False Friends: Don’t get your marmalades mixed up!

To celebrate the public launch of Notes in Spanish Gold (our best audio ever!) we’ve got another great free report for you, with a huge list of over 50 crucial Spanish false friend pairs.

You can download the report below, but do read this classic Spanish-confusion-nightmare tale first:

Why are False Friends important? Some of you may have heard this story before, but it’s worth repeating as a bit of a warning!

NIS listener Courtney sent us this great confession recently, about a somewhat embarrassing experience during the very first day with her host-family in Spain:

“Nunca lo olvidaré: Yo desayunaba con mi nueva “familia” española el primer día que yo llegué a su apartamento en Salamanca. Yo comía un pan dulce con una mermelada bien sabrosa. Les dije a mis “padres”: “¡Ay, que rico! Me encantan estos preservativos….”

At which point the whole family fell about laughing! Courtney, trying to be nice about their preservative jam, had just told them how much she loved their condoms!

The word she was looking for was “mermelada”, of course!

The special false friends report we’re giving away here to celebrate the launch of Notes in Spanish Gold this Monday, has a list of over 50 of these tricky false friend pairs, to make sure you never make an error like that one!

Download it here now:

Download: Notes in Spanish Falsos Amigos Special Report PDF

Important Extra News:

1. If you haven’t got our Spanish Subjunctive 21 page report yet (that basically demystifies it forever!), then get it here right now.

2. Did you see this weeks videos yet? If not, do check out the latest, ‘Our Big Vice’, with the brand-new analysis section in the second half (a winning concept taken straight from our new Gold audio). Watch it here.

2. Notes in Spanish Gold has previously only been for a handful of private members. This is our best work yet! We can’t wait until everyone gets a chance to find out…

Update: Notes in Spanish Gold is available now in our store!

Context: Ben and Marina confess to their biggest vice/addiction, and how it’s shrinking their house (but hopefully expanding their brains with lots of learning!)

New! Today’s video includes a special English analysis section at the end!

Vocab and phrases from the analysis section:

Tenemos un vicio - We have an addiction/vice
Tengo un vicio con el chocolate – I’m addicted to chocolate
La casa se nos está quedando pequeña – The house is getting small for us
Estos zapatos se le están quedando pequeños – These shoes are getting small for him
Tengo muchos de crianza – I’ve got lots [of books] about bringing up kids
Si tuviéramos una casa mas grande compraríamos más libros aún – If we had a bigger house we’d buy even more books
Seguiremos llevándolos al retiro según los vayamos leyendo – We’ll keep taking them to the Retiro as we finish reading them

Have You Got The Amazing Subjunctive Report Mentioned In The Video Yet?

We hope so, it’s our best ever! Make sure you get it here if you haven’t!

And watch out for the launch of Notes in Spanish Gold – It’s our best audio yet, and includes key English analysis like this with every real Spanish conversation!

UPDATE!: Notes in Spanish Gold is available now in our store!

Context: Ben and Marina discuss how they get organic food and vegetables delivered to their house, and how the Spanish drink a lot more alcohol-free beer than the British.

Click Here To Get the FANTASTIC Super Simple Spanish Subjunctive Rule Book Mentioned In The Video!

Useful Vocab from the Video

Fruta y verdura biológica / ecológica – Organic fruit and vegetables
Sabe buenísima – It tastes great
Potitos – Pots of baby food
¡Qué rollo! – What a pain/how boring!
Mega rollo – Mega-sized paper roll
En Inglaterra no esta muy bien visto – It’s not well thought of in England (drinking alcohol free beer)
Todo el cultivo es local – It’s all grown locally
Nos lo traen a casa – They deliver it to our house

Click Here To Get the AMAZING Super Simple Spanish Subjunctive Rule Book Mentioned In The Video!

Junio 2, 2010

Find out how to talk to this lot in today’s downloads!

UNO: Super-Useful PDF’s!

¡Hola! We’ve been going through our personal archives this week, and have found a couple of great pdf’s that we realise we may not have given to everyone yet. Please download these now and add them to your collection if you haven’t got them yet!

Download 1: 11 Cool People Phrases in Spanish PDF
Real Street Spanish from Spain, to fit in with (or be rude about) the locals!

Download 2: Conversation Starters PDF
How NOT To Sound Like A Total Tourist In Spain!!

To download these special reports, click on the links above or right-click on the links, and select “save link/target as” to save the pdf’s to your desktop.

DOS: NIS Charities Update

Every year Notes in Spanish gives away up to 5% of profits from our Store to charity. We’ve recently updated our contributions, and want to thank YOU very much for helping us help these great causes. With your help, we’ve recently added donations for:

- 720 euros to Fapas to plant 120 more trees in Asturias (this is our second tree-planting donation, see a video about the first Fapas ‘NIS Forest’ here).
- 400 Euros to Maitreya Fonds, which supports charitable projects in Vietnam.
- 510 dollars to Care and Share, which sets up schools for orphans in India, amongst other projects.

We have contacts working with all of these charities, so we know they are trustworthy and doing great work!

TRES: Coming Soon!

Keep an eye on your email next week for new Notes in Spanish Videos, plus the best free gift we’ve ever given away… ever! All to celebrate the upcoming launch of a very, very special Notes in Spanish pack on June 14th. More news about that, and more great free Spanish learning content next week!

If you haven’t signed up for our newsletter list yet, make sure you do so now via the form at the top of the right-hand column of this page! That way you’ll get all the cool free stuff first!