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Have you wondered how to say, AGO in Spanish?

Just as in English, in Spanish there is a specific way to say: “Ten years ago.” or, “Three weeks ago” At first, it might seem a little confusing, given that Spanish speakers put the “Ago” in a different place to us, and that rather than saying, “Ago”, they say, “It makes”.

Yes, that’s right. The equivalent Spanish phrase to the English, “Ten years ago.” is “It makes ten years”

Why do they use Hace?

There is no real answer to this question. In fact, it’s just these kinds of questions that can cause us a hiccough in our learning progress. The reason for that is because once you begin to learn another language you quickly find that many of  the rules you have known and used all of your life in your own language simply don’t apply any more.

The best way to deal with these kind of anomalies is to just accept them as the Spanish way. Trust that after a while, using Hacer to talk about time will seem like the most natural thing in the world. You may even start to discover that your English begins to sound a little weird when you speak.

Let me give you an example of this.

The other day, I (Gordon) was with my two year old son, Sebastián, and I noticed that he was putting his fingers in the door jam. Without thinking I said to him in English, “Sebastián, be careful because you might make your fingers damage.”

At the time the sentence sounded perfectly fine to me, until Cynthia began to laugh loudly and bring to my attention that what I had said was in no way an English sentence. I had used the Spanish structure of, “hacerte daño” in an English sentence. For some reason, this was very funny to Cynthia and so she then proceeded to tell all of my family what I had done.

The same applies to the use of Hace when you talk about time, or the way Spanish speakers say that they “have years”, or “cold”. The more  you use these words and phrases, the more they will sound perfectly fine to you.  So, say hello to some new language structures and say goodbye to your English. lol.

In this podcast we also cover how to say, “since 1999” or “from March of this year” as well as “for the last ten years”.

We hope you find it to be of value and will see you in the next podcast.

Hasta pronto 🙂

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Here and There in Spanish.

Have you ever been confused by the different words for Here and There in Spanish? There are certainly more than you might imagine. Perhaps you have heard a Spanish speaker say: “Ven aquí.” only to hear another say: “Ven para acá.”

Or have you heard someone say: “El mercado está allá.” only to hear someone else say: ” La estación está allí”. Then, of course, there’s always the option of saying: “Mira, está ahí.”

Faced with this confusion about just how to say Here and There in Spanish, you may find yourself worried that you might make a mistake.

The truth of the matter is that it’s not so difficult. As you watch or listen to this podcast, however, you should notice that even to a native Spanish speaker, (Cynthia) there is a bit of confusion as to whether AHÍ meant SPECIFICALLY THERE or GENERALLY THERE.

The reality is that AHÍ means THERE, very specifically. Imagine a spot on a piece of paper. The spot is AHÍ.

In Spain, ALLÍ is THERE but in a  more general context. It’s still quite specific an area, yet not as defined as a spot on the paper.  You could say, “Cuando estaba allí.” = When I was there.

The biggest difficulty is that each country, region and area has its own rules about what each one means. For example, many L.A. countries use ALLÁ much more than ALLÍ.

Is it Scon or Scone?

Arguing about the meaning of a word can often be an exercise in futility given that the meaning depends on the person and not the word. Throughout the Spanish speaking word there are countless examples of verbs that in one country mean one thing, and in another mean something completely different.

One student said that his Peruvian teacher had told him that to “remove” something was “remover”. Yet in Spain, “Remover” means “to stir” and Spanish speakers use “quitar” to mean “to remove”.

What do I do then?

The best way to deal with these kind of issues is to pay attention, or simply ask the people in the area in which you holiday, visit or live. Then, you copy them.

Having said all of this, this doesn’t make the information in this podcast worthless. It is still valuable and can be used as a guide of what might be called “standard Spanish” until such time as you find out what goes on in the area you find yourself in.

Remember, the Spanish language is fluid, flexible and ever changing and so to avoid frustration and confusion, the ideal is that you keep an open mind to everything that you learn and when you hear someone say the words “Always” and “Never”, then start to doubt them. Trust us, after many years of teaching we have realised that in Spanish, “always” and “never” simply don’t exist.

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An Adverb?

Before we look at what a Spanish adverb is, we had better examine just what an adverb is.

These are probably one of the little understood parts of English grammar. In fact, so misunderstood are they that they are often omitted from spoken language.

An ADVERB is, as it’s name implies, an ADJECTIVE (describing word) that pretends to be a VERB (doing word). How it does that is by tagging LY to its end.

So, for example, let’s think of the adjective HAPPY. We know we use it to say things like, “I am happy”. However, if we want to make that into an action, we have to change it to:

“I do the work happily.”

I’m Doing Good!

One adverb which is very much misunderstood is the word “WELL” and its opposite number “BADLY”.

If you want to be grammatically correct in English, then when someone asks you the question:

“How are you, today?”

You should answer with:

“I’m WELL” or “I’m doing WELL.” or “I’m not doing too BADLY.”

Unfortunately, more and more the answer is heard:

“I’m doing GOOD.” or “I’m doing BAD.”

In itself, this isn’t a problem except when you are learning another language, such as Spanish. The fact is that we simply cannot mess about with the Spanish adverbs such as BIEN and MAL as much as we do with the English ones.

You see, GOOD and BAD are ADJECTIVES, not ADVERBS.

So, when you say, “I’M GOOD“, or SOY BUENO in Spanish, you are referring to the type of person that you are. You are saying: “I’M A GOOD PERSON.” and not actually commenting on your state of being, as you do when you say “ESTOY BIEN” which means “I’M FINE/WELL.”

A Big Mistake!

Even worse, if you mix up the verb with the adjective and say: “ESTOY BUENO”, you are actually saying, “I’M SEXY“.

Now, that might be true, but it isn’t something that you want to go around telling people. Better that you let them make their own mind up on that, don’t you think? lol

The same applies with the words, MAL and MALO.

You use MAL when you want to say that you are feeling bad. “ESTOY MAL” whereas MALO means bad in another way, like a bad person. So, if you say, “SOY MALO” you are saying that you are intrinsically BAD/WICKED/EVIL.

The correct version is to say: “ESTOY MAL“, which describes your current state: “I’M POORLY/ILL“.

Of all the Spanish adverbs, these are probably the ones that create most problems, however, in this podcast we help you understand how to construct all the adverbs and what their job is.

It’s really worth becoming familiar with them, and when you do, your Spanish, as well as your Spanish Adverbs,  will move forward to a new level of excellence.

Buena suerte,

Gordon y Cynthia 🙂

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What is the Spanish Conditional Tense?

The Spanish Conditional tense is a frequently used and important part of Spanish grammar. Its job, in essence, is to give a sense of what could be, what should be, or what would be possible.

An old English teacher of mine called it the EXCUSE tense. He said that if he could, he would ban it from use. His reasoning was that when people used it, it more than often was their way of saying they weren’t going to do something. Most often, it’s followed by the word BUT, which is an acronym for Behold the Underlying Truth. lol

Example:

I would eat more vegetables BUT I don’t like them. (And so I’m not eating them.)

Comería más verduras PERO no me gustan.

We would have arrived earlier BUT… (We didn’t arrive earlier.)

Habríamos llegado más temprano PERO…

I would study more Spanish BUT I just haven’t got the time. ( I can’t be bothered to study more Spanish.)

Estudiaría más español PERO simplemente no tengo tiempo.

So, as you can see, the Spanish conditional works very much in the same way as does the English version.

It’s not always an excuse tense.

Of course, the conditional can be used for other things such as talking about possibilities and desires.

You can use it to talk about what you would like by using GUSTAR.

Me gustaría tomar un café. = I would like to have a coffee.

Or what you could do:

Podría hacerlo. = I could do it.

Spanish Conditional with the dreaded IMPERFECT SUBJUNCTIVE.

Maybe you have already seen a construction with the Spanish conditional along with the imperfect subjunctive, like this:

Si tuviera más tiempo  lo pasaría estudiando el español. = If I had more time I’d spend it studying Spanish.

As this podcast is for beginners, then this particular construction will not be covered here. However, to know more you could always watch our Subjunctive range found on Youtube.  

So, join us to find out how to make the Spanish Conditional tense and to hear how it is used. Of course, our Helpsheets available on our website will guide and assist you to really grasp this tense and use it like a true native speaker.

Hasta pronto,

Gordon y Cynthia 🙂

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Easy Spanish?

This may sound like a cliché and let’s be clear, what we are saying here is NOT the following:

Easy Spanish in one weekend!

Easy Spanish with 300 words!

Easy Spanish without verbs!

or even

Easy Spanish whilst you sleep!

and the best we’ve seen,

Easy Spanish without studying!

 Así no se hace.

No, no, no. Our suggestion is to steer clear of anything that claims to be magical.

When we say, Easy Spanish, what we are referring to are ways to make your Spanish easier to use. There are many great ways of learning Spanish and we certainly do not claim to offer you the only way to learn.

However, over time we have found that there are some things that really do make a difference. We already have talked in a previous podcast about ensuring that you READ, WRITE, LISTEN and SPEAK Spanish every day, even if it’s just a matter of a few minutes of each.

It seems that one of the best ways of learning a language is to chunk it down into small bites. When you look at the entire process involved in learning Spanish, you could easily become overwhelmed by the vastness of it all.

That’s why it’s better just to look at the next step, whilst being vaguely aware of what lies ahead without worrying overly about it.

Another important requirement is repetition. Just because you’ve seen one thing does not mean that it’s logged into your mind. It’s the dogged repetition that does that.

I’ve lost count of the times in which I have covered a particular subject or grammar point for the fourth or fifth time with a student and only then have they had that wonderful “lightbulb” moment in which it all fits together for them.

Quite often they say to me: “Ah, I get it now. Why didn’t you tell me that before!”

Of course, I had done, many times before, but they simply weren’t in the right place to understand it.

Learning language is like working on a giant 100,000 piece jigsaw puzzle and the problem is that you’ve lost the box top that had the whole picture on it. You can recall vaguely what it was, but the details aren’t available.

So, what happens is that you have to start forming the corners, the edges etc. and little by little you get pieces of the image, but not the whole picture.

Sometimes you manage to get a little cluster of pieces that fit together but you have no idea where they fit into the whole puzzle.

And so that’s why you can have lots of information and still feel confused about what it is you are doing. It’s only when one important piece links lots of others that you get that “KERJING” moment and you see the bigger picture.

Remember the 80/20 rule and you’ll be much calmer and more patient with yourself.

Learning Spanish is 80% frustration and confusion and 20% clarity. Expect it to be like that and you’ll find yourself enjoying the whole process. Welcome the confusion, because we’ve always found that just after confusion comes clarity.

Sometimes, you have to wait a while for it to arrive, however! 🙂

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 10:20 — 23.7MB)