Here are the most common Spanish greetings, together with their English translation:

You can hear these greetings said by native Spanish speakers in the first four lessons of my Spanish for beginners course. Here are the Lesson 1 flashcards:

Learning tip

To learn new Spanish words well, make sure you hear them said by native speakers, rather than someone without a native accent. Learning from native speakers is essential if you want to avoid bad pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar habits.

In this free Spanish pronunciation lesson we’re going to learn how to pronounce the vowel ‘a’ correctly.

You can hear all the Spanish words in this post, including the exercise at the end, in the free Lesson 1 of my Spanish for beginners course.

1. Tips on how to get the Spanish ‘a’ always right

• The Spanish a sounds like the ‘a’ in the English word: ‘father’.
• The Spanish a has a pure, unchangeable sound. You should pronounce it always the same way.
• The Spanish a sounds the same whether it comes at the beginning of a word, in the middle, at the end or on its own.
• Often it will be tempting to say the a like in the English words ‘table’ or ‘hand‘. Unfortunately, doing so will make it difficult for Spanish speakers to understand you.

Pronouncing the vowel ‘a’ correctly will dramatically help you communicate successfully in Spanish.

2. Difficult Spanish words with the letter ‘a’

To master the Spanish a, practice saying words that look similar in English and Spanish. Those words often sound quite different in Spanish, and it can take a while to get them consistently right.

Here are ten words that will help you quickly master the a. To hear them said by native speakers, go to the multimedia Lesson 1 of my Spanish for beginners course. It’s free.

3. Saying a difficult Spanish sentence

Here’s a sentence with several words with the letter a. Read out this sentence paying particular attention to the way you say each a. In my free Lesson 1 you can hear this sentence said slowly and at normal speed.

Can you say this sentence fluently? Try every so often over the next few days and you will soon master it!

4. Spanish pronunciation exercise

We are now going to practice saying ten very useful words: ten place names. They all contain at least one a. Can you say them out loud correctly?

Remember that you can hear all the Spanish words in this post in the free Lesson 1 of my Spanish for beginners course. There you can also download the free Lesson 1 podcast and videocast, and go through them on your iPod or any other mp3 player.

Do you have any questions? Are there any Spanish words you are not sure how to pronounce? If so, please let me know through the comment box below.

In this free Spanish lesson we’re going to learn what’s your name in Spanish and how to introduce yourself.

If you want to hear all the examples in this lesson, you can find them in the free Lesson 2 of my Spanish for beginners course.

1. How to ask people their names, and how to answer the question

This is how you ask someone his or her name in Spanish:

and this is how you answer when people ask you your name:

2. Examples

Here are six examples where you can practice asking people their names and introducing yourself:

3. The literal meaning of ‘¿cómo te llamas?’ and ‘me llamo …’

Here’s what ¿cómo te llamas? and me llamo … mean word for word:

* The word cómo usually means how.
* Te llamas literally means you call yourself.
* When you ask ¿cómo te llamas? what you’re saying is how do you call yourself?
* Likewise, me llamo literally means I call myself.
* When you say me llamo …, what you are saying, literally, is I call myself …

4. How to pronounce ‘¿cómo te llamas?’ and ‘me llamo …’

In the free Lesson 2 of my Spanish for beginners course you can hear all the sentences in this article said by native Spanish speakers, including myself.

When you listen to them, notice how the intonation rises at the end of the question, but not at the end of the answer.

5. Exercise

In the free Lesson 2 of my Spanish for beginners course you can do the interactive multimedia drill to practice what you’ve learned here.

I love audiobooks.

If you’re looking for fun ways of improving your Spanish, here’s a great one: listen to the Spanish audiobook of The Da Vinci Code (El código Da Vinci), by American author Dan Brown, which is now one of the bestselling Spanish audiobooks ever.

You can get the unabridged version for under $24. It comes in 19 cds and runs for nearly 24 hours! If that’s too long, you can also download the abridged 8 hour version.

To really make the most of this audiobook, try following it along with the printed book in Spanish.

If you want to listen to my Lesson 8 podcast mp3s, at Spanish Bookworld you can find the dialog, flashcard, grammar, pronunciation and number podcasts in this lesson.

There you can download the free samples, or listen to them online, and you can also download the videocast samples.

All my podcasts have been recorded by me and other native Spanish speakers, with clear explanations and prompts in English.

To show you what my podcasts sound like, here’s the Lesson 8 dialog podcast sample:

If you’re an audiobook fan, you’re in for a treat. The number of Spanish audiobooks now published every month has dramatically increased over the last few years.

Today you can find dozens of titles in every category imaginable: religion, thrillers and mystery novels, classic literature, children’s books, yoga and fitness classes, self-help books, poetry readings and, of course, Spanish language learning.

Here I’m going to focus on the top 10 bestselling thrillers in Spanish on cd. There are some Spanish authors I expected to feature on this list, like Carlos Ruiz Zafón and Arturo Pérez Reverte, but unfortunately they still haven’t been published on cd in Spanish.

To keep you up to date, I’m monitoring all new audiobook releases and will let you know through this blog what comes out.

Top 10 bestselling thrillers – Spanish audiobooks on cd

1. Ángeles y demonios – Angels and Demons, by Dan Brown

2. El rey de los pleitos – The King of Torts, by John Grisham

3. Las aventuras de Sherlock Holmes – The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle

4. El intermediario – The Broker, by John Grisham

5. La fortaleza digital – Digital Fortress, by Dan Brown

6. El código da Vinci – The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown

7. Caballo de Troya: Jerusalén, by Juan José Benítez

8. La esperada – The Expected One, by Kathleen McGowan

9. Caballo de Troya 2. Masada, by Juan José Benítez

10. Caballo de Troya 7. Nahum, by Juan José Benítez

If you need help finding a Spanish audiobook, or if you want to let us know about a title you like, please post a comment below!

In 1924 Pablo Neruda published Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada (Twenty Poems of Love and a Song of Despair). He was only twenty years old and was to become one of the greatest Spanish-speaking poets of all times.

One of the most memorable poems in this book is the one I bring you here. It’s poem number 20 and is called Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche (Tonight I can write the saddest lines).

In the first video below you can hear Poem number 20 read out in Spanish. Of all the versions I’ve heard this is, in my opinion, the most beautiful one. The reader’s voice captures all the strength and sadness of the verses.

In the second video you can hear Poem number 20 in English. Poetry loses a lot of its beauty and mystery in translation, but in this video enough remains of it to be worth watching at least once.

Pablo Neruda was born in 1904 in Parral, Chile, and died in 1973 in Santiago de Chile, twelve days after general Augusto Pinochet’s military coup. Two years earlier he had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

If you want to get the books Veinte poemas de amor y una cancion desesperada or Twenty Poems of Love and a Song of Despair, you can find them here.

One of the biggest frustrations we all face when learning a foreign language is having to learn the same words over and over.

As a Spanish language teacher, here are 4 tips I’ve found will help you stop forgetting the words you’ve come across:

1. Learn new words with audio material rather than from print only

The difference between learning new Spanish words by reading them in your lesson’s glossary and hearing them said by a native speaker is abysmal.

Hearing new words said by a native speaker, preferably with their English translation afterwards, will not only make you familiar with those words substantially faster, but it will also allow you to remember them more easily.

There are dozens of good Spanish courses with audio material on cd, dvd, cd-rom, podcast and videocast that can help you do just that; and most of them are very affordable.

Check out this example of a vocabulary lesson online, on mp3 and videocast.

2. Learn new words in context

Whenever you learn a new Spanish word, make sure you also hear it in context. Remembering lists of words without context is practically impossible for most of us, because the human brain works best by making associations. In my view, dialogs are the most effective tool for learning new vocabulary.

As an example, here’s the dialog where you can hear all the new words listed in the vocabulary lesson above. You can see and hear it in three formats: online, as an mp3 and a videocast.

3. Find similarities between words

If you can find a similarity between a Spanish word you’ve just come across and another Spanish word you already know or, better still, an English word, you won’t forget it easily.

For instance, when you first see the word encantado (pleased to meet you) you can associate it to enchanted (which it’s related to), or el vino (the wine) to the vineyard.

Other associations are less strong, but they can still help you a long way. Here are some Spanish and English words with the same origin:

I find this way of learning new words so effective that I’ve included word associations throughout my Spanish course, and continue adding new ones to the lessons whenever I find them.

4. Review your vocabulary with audio material regularly

The secret of success, when it comes to mastering Spanish, is to review your material regularly. Listen to your dialogs and vocabulary lessons as frequently as you can. Repeat them out loud, along with the recordings, with and without the printed text in front of you. In other words, make reviewing part of your study routine.

Reviewing always pays off. The more often you review what you’ve learn, the more solid your knowledge will be, and the faster you’ll be able to learn and remember new words.

Penelope Cruz first appeared in front of the cameras in this music video which dates from 1989. The song is called La fuerza del destino (Destiny’s force), and was written and performed by the Spanish group Mecano.

Mecano was a highly successful pop group from Spain. Their career expanded between 1981 and 1992. The lead singer was Ana Torroja, and the other two members were brothers Nacho and José María Cano.

Apart from making a large number of memorable movies, Penelope Cruz has also appeared in other music videos, mainly Cosas que contar by Eduardo Cruz in 2007, El patio by Nacho Cano in 1994 and El waltz de los locos by Nacho Cano in 1995.

The song La fuerza del destino in included in the album Descanso dominical.

Spanish Bookworld is giving away a free Spanish for beginners cd-rom to all of you who subscribe to our Spanish course by September 30, 2009.

This is what our Spanish for beginners cd-rom looks like:

 

 

 

 

This cd-rom contains 99 student-friendly lessons and 225 speaking, listening, reading and writing drills. All the lessons and drills are interactive, and have been recorded by native Spanish speakers.

In addition to that, the cd-rom also includes an interactive multimedia Spanish pronunciation guide and a talking dictionary with over 800 headwords.

To help you keep track of your progress, you can tick each lesson after you complete it, and your score is saved when you finish a drill. Also, you can make a note of your questions and difficulties on the integrated notepad, and post your queries to me on the members-only forum.

At Spanish Bookworld you can find all the details of our subscription course, including free samples from the online lessons, podcasts, videocasts, kids’ lessons, interactive articles, ebook and exclusive forum.

At Spanish Bookworld you can also see free samples from our cd-rom, together with the cd-rom features, table of contents, system requirements, testimonial and more.