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

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[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

Hi,

Just a very quick note about developments here and our big promise for the future of Planeta Notes in Spanish.

First of all we are working on a couple of fun things we’ll be sending your way soon, full of more real Spanish, as well as a HUGE project focusing on one of the cornerstones of the Spanish language, that should be ready early in the New Year.

Which cornerstone is that? A clue can be found in the following phrase picked up from the lovely old guy who works in the underground car park where we keep our car. Looking at our baby son Leo, he said to us:

“¡Que le vean casado!” – May you live to see him get married!

… well, we certainly hope so!

More on the next big thing as time goes on, it’s all part of our early New Years Resolution, Our Big Promise, which can be summed up as follows:

We are absolutely dedicated to creating and giving away the most valuable Spanish learning materials on the internet, and to improving your Spanish learning life over the long term as much as we possibly can.

All you have to do is to stay motivated, and stick with us. Really exciting projects lie ahead.

Saludos desde Madrid,

Ben y Marina

P.S. Do you Twitter? Follow Notes in Spanish on Twitter (you may need to sign up for a free account) and find out exciting things first! Find and follow us at: http://www.twitter.com/notesinspanish

Watch the video we made recently (filmed at home and in Madrid’s Plaza de Oriente) on what we think is one of the most useful things you can ever know when it comes to learning and understanding Spanish, what we call The Context Trick: It’s a real confidence booster!

Combine The Context Trick with the wealth of real Spanish in our audio and worksheet Super Packs, and you’ll improve your confidence SO much faster.

Check out the Super Pack for your level now, and accelerate your Spanish learning:

Inspired Beginners Super Pack: Click Here

Intermediate Super Pack: Click Here

Advanced Super Pack: Click Here

Listen to this audio news update, then check out Real Spanish Control here:

Real Spanish Control

Saludos desde Madrid,

Ben

At last our latest big project is finished. We think it’s going to be hugely valuable to our Inspired Beginners and Intermediate students. Do check it out here:

http://www.notesinspanish.com/store/real-spanish-control.html

We really think it can make a huge difference to your Spanish.

Ben y Marina

Hola a todos!

We’ve been working away on something big we’re going to be announcing at the end of the week, plus we have 3 cool new videos to share with you.

We’ll be releasing them all this week, if you want to make sure you don’t miss them, watch the first here and follow the instructions on how to see the rest!

Don’t miss the first video!

Ben y Marina

Here’s the context: In the video Marina discusses the huge hail storm we had a while back, the effect it had on our terrace, how loads of local cars’ bodywork got trashed (and birds were killed in the park!), and whether our efforts to destroy the environment might be to blame…

Useful vocab from the video:

El Granizo – Hail
El Barreño – Bucket
Las Abolladuras – Dents
El Capó – Bonnet/Hood
La Chapa – The Bodywork

Real Spanish from today’s video:

‘Ayer, cayó una tormenta de granizo de impresión’ – There was an unbelievable hail storm yesterday.

Note, you could also just say: ‘Ayer, cayó una tormenta de impresión’ for a regular storm, without the hail.

If you really want to sound like a genuine Spanish-speaking local, you would say:

‘¡Ayer cayó una qué no veas!’ – There was a hell of a big one last night!

Who else wants to increase their Spanish confidence using even more real Spanish like this?

Check out the Super Pack for your level and get better at Spanish much faster… These packs are carefully designed to help you get the maximum possible from our Spanish audio, and progress faster than with other conventional courses:

Inspired Beginners Super Pack: Click Here

Advanced Super Pack: Click Here