Update: The Birthday Sale is now over. Thanks so much to everyone that made the most of this opportunity to improve their Spanish, and help charity at the same time! We’ll be in touch very soon with details of how much we have raised for Unicef. Update 2: results here!

- Muchísimas gracias, Ben

Dejadnos un comentario: ¿Qué tal tus vacaciones? ¿Qué has hecho este verano?

Some useful vocab from the video:

¡Cuanto tiempo! – It’s been a while! / Long time no see!

Acabamos de volver de vacaciones – We’ve just got back from holiday (acabar de + verb – to have just done something)

Descanso total – Total relaxation

Ballenas (f) – Whales

Ya nos toca trabajar – It’s time to get back to work!

UPDATE: WINNERS ANNOUNCED!

Thanks to all who voted! The winners are, First place: Scott 34% (322 votes); Second Place: Ana 31% (293 votes); Third Place: Pippa 16% (149 votes). Congratulations! I’ll be contacting you today! (And well done to the runners up, who also had great videos!)

Original post…

Marina and I have picked the finalists in our Notes in Spanish Video Competition! It was a very very tough job to pick 5 from all the wonderful videos we recieved. We haven’t been able to reply personally to everyone that entered (or we’d be here all week!) but we want to thank you all again for taking the time to participate – we really enjoyed your videos!

Please take a minute to watch all 5 of the short finalist videos below, and then vote for the one you like most using the special poll under the last video. The voting ends this Thursday July 9th at midnight, and we’ll award prizes (top prize 150 dollar Amazon voucher and more goodies!) to those three lucky winners with the highest number of votes on Friday 10th.

Here are the videos!

Finalist Number 1! Ana: WINNER 2ND PLACE!

Finalist Number 2! Pippa: WINNER 3RD PLACE!

Finalist Number 3! Patrick:

Finalist Number 4! Kjersti:

Finalist Number 5! Scott: WINNER 1ST PLACE!

Here’s the poll. Wathced all the videos? VOTE NOW!!

Muchas gracias! Ben y Marina

Keep boosting your Spanish with our audio!!

UPDATE! The competition is over and the winners have been chosen, please do check out the videos here!

One of the biggest Spanish learning tips I can give anyone who is likely to be spending some time in a Spanish speaking country, is:

Talk to taxi drivers! Despite the fact that a few of them are unscrupulous and grumpy, most are incredibly friendly, and delighted to have an interesting chat with the foreigner (you and I) in the back seat.

I’ve learned so many interesting Spanish phrases from taxi drivers, and this weekend I got another, real classic.

I was chatting away to the driver about how well you can eat ‘on the cheap’ in Spain with a good old lunchtime ‘menu del dia’ (3 course set lunch).

But, he said (getting suddenly worked up), it wan’t the same in London, oh no, just about everywhere you eat lunch in London:

“¡Te fusilan! ¡Te fusilan!”

Fusilar = To shoot, execute by firing squad!

What a great way to say you get charged way too much!

He went on to describe all the ways in which you can also get fusilado, overcharged, here in Spain….

Eat ‘a la carte’ instead of a menu del dia? ¡Te fusilan!
Add an expensive bottle of wine to your meal? ¡Te fusilan!

So there we have it. Talk to taxi drivers! They have all the best words and phrases!

If you don’t think you’ll be traveling in a Spanish taxi soon, don’t worry! Just about every great Spanish expression I’ve every learned in the back of a Madrid cab is included (with full pronunciations from Marina) in our sound-super-authentic ‘Real Spanish Phrase Book and Audio Guide’: Click here to check it out and get more fluent now!

In today’s video, in honour of World Environment Day, Marina brings us up-to-date (nos pone al día) on the ‘Bosque Notes in Spanish’, the Notes in Spanish Forest, which has now been planted, with your help, by the charity FAPAS in Asturias, Northern Spain.

You may remember that the 120 cherry trees, donated by Notes in Spanish using a percentage of the profits from the sale of our ‘Crisis Collection’ pack earlier this year, are there to help feed the endangered brown bear population, and to compensate CO2 emissions. In fact, the trees will absorb 4.5 tonnes of CO2 and produce 2.4 tonnes of fruit per year! Thanks so much again to everyone that bought the ‘Crisis Collection‘ and made this possible.

Context: In the video Marina starts out by telling us about a corner of the Retiro park that looks just like the countryside beyond Madrid, and goes on to talk about how the Notes in Spanish trees have now been planted, the care that has been taken by FAPAS in the way they have been planted, and ends by thanking you all for your help again (also, see the helpful vocab list below):

More vocab from the video:

Las afueras de Madrid – The outskirts of Madrid
La encina – Holm oak
El cerezo – Cherry tree
La supervivencia de los árboles – The survival of the trees
El abono – Fertilizer
El ciervo – Deer
La corzo – Roe deer

Finally… Helping more charities AND your Spanish at the same time:

We will continue to support environmental and children’s charities by donating up to 5% of all Notes in Spanish profits every year to good causes.

Buy a Spanisih-boosting pack from our store now and help more than just your Spanish at the same time!

Our Iberian wine expert friends Ryan and Gabriella asked us to come up with a quick report full of fun Spanish wine phrases. It’s short and sweet (like a fine Vino Blanco ), and before I explain what this is all about, you should download the report right now via this link:

Spanish Wine Phrases Report PDF

Got the report? Great. Ryan and Gabriella asked us to put this together to accompany an event later this month called ‘Twitter Taste Live’, which basically involves people all over the world trying Spanish wines while ‘tweeting’ about it on Twitter!

No idea what that means?!

Well, Twitter is a ‘micro-blogging’ website that is on its way to being as massive as Facebook – the first thing to do is to sign up and follow me (Ben) on Twitter here: http://twitter.com/bencurtis

Following me now? Great! As well as Tweeting for the wine event, I’ll try and post some cool snippets and photos from Spain there regularly. Finally, you can get more info on the Twitter Taste Live event (April 24th at 6pm-8pm GMT) at Catavino.net.

¡Saludos desde un Madrid muy soleado!

Ben

P.S. More on “Al Pan pan, y al vino vino”, mentioned in our newsletter but not in the report, in this thread in our forum.

P.P.S. Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter! http://twitter.com/bencurtis

When we asked for ideas about what you planned to do to improve your Spanish massively in one week, we had no idea how incredible the response would be!

Katie, who helps out with our contact and support pages, has helped me organise all your ideas into a free report that can only be called “The Most Amazing Spanish Learning Ideas Ever!”

Download the report now for free:

To download the pdf, just click on this link below (in some browsers you may have to right-click on the link and choose ’save link/taget as’)

The Most Amazing Spanish Learning Ideas Ever! – PDF

Please feel free to pass this amazing resource on to friends and other Spanish learners via Facebook, Twitter, Stumbleupon – anywhere you can! Friends will thank you for it!

March 9th, 2009

I don’t normally post our special newletters here on the blog, but this one is important, so I’d like everyone to read it and, importantly, do what it says to really help you learn more Spanish this week! Here it is:

Hola:

Here’s THE number one, typical conversation being repeated in a thousand offices around Spain this Monday morning:

“¿Como estás?”

“De Lunes…”

‘De Lunes’ is SO used in Spain on Mondays, and it basically means ‘fed up and moody that the week is starting again’.

Well, I for one REFUSE to feel ‘de lunes’ EVER, no matter what day it is!

(One of my sisters mocks me by calling me ‘Positive Ben’ – make that ‘Ben el positivo’ for the purposes of this newsletter!)

So, Ben el Positivo’s big tip for not being ‘de lunes’ today (or any day this week) is: Do something for your Spanish!

The whole world is basically permanently ‘de lunes’ right now, but we, the Notes in Spanish brigade, are learning Spanish, thereby improving ourselves immensely and ‘tirando para alante’ (steaming forwards) in the process…

——————————————-
So here’s what I want you to do:
——————————————-

Our Spanish friend Isabel is still spending 3 hours a week in the forums at our sister site notesfromspain.com, correcting your worksheets homework, helping out with your written Spanish and questions, and generally being ’super-maja’ (really nice).

So, I’ve started a new thread in the forum called “Lo que voy a hacer esta semana para mi español” – ‘What I’m going to do this week for my Spanish.’

I want all of you to take just ONE minute to register for the forum (if you haven’t already) and tell us what you’re going to do for your Spanish this week.

Even if you are a complete beginner, try writing in Spanish (Isabel will be along to help out) and you’ll already be doing something great!

Plus, this will: share ideas, motivate all of us collectively, improve our Spanish, and make sure we are NOT ‘de Lunes’!

Please go here to join in now and share your ideas for getting ahead:

http://www.notesfromspain.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7928

Here’s to the best ‘Spanish Learning Week’ ever!

Saludos desde Madrid,

‘Ben el Positivo’

P.S. 4,000 people are likely to open this email this Monday morning!

How motivating would it be if even just half of you joined in the forum thread with your ideas? PLEASE take a minute to register in the forum (if you haven’t already) and join in, let’s see if we can make this the most responded-to forum post ever!

Don’t be ‘de lunes’! Join in here:

http://www.notesfromspain.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7928

P.P.S. It really is possible to make a HUGE difference to your Spanish in one week. Who else wants to make the jump up a level this week?

P.P.P.S. Everyone who writes in that thread will get a special forum Private Message from me later in the week!

Febrero 12, 2009

Many of you will know that while Marina is on maternity leave I’ve been working on some really interesting new audio with her old friend Isabel. Well, it’s ready! I think you’ll really enjoy these recordings, you can read the full story and find out all about the new pack here:

http://www.notesinspanish.com/store/la-crisis-collection.html

P.S. There’s a big discount for those that get in early!

P.P.S. Marina may be on maternity leave, but I still pursuaded her to record a great new bonus for this pack!

Click the link to find out more:

http://www.notesinspanish.com/store/la-crisis-collection.html