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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 🙂

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

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)

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

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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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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 12:25 — 11.4MB)

Early Intermediate Spanish 31 Mistakes with SE in Spanish

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Se in Spanish…what’s it all about.error scale

We have already covered the multiple uses of SE in Spanish and the overwhelming amount of areas in which it appears. However, in this podcast we are focussing on the uses of SE in Spanish around Reflexive, Reciprocal and Pronominal verbs. (All of these names just mean verbs that use the SE in Spanish)

The main issue.

The main issue, and one that we cover in this podcast is that we tend to see and hear the same mistakes being made by students as they work their way through these concepts. It’s not that this particular part of SE is terribly confusing, but rather, it’s probably because for English speakers (and those of other languages), this is a unfamiliar concept.

To begin with, although we have reflexive verbs in English, we haven’t made them into an art form as have Spanish speakers. The fact is that unless you understand these SE verbs completely, you will have confusion in every tense you come across. (They are EVERYwhere.)

In addition to that, even if we did have the self same system in our own language, we have all learnt English unconsciously for the most part. That means that we haven’t analysed our own language the way we have to when we begin to learn another one.

Can you get by without the SE in Spanish?

Absolutely not! If you’ve seen the video that I (Gordon) made called: A fun look at the use of SE in Spanish, then you’ll know that SE has found its way into almost every aspect of spoken and written Spanish. Therefore, it’s vital that you understand the Reflexive verb concepts fully, something that will allow you to know when the SE in Spanish is reflexive and when it’s something else.

A great tip.

If you really want to get to grips with the use of SE in Spanish, then our advice is  for you to begin reading books in Spanish.  Spanish books, especially novels, are filled with every kind of SE. Many of our students bring their books to class to specifically ask what many of the SE mean.  Why don’t you try that too? Even if you don’t have a teacher to ask, you can always go to the forums online and ask for clarity. There are always people willing to help with things like that.

Just be careful.

We do qualify that suggestion by saying that you mustn’t take people’s explanations as ‘gospel’ as they say. Especially if they aren’t teachers. (Don’t even believe us all of the time!) There are always differing opinions and different ways of seeing the same thing.

Enjoy the podcast and remember that all podcasts are backed up with Helpsheets to give you a deeper understanding of the subjects we cover.

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 10:44 — 9.8MB)

Advanced Intermediate Podcast 31 Spanish Preterite vs Imperfect

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ball scaleThe Spanish Preterite vs Imperfect.

In all of our private classes we probably spend more than 50% of our time helping people control the Spanish preterite vs imperfect tenses.

Why?

Well, there are two principle reasons. The first is that we talk in the past a LOT! The second is that getting them right can be a real challenge!

Juggling the Preterite and the Imperfect

In our own mother tongue we don’t think twice when we want to tell a friend about something that happened to us the other day. The words just roll off our tongue as we focus on telling the story and not on HOW to tell the story.

It’s quite the opposite, however, when we have to battle with the Spanish preterite vs imperfect whilst at the same time managing our tale and trying to keep our listener interested.

Then there are all those rules

It’s a fact that to learn when to use these tenses you have to know quite a few rules and regulations.  What’s more, before we open our mouths we have to trawl through a number of questions to know if we should be saying ‘pude’ o ‘podía’.

All this mechanical brainwork slows our speech right down, sometimes to a snails pace, and can be very frustrating.

The ironical thing

The irony of it all is that if you were to speak to a Spanish speaker about the rules, they would have no idea what you were waffling on about. Native speakers don’t use rules to speak. They just do it. They don’t have the constant battle between the Spanish preterite vs imperfect as we do.

In fact, most times,  when you ask them if the preterite or the imperfect is correct in a particular sentence they will tell you that both are fine!

Lots of times both are correct

What??? How can both be correct? Well, think of these sentences:

I talked to my friend the other day. (Pret)

I was talking to my friend the other day. (Imperf)

Is there a lot of difference when we compare the two sentences? Not really.

Do the two sentences mean different things? Maybe yes, maybe no. Some people would argue that they were very different, some would say they were identical.

Am I measuring it or describing it?

Really, the bottom line is that to understand the Spanish preterite vs imperfect puzzle, all you have to do is ask yourself the above question.

The preterite is a measurement of action.

The imperfect is a description of what was happening.

And if it were that easy, all our problems would be solved. However, the real skill is putting those benchmarks into practice. In this podcast we help you do that. Listen in and perhaps you’ll learn the most important thing about the Spanish preterite vs imperfect up to now.

Saludos, Gordon y Cynthia

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 12:00 — 11.0MB)