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Lots of Spanish phrases and vocabulary for music today, and an insight into Marina’s music tastes in days gone by!
Coming Up - Por, Para and more - Want to hear all the new episodes now?
In the next 4 episodes we totally clear up Por and Para, look at shopping and money phrases, and talk about customs in Spain. Get one of the two worksheet packs below, and you will get exclusive access to this great audio right now (see ‘Read Me’ file in packs for details)!
- Inspired Beginners Super Pack (Best Value):
Follow the whole course from the start with these vocab and grammar packed worksheets for episodes 1 to 30. Get it here!
- Top Up Pack for episodes 26 to 30:
If you have a previous version of the Super Pack you can top it up with the latest episodes here.
Today we look at the Past Perfect in Spanish, which allows us to order events in the past when we are telling a story (like “the robbers had left when the police arrived” in English).
The grammar from today’s podcast is carefully outlined in the accompanying worksheet, a great record for you to refer back to later when reviewing this tense. Pick it up here:
Today we look at words and phrases connected with eating, ordering, and dealing with waiters in Spanish bars and restaurants, plus a run-down of the best Spanish tapas vocabulary and phrases.
The accompanying worksheet that guarantees you learn even more from today’s podcast can be found in our Inspired Beginners worksheet packs.
It’s time to tackle Ser and Estar! This is your definitive guide to why and when we use each of the Spanish verbs for ‘to be’. Also in this podcast, extra listening practice for the Past Tenses, making this one of the most useful podcasts we have ever produced!
The worksheet that accompanies this episode includes a full rundown of all the Ser and Estar grammar covered, providing a great guide for future reference and review. Pick it up as part of one of the great Inspired Beginners worksheet packs in our store.
Echar is one of those words that can mean a lot of things depending on what it’s paired with, and is often confused with hecho. How many Echar uses do you know? Click here to help us out in the forum!
We’re back! In this, the first episode of Season 2, we look at great conversation openers in Spanish to help you out at parties, when you meet new poeple, with intercambios and more! Plus, useful language to help you learn even more when talking to others in Spanish!
Coming up in the next four episodes: More great conversation starters, the Definitive Guide to Ser and Estar!, Tapas bars and restaurant vocabulary, and the last past tense, the Past Perfect.
Marta worked in a UK school for a while this year, and her experiences highlight just why the Brits can be uptight and the Spanish much more relaxed! It’s all about the firefighters!
¿Crees que las normas de comportamiento que se enseñan en el colegio tiene que ver con el carácter de las personas cuando son adultas? ¿Crees que es positivo meter mucho miedo a los niños para que aprendan sobre los peligros de la vida?
For those of you that are not aware of this, one of our Notes from Spain forum’s leading luminaries, Tad, produces high quality Spanish remakes of Hollywood classics. The game is that you have to guess the film. Well worth further investigation here, but whatever you do, obey his rules!!!
And the Winner is… Graham! Graham has sent in a number of very well edited, inspiring videos over the last month, many about his beautiful surroundings in Wales, and finally, this fascinating take on Pablo Naruda…
Many thanks to all of you who entered the competition, it’s been fascinating to see so many corners of the world, and to hear your fantastic Spanish. Please do keep making the videos, the videos thread in the forum will stay open and we’d love to see more of your great work!
¡Hola! It’s time for another one of our L!VE video blogs, ideal for Intermediate to Advanced Spanish lovers, though the phrases taken from the video and listed below are great at every level.
Se me ha caído el pelo - I’m in trouble! I’ve done something bad!
Me he rapado - I’ve had a really short hair cut.
No me tomes el pelo - stop pulling my leg!
More ‘pelo’ phrases…
Por los pelos… - In the nick of time
For example: Justo ha empezado a llover. Hemos llegado a casa por los pelos - It’s just started to rain - we’ve got back home just in time!
Enjoy these phrases? Want more?
If you enjoy using real Spanish phrases to sound really Spanish, then you can find over 100 more just like these in our Real Spanish Phrase Book and Audio Guide: Check it out here!
Marina talks to Maria Rosa about life as a woman under Franco’s dictatorship.
¿Qué te parece el hecho de que María Rosa tuviera que contar con el permiso de su marido para abrir y sacar dinero de su cuenta bancaria? ¿Cuál era la situación de la mujer en tu país en esta misma época (años 60-70)?
Subscribe in iTunes and get the Advanced podcasts automatically as they are released week by week!
Follow the conversation with the full transcript included in every worksheet!
The new Notes in Spanish L!VE video blogging adventure continues (subscribe in iTunes!) Today we talk about a few of our favourite phrases, first of all focusing on the wonderful, and pretty informal, Chungo:
Las cosas se han puesto chungas - Things have got pretty hectic/tricky/difficult.
Lo veo muy chungo - I think it’s going to be difficult (e.g. to get a certain project done by Monday).
¿Qué tal tu abuelo? … Pues está muy chungo - How is your grandfather? … He’s in a pretty bad way.
Other phrases from today’s video blog:
Hasta el 40 de mayo no te quites el sayo - this great phrase basically means it could still get a bit chilly any time up until about June 10th. After that you can pack your coat away!
Se está de miedo - It’s lovely (in this case the weather)
Estamos en la gloria… estamos de maravilla… estamos estupendamente… estamos guay - we are super happy, comfortable and contented (in this case about the wonderful temperatures)!
Hopefully a few of you are thinking about making a video blog to post in our forum, as part of our grand ‘iPod Nano’ videoblogging competition. (Full details here about how you could win!)
We got the first video in yesterday, so thought we would post it here as an example of the kind of thing we’d love to see. In the video, Graham takes us around his village in Wales, pointing out, amongst other things, the old slate (pizarra) mines:
Remember, all the other videos will be posted in our special forum thread, though we may occasionally highlight great ones here in the blog! Do add one from your neck of the woods soon!
Notes in Spanish L!VE - Fun video blogs for Upper Intermediate and Advanced learners - with all the cool vocab explained for everyone below!
This week, La Chuleta…
Cool phrases from today’s video blog…
La Chuleta - a cheat sheet that you smuggle into exams to copy from (what the guys in the photocopying shop wanted the girl behind the counter to make for them!)
Mi viejo/a - My old man, my old lady, slang for parents.
Mazo - slang for ‘lots’. E.g. Me mola mazo, I really like it, or tengo mazo de curro, I’ve got loads of work (curro is slang for work).
Eres un rajao - A rajao is a person that promises to do something with you, and then pulls out (rajao is short for rajado)
Tengo una movida en casa que no veas - You can’t believe the trouble I’ve got at home…
Competition Time!
Why not make a video of your own, and join in our new video blogging competition? You could win an iPod Nano! All Spanish levels welcome!
iTunes Users
You can subscribe to our Notes in Spanish L!VE video blogs in iTunes, via this iTunes link
We’ve decided that our main aim with our new Notes in Spanish L!VE videos is just to have a lot of fun! So here is the latest entry, ‘Truenos’, in which…. Ben es un exagerado, los ingleses saben más, y ¡la gente esta loca!
The top words from today’s video blog are:
Apart from the good old storm vocab (Rayos = Lightening, Trueno = Thunder), the top phrase pick has to be Marina’s comment to Ben:
‘Eres un exagerado!
… a cool Spanish phrase meaning, ‘you are completely over the top!’
If you enjoy these short videos, please sign up to get them automatically, just like our podcasts, via iTunes: Direct iTunes link.
We have just put out a news broadcast on all our feeds, to say to say where we’ve been and where we are going next! You can listen to the broadcast here or in your regular Notes in Spanish podcast feed.
The news-cast includes details about when our regular podcasts will be back (very soon!), and includes a 5 minute sample from our latest project, our Real Spanish Phrase Book and Audio Guide
A random start to our new ‘Notes in Spanish L!VE’ video blogging adventure, in which Ben, the Guiri Total, had to get a bit Spanish in mega department store Fnac to get his Euros back.
This is the start of a new videoblogging season here at Notes in Spanish: there will be lots of videos from lots of places coming your way! We hope to see yours too! Details of a new feed for those that want to subscribe in iTunes etc will follow shortly.
When I started learning Spanish here in Spain over 10 years ago, one of the things that most motivated and inspired me was picking up and trying out the real Spanish phrases and expressions used by Spanish people in their everyday conversations. With Marina’s help I’ve been collecting these colloquial expressions for years, and at last we have finished a really exciting project that means we can share them with you.
Our Real Spanish Phrase Book and Audio Guide contains over 100 of these wonderful, typical Spanish phrases, with over 1 hour and 20 minutes of exclusive audio that won’t be released in any of the usual podcast feeds. We really think this is going to be tremendously useful and exciting for anyone learning Spanish, no matter what your level.
Does any work get done in a Spanish office? And how do you cope with the boss?
¿Crees que la vida en una oficina española es muy distinta de la vida en una oficina en tu país? ¿En qué? ¿Crees que hay diferencias entre el sueldo de un hombre y una mujer que realizan la misma tarea en tu país?
Important news for all of you who regularly dive into the forum at our sister site, Notesfromspain.com - we have a new section dedicated to clearing up Spanish Grammar and Vocab Basics!
Once a Royal cattle trail, this stretch of land just outside Madrid has turned into Europe’s biggest shanty town.
¿Crees que habría que eliminar el asentamiento en la Cañada Real? ¿Existen poblados de chabolas o de casas ilegales en tu país? ¿Y cañadas para el ganado?
Pick up the worksheet that accompanies this podcast here!
Today’s podcast tells the story of when a blog post went very very wrong! ¿Qué te parece el experimento que hizo Ben? ¿Crees que la gente se atreve a hacer cosas por Internet que no haría en la vida real?
Check out our Premium Pack, including all the worksheets for all the levels, and more real Spanish than you can imagine, no matter what your level!
Spain tries to get some lyrics for its national anthem and controversy erupts!
¿Qué te parece que el himno español no tenga letra? ¿Crees que el himno de España debería quedares con la letra que ha creado Paulino Cubero? ¿Conoces algún otro país donde el himno no tenga letra?
We are very grateful to Ian McMillan and his colleagues at Shimna College for producing a list which matches topics from our advanced Spanish audio with topics and themes from the AS and A-Level exam specifications. Hopefully this will be an invaluable resource for teachers following the Spanish A-Level and AS-Level Curriculum. The list can be found in the Spanish teachers area in our Help Section.
Spanish Teachers - How can we help each other to help even more Spanish teachers?
Do you use our audio in your classes or for Spanish exam preparation? We would love to add more ideas and resources to our help section, to benefit more teachers around the world. If you use our podcasts in your teaching program please do contact us to tell us how you find our podcasts or worksheets useful. We’ll be happy to share your tips and ideas with others in our Teachers and Schools Help Area.
I (Ben) used to be a classroom language teacher, and I know that every little bit of fellow teacher support and inspiration really helps!
We look at the extraordinary range of mafias in Europe and discover just how many there are, and what they are up to, in Spain. Click the Play button above to listen now!
Useful Stuff:
Free worksheet for this episode: click here to start pdf download
Many of you have asked why there haven’t been any new Intermediate podcasts since November, and if we plan to continue. Well, we DEFINITELY plan to continue with the Intermediate podcasts, and are recording the latest series right now!
We want to apologise for the delay (we were busy recording the Inspired Beginner series and dealing with Christmas!), and hope to have new Intermediate and Advanced podcasts ready by the end of the month.
Any suggestions for topics you would like covered are very welcome.
This week we look at how two key past tenses, the Pretérito Imperfecto and the Pretérito Indefinido, can be used together to tell a great story in Spanish.
When I started learning Spanish here in Spain over 10 years ago, one of the things that most motivated and inspired me was picking up and trying out the real Spanish phrases and expressions used by Spanish people in their everyday conversations. With Marina’s help I’ve been collecting these colloquial expressions for years, and at last we have finished a really exciting project that means we can share them with you.
This week we discuss Amazon’s Kindle, a revolutionary device that could change the way we read.