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Demystifying the Pronouns in Spanish. Well, at least a Bit!

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faq scaleDirect and Indirect Pronouns in Spanish

I’ve been there.

Whatever you are currently going through regarding the pronouns in Spanish you can rest assured that I have been in your place, too.

If you are confused, frustrated, mystified or just down right off the boil with them, I can understand you completely.

The Good News.

The good news is that, despite how it might seem, pronouns are actually here to make your life easier. How can that be when all they seem to do is to slow down our Spanish? Well, the fact is that the job they have in language is to speed it up for us.

The issue is, however, because their use can be quite confusing, especially at the beginning, they tend to make your Spanish slow down, sometimes, so it seems, to a terminal crawl.

The Purpose of this Series.

The purpose of this series of videos, which at the time of writing this blog hasn’t actually been completed,  is to help our learners to UNDERSTAND the use of Pronouns in Spanish.

What that doesn’t mean is that once you understand how they work, suddenly your Spanish will go at the speed of light.

The difference will be that you will be able to use them correctly and with confidence. The speed will come later, with practice. Lots and lots of it!

Get it right….then get it said.

You can’t begin to imagine how many people we have heard speaking Spanish fluently but using their pronouns incorrectly. (I, Gordon, have been guilty of that a good number of times.)

Our suggestion is always to learn how to use them correctly, first. Understand how they work and then start to incorporate them into your conversation.  To understand why this is so important you must watch the Levels of Learning video.

The Levels of Learning.

The danger of learning something badly is that once it’s in your unconscious mind and labelled as “learnt”, it’s a bugger to change.

I had this issue with my past participles in English. I come from South Shields and in my town, nobody seems to use the PP correctly. They say, I have went, I have ate, they have spoke etc.

I was brought up with this and learnt my English without the past participles. All of my life I have had to fight with myself to change that childhood learning. Finally, thanks to Cynthia’s help, I have my PP under control. Even so, sometimes I still make an error.

Start out as you mean to go on.

It’s for that reason that you should pay special attention to this series of videos so that you learn them well and in the correct way. It will pay dividends in the future.

So, below we have added all the current videos. Enjoy them!

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Video for This Spanish Lesson

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Video for This Spanish Lesson

The uses of SE in Spanish A fun look at why there are so many?

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The multiple uses of SE in Spanish.keyboard-scale

I recall when I first started to hear Spanish spoken in the factory in which I worked in Aguascalientes, Mexico and I was vaguely aware of the SE word being used. However, I was so far removed from the meaning of what was being said that I didn’t worry too much about it.

Then, having suddenly fallen in love with the language (that took about a week of hearing the lovely lilting accent from central Mexico) I began to study in earnest.

Se in Spanish was everywhere.

Suddenly, it seemed as though SE was on every study book page I looked. I saw it attached to verbs, on its own, with accents, surrounded by other small words which meant nothing to me either.

At that time I didn’t have a teacher and could only ask the people I worked with to help me clear up any doubts. BIG MISTAKE.

Always ask someone who knows.

Let me give you some examples of the questions I asked and the random, incorrect answers I was given by people who weren’t teachers of their language:

The difference between Había comido and He comido.

I had heard many people using ‘Había’ rather than ‘He’ and I knew that ‘He’ meant ‘I have’. I had no idea, however, what ‘Había’ meant and so I asked a Mexican friend. Her answer was… “Son iguales. No hay diferencia.” = They are the same.There’s no difference….WRONG.  (Había = Had.)

Espero que nos veamos.

I was very comfortable with using the expression, ‘Nos vemos’ = See you later. (We’ll see one another.)  One day, I wrote an email to a Mexican friend arranging to have a coffee. I finished the email with “Espero que nos vemos.” = I hope to see you.

I asked one of my work colleagues to review the email before I sent it. She read it and said, “Ah, it should be…’Espero que nos veamos.’

Perplexed, I asked her why.  After a little pause she said: “Because you have to.” And then went about her business. I recall that moment like it was yesterday because I was so absolutely frustrated. I wanted to know why. Why, because?

Now I know that ‘espero que’ is a trigger for the subjunctive and so ‘veamos’ is the subjuntive form of ‘vemos’. At the time, however, my colleague’s reply just made matters worse.

Hablamos in present and Hablamos in the past.

I had discovered that the past tense of we speak =hablamos was, in fact, the same as it was in present tense. I was a little confused as to how their meaning could be kept clear. I decided that they probably had different pronunciations and went off to ask someone. I went into the human resources office and asked the three people who worked there.

I explained about the present and past being the same and asked if they had a different pronunciation.  They said that they did! From the conversation I understood that the present tense was pronounced like this: hÁblamos and the past like this: hablÁmos.

Happy that I had gotten to the bottom of the matter, I went off to practice and spent the next year mispronouncing my present tense ‘we’ conjugations. (They are both pronounced identically.)

Of course, the people in the office knew how to pronounce correctly, they simply didn’t know how to explain it, nor did they have the slightest idea about what I was talking about.

Back to the uses of SE in Spanish

This brings us back round to the massive confusion I had about the uses of SE in Spanish. Finally, I think I have them sorted and this video is designed to help you, too, in a humorous way. I hope it helps.  For a more structured look at the uses of SE in Spanish, you can also take a look at our previous video on the subject.

Click here to see the blog. 

Saludos, Gordon 🙂

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 12:42 — 11.6MB)

Wandering through the streets of Toledo Spain

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toledo scaleToledo Spain.

We have visited Toledo Spain four times now and yet, for us, it  never seems to lose its charm.

I don’t really know of any other location that has so much to see and admire.

A fusion of religion.

Toledo  Spain has certain fame not only for its labyrinth of narrow streets filled with shop after shop displaying the famous Toledo steel swords, knives and body armour but also for its plethora of churches.

In a radius of no more than a kilometre you can find a mix of Christian, Jewish and Muslim places of worship that reportedly existed side by side in peace and tolerance for centuries.

We could probably do well to learn a lesson or two from that kind of acceptance of other’s beliefs.

The narrow streets of the Casco Viejo (old town)

Perhaps  the most surprising part of walking through the impossibly narrow streets of the old town is having to avoid the cars and motorbikes that come whizzing through them at breakneck speed.

They don’t seem to consider the two centimetre clearance they have on either side of their wing mirrors an impediment at all. Nor is the multitude of tourists milling through the streets anything for them to worry about.

There’s a surreal contrast that exists between the thousands of strolling, relaxed tourists and the manic, drivers, apparently furious at life and peeping their horns like it was going out of fashion.

 Don’t arrive at lunchtime

Even though it was mid-week when we arrived at Toledo Spain, we learnt a valuable lesson about arriving hungry at lunch time.  We naively assumed that we would be able to find a restaurant without problem but that couldn’t have been further from the truth.

Everywhere was packed and there wasn’t a  free table in sight. After spending a good hour listening to “camareros” telling us that it was impossible to fit in more people, we finally found somewhere willing to squeeze us into a corner.

By that time we were all getting a little weary from the sun and the heat. Our recommendation is to  get there earlier and reserve a table!

Spanish tourists

The interesting variation on the tourism in Toledo is that the vast majority of the tourists are Spanish. You’ll see a few Chinese and Japanese people, but on the whole, in the streets you hear Spanish spoken, which makes the whole experience just that little bit more authentic if you are a student of the Spanish language.

A must visit

If you get the chance to visit the centre of Spain, perhaps Madrid centre, then take the opportunity to visit Toledo Spain. It’s only around a very pleasant 45 minutes in train from Madrid centre. You’ll love it!

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Video for This Spanish Lesson

Speaking Spanish My Worries and Excitement about Moving to Spain

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Speaking Spanish is just the start.chaletscale

In the summer of 2016 we will be bundling all of our possessions,  upping roots and moving ourselves, lock stock and barrel to Guadalajara in Spain.  It’s time, we feel, that we had a change and what better place to move to than the sunny, mountainous region of Central Spain.

A move not without its challenges.

Both Cynthia and I are not unaccustomed to living in foreign climes, of course. Cynthia has now just completed her 11th year here in the U.K. I, myself, lived for four years in Rabat, Morocco followed by a further two years in Aguascalientes, Mexico.

However, we both know that speaking Spanish isn’t a guarantee of plain sailing. Without doubt we will have our challenges, our hurdles to overcome, however, probably no more than we currently have at the moment.

Are you crazy? Moving to Spain in ‘plena crisis’?

If you had asked me two years ago if I would have considered living and working in Spain, I would have replied with a very definite ‘ni hablar’. (No way.) What has changed since then is that with every year that passes, our business becomes more home centred. As we build our range of learning videos and the Helpsheets that we offer, we are finding that we spend much more time working from home. This gives us the opportunity to work anywhere in the world and, of course, we have chosen that anywhere to be Spain!

Skype classes

Both Cynthia and I have ever increasing amounts of students who learn with us through Skype. As you can imagine, this makes life so much easier for us and for the students as there is no travelling, no coffee and tea beforehand and no wear and tear on our cars.

Techno Fear

Would you believe that Cynthia really didn’t want to offer Skype classes because she thought that teaching would be too difficult via a computer screen. However, after only one or two classes she realised just how easy it all was and that apart from the very infrequent drop-out, there is little difference between actually being in someone’s home and appearing on their computer screen.

Our house in Spain

To be honest, I couldn’t believe our luck to have a ready made home in the mountains of Guadalajara. Cynthia’s parents have a ‘chalet’ (villa) at 40 minutes from their home (As you can see in the photo) and they have offered it to us to use as our base and home. (¡Los queremos tanto!)

 

In this video, you hear me speaking Spanish with Cynthia on my thoughts about the move and the consequences of such a big decision. Listen in!

 

Saludos,

Gordon 🙂

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 10:21 — 9.5MB)

Spanish vs Mexican Food Culture The Vocabulary Differences

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Spanish vs Mexican Food Culture.paella scale tortillA scale

 Aviso-Warning

The unsuspecting student of the Spanish language could well find themselves in a bit of a pickle when they first start learning the fundamentals of how to order food in Spanish.

El Porqué-The Reason

After you have watched this series of three videos you will know why this could be. Although a Spaniard would be more than able to order food and drinks in Mexico, there would be certain things that he would say that would instantly identify him as someone from another country. Similarly, a Mexican in a Spanish restaurant would very likely ask for things in a slightly different way than the rest of the diners.

¿Por qué la diferencia?- Why the Difference?

Surely, if everyone speaks the same language there shouldn’t be that many differences, should there? Unfortunately, the differences are inevitable. You only need to look at the varieties of English to know that when we talk about English we are most certainly not talking about one pure language. Rather, we are dealing with an ever changing, evolving language that varies from town to town, region to region and country to country. When the one time popular series “Byker Grove”,based in Newcastle upon Tyne, (In the north of England the home of the famous Geordie accent.) first came out, it was televised in the south of England but needed subtitles. The viewers in the south simply couldn’t understand what the Geordie actors were saying.

¿Qué dijo, él? -What did he say?

Well, the exact same thing applies to the Spanish speaking world. Why wouldn’t it? I recall watching a film from Colombia with Cynthia and struggling with the accent. On more than one occasion I turned to Cynthia and asked: “¿Qué dijo, él?”. “¡No tengo ni idea!” ( I have no idea!) was her reply some of the time. I was relieved that it wasn’t just me but it did bring home to me that every country has its own way of saying things and its own range of accents.

Mexican food culture isn’t like the Spanish one.

As we mention in the videos, many people get mixed up between Spanish and Mexican food, especially here in the UK and they mistakenly think that they are much the same. As you will see in this series of videos on the differences between the Spanish and Mexican food culture, both countries have very distinct food types and certainly don’t mix the two together. Jeff, our Mexican guest has never tried Paella. Cynthia has never eaten Flautas. I, however, have had the pleasure of trying them both. Ñam, ñam. ¡Qué ricos!

Saludos, Gordon 🙂

Video for This Spanish Lesson

Video for This Spanish Lesson

Video for This Spanish Lesson

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:27 — 25.1MB)