the direct object pronoun.” When you were that 4-year-old kid, you had no trouble learning your first language without being a grammarian. You can do it again ...…
The many similitudes (similarities) between Spanish and English are due to Guillermo el Bastardo (William the Bastard). Guillermo became better known for his deeds than his illegitimate birth after 1066AD. Since then he’s been known as Guillermo el Conquistador, (William the Conqueror). His Norman invasion of Britain in 1066 saw French become the official language ...…
Ben Franklin the guy who invented the lightning rod, bifocals and the Franklin Stove also knew a thing or two about teaching. I found this quote from Benny in the Spanish language version of Readers Digest. dime y lo olvido, enséname y lo recuerdo involúcrame y lo aprendo I couldn’t have said it better myself. ...…
This came in via email. I know a lot of people are in Paul’s situations are struggling to learn Spanish too. At the bottom of the post you can get the same free lessons that have helped Paul. Muchas Gracias, Senior Marcus. I have listened to all of your e-mail samples and have wanted to ...…