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!

¡Hola! We’ve got a great new free Spanish report for you, all about uses of the verb ‘Dar’.

In fact, we’ve come up with a total of 34 excellent ‘Dar’ phrases and expressions that are commonly used by Spanish speakers every day, and will help you to sound more Spanish than ever!

Download the special report here:

34 Uses of Dar! PDF

Let us know what you think! – Ben y Marina

P.S. We give stuff like this away to our newsletter subscribers all the time, make sure you are signed up via the form on the right >>>

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In today’s special audio, part of our mission to help you have your best Spanish learning year ever, Ben and Marina look at useful Spanish vocabulary and phrases connected with going to the doctor and describing illness and symptoms.

Many thanks to Sarah for helping out with this great list! If you have any useful phrases to add, please do so in the comments!

Here’s the list of phrases we discuss in the audio:

encontrarse bien – to feel well
no encontrarse muy bien – to feel unwell
encontrarse fatal – to feel terrible
encontrarse fenomenal – to feel great

estar malo – to be ill
ser malo – to be a bad person

estar enfermo – to be ill (temporary)
ser enfermo / ser un enfermo – to be permanently ill, or mentally ill

estar pachucho/a – to be ill (slang from Spain)

estar ñoño/a – to be in a funny mood/clingy when kids are ill (slang from Spain)

“No estoy muy católico/a” – I’m feeling rotten (slang from Spain)

me duele la cabeza – I’ve got a headache
me duele la garganta – I’ve got a sore throat
me duele la espalda – I’ve got backache

tengo gripe – I’ve got the flu
tengo fiebre – I’ve got a fever
tengo una tos muy fea – I’ve got a horrible cough

Get hours more great Spanish in our free Spanish audio, and accompanying worksheets.

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We recently got an email from Phil, who lives in Andalusia, about a bit of a problem:

“…one of the problems I have with my Spanish neighbours is just exchanging pleasantries, especially showing appreciation for things without just repeating ‘muchas gracias’ over and over again – as the British are wont to do!

They are forever giving us little gifts, inviting us to join them for meals etc, and sometimes we do , and other times we can’t. But I’d love to have a few more ways to say: That’s very kind of you; What a nice thought; What a lovely idea!; Oh, that would be lovely; Oh thank you, but we can’t today etc etc.”

Hopefully the audio above gives you a few more phrases for your arsenal Phil!

Here are the phrases we discuss in the audio above:

Que detalle mas bonito – What a lovely thought

Gracias por haberos acordado de nosotros – Thanks for thinking of us

Que buena idea – What a great idea

Que buen plan – What a great sounding plan

Nos encantaría – We’d love to

Nos encantaría, pero no podemos porque ya hemos quedado – We’d love to but we can’t as we’ve already made other plans

Estamos muy agradecidos estaba todo riquísimo – Thanks so much, it was all delicious

Es que no puedo porque tengo que ir al dentista – I can’t as I have to go to the dentist

Es que no me viene bien - It’s not convenient

Useful links:

For more on making excuses and ‘Quedar’, Listen to:
Inspired Beginners 14 – “Quedar”

For more useful Q and A sessions like this, join Notes in Spanish Gold! Sign Up Here Now!

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!

How many do you know? Which is your favourite? Join the dar discussion in our forum!

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.

Check it out here for full details:

The Real Spanish Phrase Book and Audio Guide

1. Más terco que una mula. (literal translation – More stubborn than a mule)

Significado real: Expresión que se usa para referirse a alguien muy muy cabezota. Cabezota es aquella persona que cuando se le mete una idea en la cabeza no hay manera de hacerle cambiar de opinión.

Explicación: Supongo que las mulas son muy cabezotas;-)

Ejemplo 1:
Mi hijo pequeño es más terco que una mula. Ha dicho que no se va a poner traje para la boda de su hermano y no hay manera de hacerle cambiar de opinión.

2. Meter entre ceja y ceja. (literal translation – To insert between the eyebrows)

Significado real: Expresión que se usa para indicar que alguien tiene una idea o un deseo y que no va a parar hasta hacerlo realidad.

Traducción: To get something into one’s head

Ejemplo 1:

A mi novio se le ha metido entre ceja y ceja que en verano nos vamos a ir de vacaciones al Caribe y no hay manera de hacerle cambiar de opinión. ¡Con el miedo que me dan a mi los aviones!

¿Se os ocurre alguna otra frase relativa a los cabezotas?

1. De pascuas a ramos. (literal translation – From easter to bunches)

Significado real: Expresión que se usa para indicar que algo no ocurre muy a menudo.

Explicación: El periodo de la Semana Santa va desde el domingo de Ramos, dí­a en que comienza la Semana Santa, al Domingo de Pascua o Resurrección, una semana más tarde.

Ejemplo 1:
- Ana le pregunta a Lola – ¿Has visto a Juan últimamente?
- Lola le contesta – No. Desde que tiene novia nos vemos de pascuas a ramos.

2. De higos a brevas (literal translation – From fig to… fig)

Significado real: Tiene exactamente el mismo significado que la frase anterior.

Explicación: En la zona del Mediterráneo la higuera tiene dos cosechas: una que coincide con la entrada del verano, y que produce un fruto de mayor tamaño llamado breva, y una segunda cosecha que produce un fruto llamado higo. La palabra inglesa para ambos frutos es “fig”. Si algo pasa de higos a brevas es que pasa cada muchos meses.

Ejemplo 1:

- Pepe le dice a Carlos- ¿Vas a ir a ver el partido este domingo?
- Carlos contesta – No, desde que cambié de trabajo voy al fútbol de higos a brevas. Ahora trabajo por turnos y casi siempre me toca trabajar los fines de semana.

¿Se os ocurre alguna otra frase de este estilo?

1. Ni viva, ni muerta. (literal translation – Neither alive nor dead!)

Significado real: Expresión informal que se usa para indicar que no quieres hacer algo, que no lo harí­as viva ni tampoco muerta.

Ejemplo 1:
- Marina le dice a una amiga por teléfono – Esta noche he quedado a tomar sushi con unas amigas. ¿Te quieres venir?
- Su amiga le contesta – No gracias. Yo no tomo pescado crudo ni viva ni muerta.

2. Me niego en redondo (literal translation – I refuse in round)

Significado real: Expresión que se puede utilizar en situaciones tanto formales como informales y que expresa una negación rotunda.

Ejemplo 1:

- El jefe de Juan le dice- El jueves que viene te tienes que ir a Paris durante 5 dí­as a ver a un cliente.
- Juan le contesta- Me niego en redondo, ya te dije que ese fin de semana no podí­a viajar, además he estado en cinco sitios distintos en las tres últimas semanas ¿No puede ir uno de mis compañeros?

¿Conocéis alguna otra frase para decir que NO?