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Spanish Blog Spanish Listening Test Elena in England

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This is great Spanish Listening Test.cute scale

Elena has spent a good few months in England now and, as a native Spanish speaker from Madrid in Spain, she offers her opinions and perceptions on what it is like to live and work in England.

Pharmacist in Spanish, waitress in English.

Elena is ‘licenciada’ in pharmacy and despite being fully qualified in Spain to work as a pharmacist, she was forced to come to England to find work. Spain is still currently in the depths of ‘la crisis’ with little hope of seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for some time yet.

Because of her grammatically strong yet inexperienced English, Elena could only manage to find work in a restaurant. That said, within the first week of actively searching for a job, she secured one as a waitress.  In Spain, even restaurant jobs are very hard to find these days.

A recent story emerged about a job vacancy that was advertised in Madrid, and although it was nothing fancy at all, they received over 20, 000 applications.

The language barrier

One of the issues of not having strong English skills is that, without even doing it consciously, people make assumptions about someone’s intelligence based on their language skills. As you will hear in this Spanish listening test with Elena, this is very much what happened to her.

When we hear someone speaking our language badly, we automatically think that they do not have a very good education. This isn’t our fault, nor is it the fault of the speaker, it’s just a fact of life.

So, unfortunately for Elena, because she wasn’t able to express herself very well in English, she began to notice that she was being treated in a somewhat condescending way, sometimes bordering on disrespectful.

English is the key

Fortunately, Elena has been able to quickly build on her English skills and has began to pursue pharmaceutical work in the area. Despite what she says in the interview, which took place around two months ago, she has since found herself a boyfriend (José from Tenerife) who works as a chef in the UK and so, Elena doesn’t intend to move back to Spain in the near future.

I recall  working in a Spanish restaurant in our local area about 6 years ago when my business collapsed and we found ourselves in a bit of a bad financial state. In the kitchen the entire staff was Polish.  All of them had degrees and were teachers, scientists and things of that nature, and yet they were all there in the kitchen.

The only thing they all had in common was that their English was very poor. And, that was why they were in the kitchen and not teaching or discovering things in laboratories.

As Elena is finding out, to be taken seriously, having a good command of the native language is key to progressing and securing a good job.

The same applies to us

Surprisingly, there are still a lot of Brits who go off to find work in Spain with only a handful of Spanish words in their pocket. Needless to say, most of them end up coming back to the UK with tales of how nothing worked out for them. Perhaps, if they had worked more on their Spanish, they might have had quite a different experience.

Enjoy this Spanish listening test. Three out of five stars for difficulty.

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The Present Spanish Subjunctive Rules 5 – As Soon As and When

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Spanish Subjunctive Rules.rulesscale

Here we are in the fifth of the series on making the Present Subjunctive easier.

So, how are you going with it? Are you beginning to understand that it’s much easier to focus on the triggers than it is to wade through the plethora of Spanish subjunctive rules and regulations on why you should be choosing to use it?

 

The important yet fun part.

What’s important for you to grasp from this range of video podcasts is that it isn’t definitive at all. What I mean by that is that what I am showing you in terms of examples is just a basic idea of how the Subjunctive works.

The fun part, and I mean that seriously, (jeje) is taking what you learn from this series and applying it and expanding it.

Of course, there will be  times when you come across examples that simply don’t fit into my explanations. (That’s the fun part) and you will need to use your investigative powers to understand what happened to trigger it off.

When-Future.

In this podast I deal with the sometimes confusing concept of using variations of “when” when you are referring to the future. Look at these two examples:

When I eat, I drink a tea. = Cuando como, bebo un té.

or

When I eat I’ll drink a tea. = Cuando coma, beberé un té/ bebo un té.

Can you see how the first one is referring to every day, repetitive activities, whilst the second is referring to a specific up-and-coming event in the future.

In English we often show that by using the future tense, I’ll, You’ll, He’ll, We’ll, etc.

In Spanish, that isn’t always the case and often they will just use the present tense and so, the reference to the future is identified through their use of the subjunctive.

The future in many words.

There are many ways to refer to future events and not just with the word ‘when’ or ‘cuando’.

There is: en cuanto = once, tan pronto como = as soon as, hasta que = until, a no ser que = unless…

There are lots more.

At some point, I will take all of this information and create some easy and straight forward Helpsheets that will be designed to actually have you feeling more sure AFTER you have worked through them.

I recall the way that I used to feel, (and still do) when I’d finished reading a rather high-brow and erudite explanation of something that really shouldn’t have been so difficult. Sometimes, I used to feel more confused after I’d read it than I was when I started.

I’ll keep you posted on how those helpsheets are going. Let’s see if we can get these Spanish Subjunctive Rules beaten into some kind of understandable shape.

So, enjoy the podcast and I’ll see you in the next one!

 

Hasta pronto, Gordon 🙂

 

 

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Early Intermediate Podcast 29 – Either Or in Spanish and Much More

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Either Or in Spanish. = O Oknight nicescale

Maybe you’ve seen these words used before in your travels through your learning journey. They are strange because they appear as the same word and yet translate into English as different words.

This is often what happens when we try to translate things literally from our own language into Spanish. Sometimes it works beautifully and other times it’s “un desastre”.

So, when you use the “O O” in Spanish, which means either or in Spanish, you are simply presenting options or choices.

For example: -Mira, dime o “que sí” o “que no”.- = Look, tell me either y “yes” or “no”.

Just as an aside, many times when Spanish speakers say yes or no, with emphasis, they often put the word QUE in front.

ejemplo:

¡Te digo que sí! = I’m telling you, yes.

What they are really doing is shortening a longer sentence which would go something like this:

I’m telling you that, yes, I’m going to do it…that, yes, I want to go…that, yes, I’m happy etc.

 

NI NI = Neither Nor

Just as there exists either or in Spanish, another of these double words that doesn’t translate directly was made famous by the Monty Python team in their famous film, “The Knights of the Round Table.” In that film, there were the ‘Knights of Ni’. They would go around shouting “Ni, Ni!” (I don’t think that they really thought they were using Spanish! Still, it’s a nice way of remembering it.)

So, this expression is used with negative sentences such as the following:

No quiero ni agua ni zumo. = I want neither water nor juice.

We don’t really talk like that in English any more and the ‘Either Or’ option is normally what we use in all cases of spoken language. However, In Spanish, when your sentence is in the negative, you must use the Ni…Ni version.

 

We do the same by the way.

If you are asking yourself how Spanish speakers can use the same word when we have different ones, then it’s worth noting that we do the same.

Take, for example, when we say “AS big AS a house.”

Spanish speakers say this with two different words.

“TAN grande COMO una casa.”

 

So, listen in as we show how these expressions work in Spanish in conversation. Everything that we present in our podcasts is backed up with comprehensive helpsheets that help you look more in depth at what we talk about and then test your understanding with an exercise.

As always, we hope that this will be of value to you in your learning journey.

 

Saludos,

Gordon y Cynthia. 🙂

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Early Intermediate Podcast 28 – Haber in Spanish and its Uses

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The Verb Haber in Spanish.scrabblescale

This verb is probably one of the most important verbs in the Spanish language! Why? Because, it has a specific job to do in just about every tense that exists in Spanish.

Firstly, you will have seen this verb mentioned in all of your textbooks in which they call it the “auxiliary verb”. This simply means that this verb is a “helper” verb. It works with other verbs to create sentences like, “I have eaten today”. The word, “HAVE” is the auxiliary part, which is from HABER in Spanish, and “EATEN” is the past participle of the verb TO EAT.

As you will see in the podcast, we explain that Haber in Spanish appears in multiple types of conversation. The very famous word “HAY” comes directly from the verb HABER. This word means “there is/there are” and you probably would agree that it is something that we use in most conversation.

HAY is a strange word because it can relate to one thing or to multiple things and yet it’s structure doesn’t change. For example, one of the confusions that many students have is when they use this word in the past.  For example, when they want to say, “There was” they use, “HABÍA”.

However, the confusion sets in when they want to say “There were”. The temptation is to say, “HABÍAN”. However, this isn’t correct because, just as the word, “HAY” refers to one or multiple things, the same applies to this word when it is in the past. Therefore “HABÍA” means “there was/there were”.

Crazy names.

If you think that the names that are given to the normal tenses are difficult to understand or remember, then when we get to the verb HABER in Spanish, we realise that the linguists had just been warming up. Some of the names that have been given to what are known as, “the perfect tenses”, border on the incredulous.

For example, if you wanted to say, “I had spoken to him.”, which in Spanish is, “Yo habia hablado con él.”, you have to use the “Pluscuamperfecto de indicativo”. How about that for a mouthful. Far better to have called it the “Had Eaten” tense, ¿verdad?

Or, worse still, once you find yourself in the world of subjunctive and want to say something like: ”

I would have eaten it if I had been hungry. = Me lo habría comido si hubiera tenido hambre.

You are then obliged to whip out of your box of grammatical tools the: ” Pluscuamperfecto de subjuntivo.”

How can I remember these names?

Our advice is that you don’t sweat the names. After all, you use all of these tenses in your own mother tongue without ever having to know the names. The same applies in Spanish!

Enjoy the podcast. We hope that it is of value to you in your learning journey.

Remember that all of our podcasts are backed up by in depth helpsheets that explain everything for you and test your understanding.

Saludos,

Gordon y Cynthia 🙂

Here is a link to a blog that breaks down Haber in every way possible. Thanks Suzie! Click Here.

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Audio Blog Spanish Podcast Being Gay in Spain Ivan and Jorge

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Special Spanish Podcastivan jorge scale

In this Audio blog and Spanish podcast we hear from two young gay men from Madrid. They talk about their viewpoint on how it is to be a gay person living in Madrid these days.

Clearly, for those that know the history of Spain, during the days of Franco, homosexuality wasn’t tolerated at all.  In those days, gay people were frequently killed by Franco’s men, the Guardia Civil.

Obviously, those days are over. So, as you listen in to the boys talking about their own personal experiences, you will find that attitudes have changed radically in Spain over the last few decades.

In fact, Spain is one of the forerunners in the push to get gay rights accepted. They have pushed the boundaries of marriage legislation and parenting, to allow gay couples to enjoy the same rights as any other opposite sex partnerships.

Jorge and Ivan are two very personable boys who have gone out on a limb to open up to LightSpeed Spanish. They discuss the situation in Spain and how it has affected them and their lifestyle.

Like everyone, you will have your own opinions on this subject. All we ask is for you to suspend judgement and use this Spanish podcast as a way of expanding your Spanish knowledge and understanding. And, whilst you do that, perhaps expanding your own horizons, too.

The challenge in this Spanish podcast is that it is audio only. Therefore, it requires your even more intense concentration, so that you can capture the narrative from Jorge and Ivan.

Warning

They do not speak with a beginners audience in mind. Their conversation would be rated at a three stars out of four for level of difficulty.

So your challenge is to listen to this Spanish podcast and see just how much you can capture. Don’t limit yourself to only one listen. Sometimes you need to hear something three, four, five or many more times to really get everything from it that you can.

So, we will leave you now to get started on your next listening challenge. Please excuse the fact that in the background, Sebastian is running around and making lots of noise.

This is real life, guys. In real life situations, this is what happens and so, it’s worth becoming accustomed to having to listen to someone over the top of other noise.

In Spain, especially, voted the noisiest country in Europe, you will very rarely find a true moment of silence!

 

Buena suerte,

Gordon y Cynthia.

Audio for This Spanish Lesson

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 8:03 — 6.0MB)