¡Hola amigos! ¿How are you guys doing? ¿Did you watch the five previous videos? I hope you did!
This month, I am gonna share with you more 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 and even better some of them influenced my point of view about life, traveling and being a human…
¡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.
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 😉
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.
¡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.
¿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/.
¿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.
¡Feliz Año Nuevo amigos! ¿How were your holidays? ¿Did you enjoy them?
Snowball. It is hard to get one around here, isn’t it? Well, not this kind of snowball…
This snowball is made of Spanish. We are gonna start with isolated words and by the end of this article you will be speaking full sentences, actually paragraphs. Sounds cool, doesn’t it?
For our first Snowball we are going to use the first three “Times Tables Verbs”: Hablar, Comer, Vivir. Here we go:
To speak ↔ Hablar
I speak ↔ Hablo
I speak Spanish ↔ Hablo español
To make a negation just put “no” in front of the verb
I don’t speak ↔ No hablo
I don’t speak Spanish ↔ No hablo español
I’m sure you know how to say “much” ↔ mucho
I don’t speak much Spanish ↔ No hablo mucho español
¡Hola amigos! ¿Did you watch the games of “La Sele”? They did amazingly great, didn’t they? ¡¡We made historia for sure!!
Last month we learned a super handy rule: The 2 WEEKS rule. ¿Remember how it goes? It goes like this:
The 2 WEEKS rule is a handy rule that we can use to clarify when to use “SER” and “ESTAR” and when not. It is not perfect, it is not always accurate but, as I said it’s pretty handy. This is how it works:
If something might not change in less than two weeks, then we must use “SER.”
AND
If something may change in less than two weeks, then we must use “ESTAR.”
Last month we saw several examples when we can apply the rule. This month we are gonna see some examples of exceptions when NOT to apply the rule. Ready?
SER = TO be #1
I soy
you, s/he, it es
we s omos
you all, they s on
If something might not change in less than two weeks, then we must use “SER.”
The 2 WEEKS rule is a handy rule that we can use to clarify when to use “SER” and when not. It is not perfect, it is not always accurate but, as I said it’s pretty handy. This is how it works, if something might not change in less than two weeks, then we must use “SER”.
-ER verbs are the second set of verbs that you need to master. You will find that a lot of the verbs that you will use in Spanish are ER verbs… Find an –ER verb, go to the 2 Times Table pattern, pick up the endings, and use the word in context, ¡as often as you can! It’s called “practice”.
¡Let’s practice! Let’s do a brainstorm using the verb comer.
I am pretty sure you know why this verb is important… Right! It is important because it is the pattern that you follow when you have to conjugate hundreds of –AR verbs.
I know, I know. I know that I already gave you (according to me) the twelve most important verbs EVER. I call them “The Times Tables” because as in math, if you learn them by heart you will be able to do bigger operations and; most important, you will know how to play with them the rest of your life.
Feliz día de la amistad y del amor – Happy Valentine’s Day.
Because this is the month of friendship I am gonna introduce you to someone that I think should be your new B.F.F. He calls himself Señor Jordan, he’s from the U.S.A. and he is very humble and funny, kind of brilliant sometimes. I think he is a hard working person, his English is as perfect as yours and his Spanish is as good as mine.
But these are not the reasons I want you to become his friend…
¡Hola amigos! ¿How are you guys doing? ¿Did you watch the five previous videos? I hope you did!
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 and even better some of them influenced my point of view about life, traveling and being a human…
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.
