Can’t see the video here? You can see it direct at youtube.com here

Context

Ben and Marina discover that although a lot of shops are going out of business in their neighbourhood, fruit and veg shops continue to open continuously and thrive!

Vocab and phrases from the ‘Analysis’ section

Los pequeños comercios – Local shops / small businesses
Están cerrando sus puertas – They are going out of business
Grandes almacenes – Superstores
¿Qué te contó la dueña? – What did the owner tell you?
Hola, ¿qué me cuentas? – Hi, what’s new?
No suele estar lo suficientemente madura – It (the fruit) doesn’t tend to be ripe enough
Está un poco entera /un poco verde – It’s a bit unripe
5 raciones de fruta al dia – 5 portions of fruit or vegetables a day
Una ración – Like a big tapa, a big plateful of ham for example
Un racimo de uvas – A bunch of grapes
Las generaciones mas mayores – The older generations
Los mayores – Older people
“Mis viejos no me dejan ir a la discoteca” – My parents won’t let me go to the disco (very informal/teenager only!)

Update: Gold Season Two, as mentioned in the video, is now available as a complete season pack in our store:

Get the Gold Season Two Complete Pack Here.

Saludos desde Madrid,

Ben y Marina

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Q and A Audio: [Download MP3]

Q and A PDF Notes: Download the Q and A PDF Notes

We really hope you enjoy the Q and A recording above, do download the notes PDF for your reference as well!

Again we are really sorry not to have been able to answer all 250+ questions!! But we will try and cover some of the other great questions in future newsletters, reports, and audio.

!Hola!

Some of you will have heard our Q and A recordings in the past – it’s where Marina and I directly answer your questions about learning Spanish in a special audio, and give a big prize for the best question!

We are planning to record a new Q and A for you all this Wednesday (November 10th), so we need your questions by late this Tuesday night (tomorrow!)

The prize for the best question will be a 100 euro Amazon voucher (amazon.com or .co.uk)!

We’ll release the Q and A next week and announce the winner then.

Update: The audio has now been released, with details of the competition winner – click here to listen now!

Saludos from Madrid,

Ben y Marina

Many thanks to one of our listeners, Bill, for letting me know about this…

The famous Spanish writer Lucía Echevarría, winner of the “Planeta” literature prize, recently mentioned in an interview the much-held belief that “murciélago” is the ony word in the Spanish language that contains all 5 vowels.

An ABC reader, José Fernando Blanco Sánchez, sent the following letter to the newspaper, with the aim of “broadening her knowledge”:

———
Carta al director del diario ABC

Y repita conmigo, como diría Cantinflas: ¡Lo que es la falta de “ignorancia”!
———

Well, he pretty much put her in her place I think! Don’t worry if you don’t know all the 5-vowel words in the letter above, José Fernando Blanco Sánchez is obviously a bit of a word-smith!

Just stick with our free real Spanish audio conversations, and you’ll learn all the Spanish you need! And don’t forget that you can really see and dig deeper into all our conversations in the special accompanying worksheets.

Hola!

I (Ben) had a great ‘in at the deep end’ Spanish learning experience this weekend! I offered to help translate for a friend who was running a deep relaxation course here in Spain.

He spoke in English, and I had to simultaneously translate into Spanish for the Spanish people who had come to the course.

All went well as I translated to the 70+ people present that they had to first lie down, relax their breathing, put their arms by their side… but things got tricky after that.

‘Put your hands on your cranium…’ OK, craneum is ‘craneo‘, I knew that one, feel your brain, ‘cerebro‘, relax, and on down the body he went, talking them (via me) through the face (cara), the lungs (pulmones), the heart (corazón)…

Then the first major problem arrived. ‘Put your hands over your liver’… said my friend.

Now, I always get this word wrong. Is it ‘hígado’, or ‘hidalgo’… One means liver, the other means nobleman… when I usually get this one mixed up, Marina always laughs at me (e.g. when I describe how alcohol is bad for your nobleman!) so I had to get this right!

And I had a split second to decide which one it was before I announced the Spanish instruction to 75 already-very-relaxed people! I went for Hígado, and luckily no-one made a squeak as they carefully lowered their hands to their livers…

Then, the final nightmare, with the instruction ‘Put your hands under your armpits’.

I know two words/phrases about armpits, one is ‘te canta la ala‘, which is a very very informal way of telling someone you know very very well that they didn’t use enough deodorant this morning, and the other word is ‘sobaco‘.

I knew it sounded a little informal, but it’s all I had, so I went for it: ‘Manos debajo de los sobacos‘… at which point 15% of the assembled relaxed people started giggling!

Someone lying on the floor near to where I was sitting opened their eyes, looked at me, and hissed ‘¡Axilas!’ That was the word I was looking for!!

Sobaco was way too informal still for the setting, whereas Axila was the correct ‘anatomical’ version.

In the end it didn’t matter at all. After 2 hours of simultaneous translation into anatomical Spanish, I felt like my Spanish had leapt to another level, and a lot of the now-very-relaxed Spanish people said I’d done a great job!

It was a great reminder of how it pays HUGE dividends to challenge yourself beyond your pre-conceived limits. Often you are ready to make the jump up to another level with just a tiny bit of help, just a tiny bit more effort (and it’s often when you think you are most ready to throw it all in and give up on Spanish for good!)

So forget about worrying about Spanish being too hard, or about making mistakes in public – forget all your worries, and jump in with both feet as I did this weekend!

Check out more of our audio, get the higher level worksheet pack you’ve been thinking about in our store, and amaze yourself with what you can do with your Spanish!

Here’s our latest video, with a key ‘analysis’ section in the second half:

Useful vocab and phrases from the analysis section of the video:

Hay una avería – There is a fault / problem (in this case no hot water in the building)
Afeitarse – To shave
Estoy hecho un guarro – I’m ‘a bit rough around the edges’, unpresentable
Vas hecho un guarro – You look a real mess
Tenemos esa inquietud de aprender cosas nuevas – We have the need to learn new things
Estar inquieto – To feel restless
Esperamos que vayáis a ir a por ello – We hope you are going to go for it!
Profe de yoga para embarazadas – Yoga teacher for pregnant women
Doula – Mother who helps pregnant women before, during and after birth
Nos gustaría que vosotros nos contaseis lo que tenéis en mente para mejorar vuestro español – We would like you to tell us what you have in mind to improve your Spanish
Aprovechando que está aquí – Making the most of being here

Remember, the worksheet packs that accompany our audio help you actually SEE the language (just like in the list from the video above), invaluable if you want to learn more Spanish, more quickly.

Head to our store now to check them out:

http://www.notesinspanish.com/store

—

Context:

Ben and Marina talk about their wedding anniversary and holiday plans, and help you learn more Spanish with the new ‘Analysis’ section at the end.

Useful Vocab:

Estar listo – To be ready
Ser listo – To be clever
Preparados, listos, ya – Ready, steady, go.
Abanico (m.) – Fan
Abanicarse – To fan
El que me tocó a mi – The one that was handed out to me
Te toca a ti – It’s your turn
Raparse – Informal way to say I’ve had a hair cut – usually used when it’s really short.
Nos vamos dentro de muy poco de vacaciones – We are going on holiday very soon.
Dentro de un mes – In a months time
Dentro de nada – In a very short while
Dar a luz – To give birth
Esperamos estar en Francia cuando llegue el bebé - We hope to be in France when the baby arrives.

Useful Links:

Get The Super Simple Spanish Subjunctive Rule Book

Get Notes in Spanish Gold (New Audio With Similar Special Analysis)

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!

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!