Advanced Spanish Lesson 10 – A Day Out

This advanced Spanish lesson takes you through a day out we spent at Xanadú, a large shopping centre on the outskirts of Madrid we visited during one of our trips to Spain. Xanadú is a very special and unusual attraction that is well worth visiting.

Listen in as we talk about our day and the experiences we had. In terms of the Spanish we use, it might be worth paying special attention to the range of tenses we use when explaining the things that we did and what we saw in the shopping centre.

You will notice that our stories are not limited to using the Preterite and Imperfect pasts, but rather, we use a large range of tenses just as we would in English.

Although the Preterite and the Imperfect tenses are fabulous for telling stories in the past, they are certainly not “los únicos” needed to be able to tell a good story.

For example, how would you say: “We had arrived early”? or “We would have arrived earlier but we had problems.”? It is these kinds of tenses, used without thinking in our own language, that often catch us out in Spanish when we are in full flow. So as you join us, see how many other tenses you can catch us using (Remember: you don’t need to know the names of the tenses to recognise them or to use them well.)

The transcription and translation of this advanced Spanish lesson and all the other podcasts we have produced to date, as ever, can be found in the help-sheets.

Video for This Spanish Lesson

Audio for This Spanish Lesson