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	Download the Special Emociones PDF Includes Audio transcript and huge vocab list!

In today’s special audio, we tell the story about how Ben discovered an intriguing list of Spanish emotions pinned above Marina’s desk.

It turned out to be a powerful exercise she was trying out to pinpoint different emotional states!

When I saw the list, I knew it would have huge value for our Notes in Spanish listeners, so we decided to talk about its origins, and more emotions, in a special audio that we have for you today. You can get both the audio and the accompanying transcript/emotions list, above.

Here’s the video all about big news in Spain, and OUR big news!

Context: Marina heads down to the local kiosko to pick up and discuss 3 of the most important newspapers in Spain. We talk about the ‘politics’ of each paper, and about our own primary news sources.

We want to send our warmest thanks to everyone who bought something from our store in our special ‘Ben’s Birthday/Get Back To Your Spanish’ week (Sept 1st to 7th).

We promised to send 10% of any revenue from that week to Unicef’s program to fight infant mortality:

Well, we took 10% as promised, threw in a bit extra from our own pockets to make a nice round number, and yesterday sent a fantastic total of 1,500 Euros to Unicef.

Thanks so much to everyone that was able to help. We hope this amount can make a significant difference to the lives of children in need.

Sois los mejores…

Saludos desde Madrid,

Ben y Marina

(We will continue to ensure that at least 5% of all annual profits from Notes in Spanish go to charitable causes connected to helping children and the environment).

Yes, we have a big problem in our life, maybe you can help us make a decision! Here’s the video, and if you find it tricky to understand everything, I’ve outlined a bit of context and a couple of bits of helpful vocab. below:

Context: Our house has got too small now we have baby Leo with us, plus we just aren’t sure we want to live in a big city anymore… we need to move fast!

Useful vocab:

Estoy un poco agobiado – I’m a bit stressed

Nuestra casa se nos ha quedado pequeña – Our house has got too small for us

Un sofa-cama – A sofabed

El salón es la habitación mas fresquita – The living room is the coolest room

Corre un poco de brisa – There is a bit of a breeze

Una ciudad un poco mas verde – A city which is a bit greener

A lo mejor alguien quiere alquilar este piso! – Maybe someone wants to rent our flat!

…And don’t forget that old classic (particularly loved by las chicas) to help you remember that ‘problemA’ is masculine:

“Los problemas son masculinos, ¡y las soluciones son femeninas!”

If you enjoyed the video and vocab, and like our real Spanish approach, check out more of our best Spanish learning materials in our store now!

- Ben y Marina

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

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

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