Electronic books, also known as ebooks, are publications which can be read on a number of devices such as computer desktops, laptops and ebook readers. The last five years have seen the launch of many thousands of electronic books with a wide variety of formats. They range from plain publications, with hardly any features, to beautifully developed interactive multimedia ebooks with sound, images, notepads, feedback and hyperlinked menus.

   

The most basic ebooks are no more than digital versions of printed books. They’re a great invention, but they’re far from the electronic books I’m going to concentrate on in this article. Today I’m going to introduce you to fully interactive multimedia ebooks, in particular those that help you learn foreign languages in a flash.

Foreign language learning has been radically improved by multimedia ebooks. They make studying much more fun, and substantially easier. They have also brought the cost of learning down. So, what is it that makes them the powerful tool they are? Here are their top five features:

1. Multimedia ebooks bring the language to life by including audio and/or video. Whether you’re learning verbs, listening to dialogs or practicing your pronunciation, multimedia ebooks allow you to hear the text said by native speakers by a simple click; and you can listen to it over and over. Good ebooks also give you the translation of all the new words and phrases in each lesson, so you never need to use a dictionary.

2. Multimedia electronic books come with listening and speaking drills and exercises to practice the real language. If you’re learning verbs, for instance, you can practice saying and understanding the new forms; if you’re learning vocabulary, you’ll be able to practice all the new words you’ve come across. A good language ebook will also include a set drills at the end to help you review everything you’ve learned, as a whole.

Download ebook sample

3. Interactive electronic books give you the exercise and drill solutions. All you need to do is click a button. Good ebooks also let you save your personal scores, an essential feature for monitoring your learning progress.

4. The best electronic books include menus and links similar to those you find on well-designed websites. They make moving from chapter to chapter flawless, and you can quickly get to any lesson, drill or any other content. There are also plenty of external links to the author’s contact page, free resources, blogs, etc.

5. Good electronic books allow you to type in your notes and save them for future reference.

Briefly, interactive multimedia ebooks are self-contained. They provide everything you need, so you don’t have to use a dictionary, notepad, reference book or audio material.

Finally, language learning ebooks cover every aspect of the language: conversation, vocabulary, grammar, numbers, pronunciation, etc. They help you master understanding, speaking, reading and writing faster and more efficiently than traditional methods.

Here are some snapshots from my Spanish language learning ebooks:

Download ebook sample

Do you want to learn Spanish? Don’t have time? Welcome to my Spanish language course app!

This Spanish language learning app brings you mp3s, videos and pdfs directly to your iPhone, iPod and iPad without having to connect to your computer.

This easy-to-navigate and content-rich app costs only $1.99 from iTunes. It gives you a new episode every week, and access to the back catalog of dialogs, vocabulary flashcards, grammar, pronunciation and numbers from my Spanish course.

Every Spanish learning mp3 and video in this app comes with a pdf transcript. You can download all the mp3s, videos and pdfs, play them on and offline, keep them forever and go back to them as often as you want.

You can access this app wherever you are, whenever you want. It allows you to learn Spanish in your car, on the train, the bus, while waiting, exercising, bathing or cooking.

There are many other features to make this app a must for Spanish language learners: you can contact the show with one click, request new features, resume playing if you’re interrupted by a call, play the mp3s in the background, highlight your favorite mp3s and videos, and get special offers.

If you have any queries, please contact me.

FREE APP SAMPLES

At Spanish Bookworld you can listen to the free mp3s, watch a video and download a pdf from this app.

SPANISH APP SCREEN SHOTS

Here are some screen shots from my Spanish course app:

At Spanish Bookworld you can see more screen shots and find out more details.

Here’s a free Spanish language learning quiz from my Spanish course. It’s the first of the two review quizzes that you get in Lesson 1. Press Start to play it:

 

 

You can find many more language learning quizzes in my Spanish course. Those quizzes help you review what you learn in the online lessons, downloadable mp3s and videos.

All my quizzes come with listening comprehension questions, grammar drills, vocabulary and number exercises, spelling practice, and much more. Hope you like them!

 

This is what the Spanish language learning videos in my course look like on your iPod and iPhone:

 

On my Spanish Bookworld website you can download a free video sample from my Spanish course and put it on your iPod and iPhone, and you can also watch a free video sample online.

You can download the videos and mp3s in my Spanish course when you subscribe. Subscriptions cost $19.99 per month and come with a 60-day money-back guarantee.

My Spanish course contains 45 lessons with 5 videos and 5 mp3s each, plus online lessons, kids’ lessons, articles, an ebook and a members-only forum where you can post me all your Spanish language questions.

 

Knowing the six forms of the irregular Spanish verb estar in the present tense will allow you to build and understand essential sentences, questions and answers. You can listen to the six forms, together with all the Spanish examples in this post, and play the interactive drill, in the Lesson 4 – Grammar of my free Spanish course.

1. Estar in the present tense

Here’s what the Spanish verb estar looks like in the present tense and how you translate it:

yo tú él / ella / usted nosotros / nosotras vosotros / vosotras ellos / ellas / ustedes

estoy estás está estamos estáis están

I am you (singular) are he/she/it is, you (singular, formal) are we are you (plural) are they are, you (plural, formal) are

2. Examples with estar

Here are some examples with the six forms we’ve just learned, in both Spanish and English:

¿Dónde estás?
Where are you?

Estoy en el hotel
I’m at the hotel

Pedro está con su amigo
Peter is with his friend

Estamos en casa
We’re at home

¿Dónde estáis?
Where are you?

Están muy ocupados
They are very busy

3. When to use the verb estar

Estar is one of two Spanish verbs that translates as ‘to be’. The other verbs is ser, which we’ll learn in a future post.

The verb estar is used to indicate:

• Where people or things are
• Moods and feelings
• Physical conditions
• Physical appearance at some point in time
• Temporary rather than permanent conditions

 

To illustrate these five points, here are five examples with their English translation:

El hotel está en Colorado
The hotel is in Colorado

Estamos enfadados
We’re angry

Estoy enfermo
I’m ill

Pablo está muy elegante
Paul is (looking) very elegant

Los zapatos están rotos
The shoes are broken

4. Speaking drill

Can you say these ten sentences in Spanish? You can see the solutions in Spanish and hear them said by native speakers in the Lesson 4 – Grammar of my free Spanish course.

1. How are they?
2. They’re angry
3. Which hotel are you (vosotros) in?
4. We’re in the Arizona hotel
5. Where are you (tú)?
6. Is he at the hotel?
7. Is she on the beach?
8. You’re (tú) looking very elegant
9. I’m on vacation
10. Are they on vacation?

 

To get this and other grammar lessons:

Sign up for free!

 

In my experience as a Spanish language teacher, here are three mistakes that can make you waste precious time, ruin your confidence and eventually give up. As you will see, they are easy to avoid:

1. Rushing through your first Spanish lessons

 

Having a sound knowledge of the basics will determine how fast, and how well, you can learn Spanish.

If you’re a complete beginner, concentrate on each and every lesson of your course, from the beginning, for as long as you need. Do not rush yourself. If a lesson takes you three hours, so be it, but never allow yourself to skip any material.

Basically, the more time you put into the first lessons, the faster you’ll be able to learn later on.

If you’re past the beginners’ level but have some gaps in your knowledge, stop learning new material and go back to the beginning. This may sound drastic, boring, defeating or simply mad, but it will work wonders and no doubt boost your confidence in no time.

To succeed, follow this routine: review all the words you have learned so far. Make sure you understand all the grammar you have covered. Do not allow yourself to make more than one mistake per exercise or drill. Listen to the dialogs until you can say them out loud along with the recordings.

Remember: small gaps at the beginning become enormous holes by lesson twelve. By lesson twenty, giving up will feel like the only way out.

 

2. Not focusing on the Spanish pronunciation

 

Working on your pronunciation might not be the obvious thing to do as a beginner, but it has many great advantages:

• The better your pronunciation is, the better you’ll be able to understand native speakers.
• Having a good accent is hugely rewarding and motivating.
• Having a good accent from the start also allows you to avoid bad pronunciation habits that aren’t always easy to get rid of.

The best way to improve your pronunciation is to concentrate on one letter of the alphabet at a time, and then on words you’re having difficulty with. To get a good Spanish accent, make sure you learn only from native Spanish speakers.

Acquiring a very good accent requires patience and perseverance, no doubt, but once you start working on it you’ll notice some improvement almost from the start. Guaranteed!

 

3. Learning Spanish nouns without ‘el’ or ‘la’

 

Whenever you learn a Spanish noun with its article, you’re avoiding endless future mistakes. In other words, you’re saving yourself a lot of time and unnecessary, repetitive work.

As you may know, the Spanish gender rules can help you ‘guess’ the gender of many words, especially those ending in ‘a’ and ‘o’, but there are many nouns that will let you down if you try to guess their gender. That’s why it’s safer, and faster, to learn them all with their article when you first come across them.

The good news is that any good Spanish course gives you every new noun with its article.

Warning: Unfortunately, there are many Spanish courses that still teach nouns without their article. To avoid wasting your time, make sure the Spanish course you get gives you the new vocabulary with ‘el’ and ‘la’. The simplest way to do it is by checking the free lessons before buying the full product. If there are no sample lessons, get a different course!

Useful Spanish learning material

Free Spanish course
Spanish pronunciation lessons

 

To help you learn Spanish better and faster, I’ll be posting on this blog the definition of the main grammatical terms together with practical examples. You can also find them in Lesson 1 of my free Spanish course. Today’s post is about:

ADJECTIVES

Adjectives are words used to describe or modify nouns and pronouns.

Here are some examples in English:

The black cat is on the new sofa.
My cat is black.
Which is your cat? The black one.

 

1. Adjectives – describing words

In these three examples the word black is a describing word which modifies the noun cat.

There is one other describing word in the examples above. Can you tell which one it is? Post your answer (or guess) in the comment box!

 

2. Adjectives – possession

Adjectives, however, are not just describing words, but they can also indicate possession:

My cat is black
Which is your cat?

 

In these two cases the words my and your indicate who the owner of the cat is.

 

3. Comparing English and Spanish

In Spanish grammar, adjectives work in a similar way. Observe these examples:

The black cat is on the new sofa.
El gato negro está en el sofá nuevo.

 

Notice that describing words in Spanish generally go after the noun they describe (gato negro) and not before it (black cat).

Here are the possessive adjective examples we saw above in Spanish:

My cat is black.
Mi gato es negro.

Which is your cat?
¿Cuál es tu gato?

 

Notice that the possessive adjective goes before the noun in both English and Spanish (my cat – mi gato).

4. More grammatical terms

This is what Lesson 1 of my free Spanish course looks like:

 

 

Sign up for free!

 

At www.spanish-bookworld.com I’ve set up a free Spanish language course with online lessons, downloadable mp3s and videos, kids’ lessons and language learning articles.

The online lessons have five sections: dialog, flashcards, grammar, pronunciation and numbers.

The online lessons, mp3s and videos all include learning material, speaking exercises and listening drills. They’ve all been recorded by native Spanish speakers.

This free Spanish course is available to you right now. Hope you like it! Below are some snapshots from the course.

Sign up for free!

Free Spanish course – part of the lesson plan

 

Free Spanish course – dialog

 

Free Spanish course – mp3s & videos

 

Free Spanish course – kids’ lessons

 

Sign up for free!

 

The Spanish greeting ‘buenas tardes‘ translates both as ‘good afternoon‘ and ‘good evening‘; and the greeting ‘buenas noches‘ means both ‘good evening‘ and ‘good night‘.

So, when do you use ‘buenas tardes’ and ‘buenas noches’?

Unlike in English, these two Spanish greetings have more to do with meals and the sunset than with the actual time of day.

Therefore, ‘buenas tardes’ is usually said after lunch, which is often from 2.00 pm. ‘Buenas noches’, especially in the summer, is usually said after 9.00 pm. In winter, many people say ‘buenas tardes’ at least until 8.00 pm, even if it’s dark; and many only use ‘buenas noches’ after dinner, which tends to be from 9.00 pm.

When using ‘buenas noches’, remember that it’s not only a farewell, but also a greeting. You can use it both when you meet someone and when you leave.

As you can see, there is no golden rule as to when to use these Spanish greetings. The important point is that they’re vague and flexible. Best of all, there’s an easy way out if you’re unsure as to which one to use: you can simply say ‘buenas’.

If you want to practice saying these and other Spanish greetings, you can hear them said by native speakers in the Lessons 2, 3 and 4 of my Spanish course. Here are two samples:

Lesson 2 dialog and flashcards

 

 

 

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.

vacaciones – vacation
aire – air
cafetería – cafeteria
individual – individual
pasaporte – passport
radio – radio
recepcionista – receptionist
mayonesa – mayonnaise
mineral – mineral
patata – potato

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.

Mañana por la mañana vamos a nadar a la playa
Tomorrow morning we’re going to swim at the beach

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?

América
España
Panamá
California
Colorado
Florida
Sacramento
Álamo
Salinas
Palo Alto

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.