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

Watch the video and read the important steps below:

The video talks about how recent blog comments mentioned how hard it can be to write in Spanish. As I explain, about 5 years ago Marina used to laugh at emails I wrote in Spanish to a translation agency, even saying at the beginning “you write like a 5 year-old Spanish child!!”

However, I soon found that by just writing more, and getting Marina to help out with mistakes, I was getting much much better at writing in Spanish, and it actually became easy, and even fun!

So, we’ve enlisted Isabel, a friend of Marina’s, to come into our forum (at sister-site notesfromspain.com) once a day to join in the conversations, and help out with queries and corrections.

Here are the steps we really hope you will take now to join in, and experience a huge transformation with your Spanish:

1. Register in the forum via this link (takes 1 minute!!)

2. Say hi to Isabel in this thread

3. Join in with and hopefully start new posts in the Spanish speaking section of the forum

4. Pop in once a day to join in the conversations and see a huge improvement in your Spanish writing confidence!

(Remember to say something like ‘corrections welcome’ in your forum signature if you want help with mistakes!)

That’s all! We really hope you will join us for this, I’ll be there writing too (and getting corrected I hope!)

See you in the forum! Ben

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.

[Download MP3]

Listen to my special Spanish report (via player above this line) on how to achieve any goal this year, and do let me know what you think in the comments below! Many thanks, and Happy New Year!

NEW UPDATE – The free transcript for this recording is now available. Just click on this link (or right-click and ‘save link/target as’) to start the download:

Reto Transcript PDF Download Link

Saludos desde Madrid!
Ben y Marina

We did it! With your help, with 10% of the proceeds from our 2008 winter sale, we reached our 1,000 Euro target for children affected by the Cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe. In fact, we decided to round things up, and used Notes in Spanish funds to raise the total donation to Unicef’s Zimbabwe fund to 1,500 Euros:

As it says on the Unicef website, “Zimbabue está experimentando el peor brote de cólera de los últimos años. Más de 500 personas han perdido la vida, tras el colapso del suministro de agua y de la sanidad. UNICEF trabaja contra reloj para evitar la extensión de la enfermedad y para atender a las familias afectadas.”

Many many thanks again. Finally, we hope to donate 5% of all profits from our company, Notes from Spain S.L. (parent company of Notes in Spanish), to charity in 2009, mainly children’s charities again.

Saludos desde Madrid,

Ben y Marina

¡Feliz Navidades! from Ben and Marina at NotesinSpanish.com!

Our 2008 Christmas Sale in now over, we’ll be reporting on how much we raised for charity (see below) on Monday! It’s good news!

Sale News Update 2: 10% of all monies collected in this sale period will be going immediately to Unicef’s projects to help children in the midst of the terrible Cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe. We hope to reach our target of donating 1,000 Euros or more before Christmas. Help us make a difference while helping your Spanish out at the same time by buying in our store now! – Ben