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Beginners Spanish Podcast 29 – Learning Spanish Conversation with Opinions

meeting scale beg 29 opinonsLearning Spanish Conversation

In the past

One of the most frequent reasons we hear for people learning Spanish is so that they can have “a chat” with the locals in their favourite holiday resort.  Naturally, “a chat” can mean many things to many people and there are different levels of “chatting” that go from asking someone how they are to asking their opinion on the political climate.

During the 90’s in the U.K. there was a surge in the number of people learning Spanish. This was because 80% of people who went abroad for their holidays went to Spain. Not only that but a lot of people were making plans to retire to Spain and realised that they need to get the “lingo” if they were to survive out there.

The problem was that most people who wanted to learn Spanish were terrified of GRAMMAR. This was a throw back from their school days that they had never learnt to overcome and so many colleges that offered Spanish were getting requests for courses that focussed more on the spoken word than on grammatical structure.

Beginner’s Conversational Spanish. (the oxymoron)

Because of this obvious marketing opportunity, there suddenly appeared on the market a plethora of Spanish classes entitled, “Beginner’s Conversational Spanish.”

Now, for anyone who has learnt a language, you will know that no such thing exists.  Conversing in Spanish or in any other language for that matter is a skill that demands high levels of knowledge and vocabulary, not to speak of a  tremendous command of the tenses.

Yet, despite being mis-sold, the classes proved very popular and as a result an entire generation of Spanish speakers were spawned that without any concious awareness went about killing the language with every sentence they uttered and striking fear into every Spanish waiter this side of the costas.

The Turn Around.

Fortunately, the more serious people learning Spanish these days realise that grammar is a fundamental part of learning. And although it’s not easy at first, they are getting to grips with the fact that it must go hand in hand with with learning vocabulary and useful expressions.

So, it’s in this podcast that we aim to give you some useful ways of making conversation in Spanish. We show you how to give opinions and ask others for theirs.

We give you real life examples of how to respond if you agree with what someone says and what to do if you don’t.

Knowing how to ask these kinds of open questions is the key to instigating great conversations and will give you the opportunity to listen, a great skill that not many people are capable of and yet can be the making of your Spanish.

Join us as we talk you through some key ways to really converse in Spanish.

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Beginners Spanish Podcast 30 – Test Your Listening Skills

cute scale 30  listen beg

Learning grammar is so important for any student of the Spanish language. In fact, it’s a vital part of building up your listening skill.

However, there comes a time when the grammar needs to be put to one side and the real work of listening to a genuine conversation in Spanish needs to happen.

The Right and the Wrong way to listen to a Spanish podcast.

Yes, that’s right! There is a right and a wrong way to listen to Spanish being spoken. Over the years we have come across many people who do not know how to listen and have had to learn it as a skill.

You may say: Well, all you need do is listen. What can be so difficult about that?

The truth of the matter, however, is that it isn’t as simple as you might have imagined. Let us tell you about some of the ways NOT to listen first:

The Wrong Way

Rabbit in the Headlights.

This is probably the most common. Many students when faced with a Spanish speaker talking to them quite literally PANIC. They start a running dialogue in their head that normally goes like this:

Oh my God! They’re talking to me in Spanish! What if I don’t understand! What will they think of me! I’m not good enough to have them talking to me! They think I’m fluent! I don’t understand! etc. etc. etc.

Finally, the person puts them out of their misery by finishing what they were saying and the poor listener realises that they HAVEN’T HEARD A WORD THEY SAID.

I’m sure I know that word.

This is another common listening mistake. As someone speaks to you in Spanish,  you hear a word that’s familiar but you can’t quite recall what it means. You start to search your memory asking yourself where you heard it before, whilst all the time telling yourself that you should know it.

Finally, the speaker comes to a close and you realise that YOU HAVEN?T HEARD A WORD THEY HAVE SAID.

The Right Way

The Shower Technique.

This is fairly self explanatory.  When you listen to someone what you should do is to imagine that their words are like drops of water from a shower. You let them wash over you without any attempt to focus on one particular drop.  The idea of this is to capture the idea of the sentence and not the individual details of what is being said. If you hear an unfamiliar word, you just let it go by and trust that your mind will fill in the gaps for you. This works very well.

Pay attention to when you listen in your own language. If someone asked you to repeat word for word what someone has told you, you would find it very difficult. Our minds focus on the message rather than the details.

The Vacant Stare.

This combines nicely with the Shower technique in as much as when someone is talking to you in Spanish, you let the words wash over you whilst you adopt a blank kind of mentality. It’s almost like a state of meditation or trance. Let your breathing slow down, soften the focus of your eyes. Relax your mind. When the person has finished, wait for your mind to tell you what they just said. You’ll be amazed how often what your mind tells you they said is absolutely correct. (And now and again it get’s it absolutely wrong, too!)

The Power of Three.

When you are listening to something NEVER assume that if you cannot understand it the first time around you never will.  This is simply not the case. To know if you can understand something you must first listen to it THREE times as a minimum.

The first time you are just getting a very basic idea of what is being said. The second time around your mind begins to help you fill in the details.  The third time, you begin to focus on the words you missed beforehand.

There is no shame in listening to something TEN or TWENTY times. How many times must children hear a word before they can use it?

Be brave Enough to Ask for Clarity.

If you are in a live conversation, then the most valuable phrases you can learn are:

¿Qué significa eso? = What does that mean?

and

¿Cómo se dice? = How do you say?

and

¿Puedes repetir eso, por favor? = Can you repeat that, please?

Listen if you want to Speak.

Listening is the key to being able to speak. Many students try to talk all the time and never really move beyond the level they are at. This is because, to improve your Spanish you must listen well.

Remember: We have ONE MOUTH and TWO EARS and we should use them in that ratio when learning Spanish.

 

Gracias de Gordon y Cynthia. 🙂

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Beginners Spanish Pronunciation 31 LL, Y, B, V. Let’s clear this up!

megaphone scaleThe confusion around Spanish Pronunciation

One of the most confusing issues with Spanish pronunciation is knowing how we should pronounce the Y and the LL, closely followed by the B and the V.

In this podcast we cover the correct way to pronounce these letters according to what is called ‘Received Pronunciation’. For those not familiar with this expression, it simply means the way that we should speak if we were to use standard Spanish. (That’s free of regional accent.)

Of course, the issue is that very few people have an accent free pronunciation. And this is where the problem starts.

That’s not what I hear in my village…

The danger with offering pronunciation guidelines is that invariably, we get emails and comments from people saying: “Well, where I go in Spain they pronounce the V as a V and not as a B as you suggest.”

And what can we say to that? Of course they do! Language is not a solid, unmovable concept. It’s fluid, plastic, and it changes from place to place, from region to region, from north to south, from country to country and even from person to person.

We are just saying that…

Faced with the massive variations that surround us, the very best that we can offer is the ‘standard’ Spanish way. But, why bother? If it’s all so different, why should we even try to follow one way?

The best way to answer that question is to say that everyone understands standard Spanish. Wherever you go in the Spanish speaking world you have more chance of being understood if you aim to speak in standard Spanish.

Remember, for us non-natives, we have the added challenge of achieving a decent pronunciation. Imagine if we spend our efforts copying a really difficult Spanish accent and do a terrible job of it! We are going to have a lot of problems getting Spanish speakers from other areas to understand us.

It’s the best way…

Really, our advice is to work on creating our own standard Spanish pronunciation. Some people say that they don’t want to sound strange. Don’t worry, we do anyway! We are foreign. Spanish speakers will know that we aren’t from their country.

Your challenge…

The very best we can do is to develop such a standard accent that, although Spanish speakers know we are foreign, they can’t tell where we are from! Now, that is ‘un logro’. (An achievement.)

The reason we say that is that it’s normally quite easy to identify the nationality of a Spanish speaking foreigner, especially if they’re French or English because of the R.

So, why not take up the challenge to get your accent as close to neutral as possible. Watch this video podcast as the first step in getting there!

 

Gordon y Cynthia 🙂

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32 Abs Beginners Spanish Test your Level The Mónica Naranjo Concert

monica-naranjo-scaleYour Listening Spanish Test.

In this Podcast we offer you a story about a concert that we went to in Barcelona. It was a show put on by Mónica Naranjo to celebrate her 40th birthday.  Mónica has probably the best, strongest voice in the whole of Spain and yet during her career her music has maintained a cult status in the world of pop. Her fans adore her and she has gained a massive gay following which is palpably visible in the audience of her concerts. Mónica’s style is theatrical, avantgarde and at times almost operatic and Cynthia and I love her.

Our short story with which we give you a Spanish test is centred around our journey to the concert, the poor directions that the hotel receptionist gave us and our subsequent 30 minute walk up what seemed to be a cliff face. Finally, after a great deal of stress, questions to passers by and about two pints of sweat, we finally made it to the Club San Jordi.

The concert was fabulous and Mónica sang all of the songs that we had hoped to hear. The only downside was the pain in our backs that both Cynthia and I were suffering due to having walked around Barcelona all day only to then have to scale a mountain in order to reach the event.  Still, it was worth it and the concert will remain in our memories as one of the highlights of 2014.

Once we move to Madrid in Spain we will undoubtedly have the opportunity to see many more of our favourite Spanish artists. ¡Qué ilusión!

Why have a Spanish test?

It’s good to make a Spanish test of your listening abilities as often as you can to give you a good gauge on how well tuned in you are to the language. However, it’s not always the level of the Spanish that’s being used that trips us up. More often than not it’s the person that is speaking that makes it easy or very difficult  for us to understand.

In any language, the effort that the person puts into their speech to make themselves understood is paramount to the listener. In my view, the speaker has a more important job to do than the listener. The reason I say that is that I have learnt that there is a certain kind of person that exists in every place in the world that cannot be understood and, at the same time, there are those that can be understood perfectly.

This is why:

Good communicators:

Enunciate all words fully.

Use generous gestures and facial expressions.

Observe their listeners closely, ensuring they are getting all the right signs of understanding.

Speak with a musical, expressive tone neither too high nor too low.

Maintain eye contact and speak toward their audience.

Speak in a measured, medium to slow pace.

Poor communicators:

Swallow their words or barely open their mouths.

Have minimal or non-existent body moments.

Speak in a monotone fashion with little or no expression.

Pay little attention to their listeners.

Often speak down to the floor or away from their audience.

Speak quickly or with a mixed rhythm, trailing off and speeding up toward the end of each sentence.

 Where do you fit in?

So, the question is: Which category does your speaking style fit into? Do you consider yourself to be a good communicator?

Like everything, it’s all about intention. If you really want your audience to understand what you are saying, then good communication comes naturally. However, it doesn’t do any harm to work on the above points so that you can become a master communicator.

After all, if no one understands what you are saying, it’s hardly worth talking. Ha ha.

 

Enjoy the podcast.

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33 Abs Beginners Saying ANY in Spanish Algunos/Unos

Let’s help you to know how to say ANY in Spanish.help scale

 

What’s really interesting is the fact that in English we use ANY in a couple of ways. We have this way:

1, Do you have any glue in your workshop?

and then there’s this kind of ‘any’:

2, I don’t want just any!

This difference causes Spanish speakers no end of confusion because in their language they have two distinct words to express these sentiments.

In example number 1, the ‘any’ is translated as ‘algún pegamento’

(Other options are: alguno/alguna/algunos/algunas)

In example 2, the ‘any’ is translated as ‘cualquiera’.

So, to say ANY in Spanish, you have a few options, something which can cause us problems too. Especially when we are faced with the strange ‘cualquier’ word.

The STRANGE word CUALQUIER

Why is this strange? Well, it’s because this adjective doesn’t behave like normal Spanish adjectives. Rather, it has only two options, regardless of the noun it describes.

Look at this:

No quiero cualquier cosa. = I don’t want just anything.

Yo estaría contento con cualquier coche. = I’d be happy with any car.

Mándame un hombre cualquiera. = Send me any man.

¿Cuál quieres?…Cualquiera. = Which one do you want? …Any.

 

Have you noticed that no matter what the gender of the noun that it describes, when it is used before the noun it is always ‘cualquier’?

Then, if it is a stand-alone word with no noun after it, it turns into ‘cualquiera’ regardless of the gender of the noun it is referring to.

This was always a confusion for me as I began learning Spanish. And so, when I wanted to say ‘any’ in Spanish I would avoid ‘cualquier’ like the plague. Clearly, as you can now see,  you must be able to ‘dominar’ both ‘alguno’ and family as well as ‘cualquier/a’ if you really want to be able to express yourself properly.

In this podcast we help you to do this by way of live examples and simple descriptions that will guide you through this tricky ‘puzzle español’.

Where to go for help.

For more information and guidance on virtually every grammar subject in Spanish all you need do is to use the search bar on our website and you will find what you need along with some simple, easy to understand explanations. Every podcast is backed up by comprehensive Helpsheets and a Transcription/Translation of the spoken Spanish used during the podcast.

LightSpeed Spanish also provides online tuition and is soon to begin offering online group classes on predetermined subjects on a weekly basis.

 

Saludos,

Gordon y Cynthia 🙂

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