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.

 

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

 

 

 

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:

Get the Flash Player to see the wordTube Media Player.

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!

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:

la noche (the night) – nocturnal
tener (to have) – tenure
mandar (to send, to order) – mandate
el ordenador (the computer) – order
lo siento (I’m sorry) – sentiment
la vaca (the cow, the beef) – vaccine

 

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.

 

Get the Flash Player to see the wordTube Media Player.

 

Sadly, most of the Spanish gender rules you find throughout the Internet are unreliable and plagued with exceptions.

A quick search for terms such as “Spanish gender rules” gives you a frightening number of sites stating, for instance, that “nouns ending in ‘e’ and nouns ending in a consonant are usually masculine”. The problem with these so-called rules is that there are simply thousands of Spanish feminine nouns ending in ‘e’ or a consonant.

My dilemma as a Spanish teacher is that I want to help my students learn the language as fast as possible at the same time as I steer them away from making basic mistakes. For that reason I prefer to ignore gender rules with a substantial number of exceptions, which leaves only three to follow.

So, in my opinion, these are the only gender rules consistent enough to be considered reliable:

 

1. Most Spanish nouns ending in ‘o’ as masculine.
2. Most Spanish nouns ending in ‘a’ are feminine.
3. Spanish nouns ending in ‘dad’, ‘tad’, ‘tud’, ‘ción’ ‘sión’, ‘gión’, ‘triz’ and ‘umbre’ are feminine.

 

Rule 3 is a golden rule, but in rules 1 and 2 (the rules that apply to the great majority of Spanish nouns) the word to watch out for is ‘most’. That’s why it’s good practice to learn all new nouns with their article, rather than on their own.

In other posts we’ll see a longer list of exceptions to these two rules, but here are some. As you can see, many are everyday words:

la mano – the hand
la foto – the photograph
la moto – the motorcycle
la modelo – the model
la radio – the radio

el día – the day
el gorila – the gorilla
el cólera – the cholera
el cura – the priest
el tranvía – the streetcar, the tramway

There’s an interesting group of nouns that, one could argue, rather than being an exception to Rule 2 above, have a rule of their own. Those are nouns of Greek origin ending in ‘ma’, ‘ta’ and ‘pa’ which are all masculine. Those nouns often look similar in English and Spanish:

el programa – the program, the programme
el problema – the problem
el mapa – the map
el cometa – the comet
el planeta – the planet

Briefly: the gender of nouns ending in ‘o’ and ‘a’ can be guessed in the great majority of cases, but the exceptions are often commonly used nouns. Other gender rules, except for Rule 3 above and that applying to nouns of Greek origin, are not reliable enough.

 

About me and my Spanish course

I have taught Spanish for over fifteen years and have two Spanish learning publications to my name. My latest work is the Spanish for beginners course at Spanish Bookworld.

This course come with dozens of online lessons for both adults and children, downloadable mp3s and videocasts, interactive ebooks, language learning articles and an exclusive forum where you can ask me your language questions.

Do you want to learn Spanish fast? Do you want to have fun while you study the language? Do you want to be able to study whenever you have some free time, without pressure and with a lot of choice?

If your answer to any of these questions is ‘yes’, here are 5 tips that will help you improve your Spanish faster than you ever imagined:

 

1. Listen to Spanish language learning podcasts. Podcasts are downloadable mp3s that you can listen to on your iPod or any other mp3 player. They’re usually short lessons that focus on one aspect of the language and encourage you to practice speaking. If you’ve never listened to a Spanish learning podcast, here’s a sample from my series called Spanish Podcasts for Beginners

 

2. Listen to audiobooks in Spanish. There are literally hundreds of Spanish audiobooks on cd, from children’s stories to El Quijote, The Bible, Dan Brown’s bestsellers, poetry anthologies and self-help books. Audiobooks are great on their own for developing your listening skills, but you can also practice reading by following the audiobook along with the printed version. Here are some popular titles.

 

3. Watch Spanish movies and TV programs dubbed into Spanish. Dexter, The Simpsons, 24, Stargate Atlantis, Bones, Star Trek, House … just about every TV program on dvd has been dubbed into Spanish. What’s more, many come with optional English and Spanish subtitles, so you can choose any language and subtitle combination you want.

 

4. Listen to Spanish songs and follow the lyrics. If you like Latin music, this is a great way of learning and practicing the language without effort. Lyrics are easy to find on the Internet, and many cds come with them too.

 

5. Watch videocasts on your iPod. Videocasts are basically a podcast that you can see and hear. Spanish language learning videocasts allow you to follow the lessons with the text in front of you, practice speaking and reading, improve your vocabulary and, overall, learn the language in a natural and intuitive way. To see a videocast in action, go to my Spanish for beginners course. There you can download the Lesson 1 videocasts for free or watch a sample online.

 

Do you have a favorite way of learning Spanish? If you want to share it, please feel free to write a comment.

Getting the gender of basic Spanish nouns wrong is not only frustrating, but also highly de-motivating. In this article I give you an insight on what causes this problem and I help you overcome it from today.

In my experience as a Spanish teacher, the reason why you find yourself making gender mistakes is because of the way you learned the nouns when you first came across them, and the way you’ve reviewed them afterwards.

You may be wondering, then, if there is a way of learning new Spanish nouns that will allow you to get the gender always right. The answer, without any doubt, is ‘yes’. Here are the two steps you need to follow:

1. Always learn new nouns with their article, rather than on their own, and review them with their article too.

2. Always learn new nouns with audio material, preferably audio flashcards.

I’ve recommend this way of learning new vocabulary to my students for many years. It’s the fastest and most efficient method, and the one I use in my Spanish for beginners online course and downloadable podcasts.

Learning nouns with their article the first time you come across them takes the same effort as learning them on their own, and it will save you a lot of time and frustration later on. So, for instance, instead of learning that:

‘flor’ means ‘flower’

Make sure you learn that:

‘la flor’ means ‘the flower’

This will guarantee that soon you won’t need to ask yourself anymore whether ‘flor’ comes with ‘el’ or ‘la’, because ‘la flor’ now sounds right to you, just like it sounds right to a native speaker.

As for audio flashcards, those are flashcards where you can hear the Spanish vocabulary said by a native speaker, and see or hear the English translations too.

Audio flashcards are an invaluable tool that allow you to learn new words accurately and faster than you ever imagined you could. They help you develop a good accent, and they make it easy and fun to review your vocabulary. You can play some examples of Spanish audio flashcards here.

Briefly, learning new vocabulary following the two steps I’ve described in this article is not only more efficient in the short, medium and long term, but also much more enjoyable.

Knowing some common Spanish sentences well can greatly boost your motivation to continue learning, and it will give you precious confidence.

The dialogs in my Spanish for beginners course include a wide variety of everyday questions and answers that you’ll often hear when communicating with native Spanish speakers.

Here are five questions from the dialogs in my course that you’ll often hear in conversation, together with their English translation. Click on them to hear them said by native speakers:

¿qué hora es? – what time is it?

¿qué vais a tomar? – what are you going to have?

¿qué más le pongo? – what else can I give you?

¿alguna otra cosa? – anything else?

¿me puede decir cuánto es todo? – can you tell me how much everything is?

In this post I’m going to guide you through how to master these five questions. Let’s listen to the first one once more:

¿qué hora es? – what time is it?

Notice how the intonation rises at the end of the question.

All Spanish questions must rise at the end to be understood properly. Because of the way Spanish verbs and word order work, if your question doesn’t rise at the end, you’ll often sound like you’re making a statement rather than asking something.

As for the pronunciation, in the question ‘¿qué hora es?’ remember that the ‘u’ in ‘qué’ and the ‘h’ in ‘hora’ are silent. If you need to go through the pronunciation rules of any of the letters of the alphabet, you can find them all in the pronunciation lessons in my Spanish for beginners course.

Let’s listen to the first question once more. Once you’re familiar with it, repeat it out loud, along with the Spanish speaker, trying to keep up with the speed. To sound like a native, make sure you imitate her intonation too:

¿qué hora es? – what time is it?

Let’s now move on to the second question. Click on it several times to hear it and, like before, then repeat it after the speaker:

¿qué vais a tomar? – what are you going to have?

Remember that the Spanish ‘v’ sounds like a ‘b’, and notice how the words ‘vais a’ are joined together. You should join them too!

In the third question ‘¿qué más le pongo?’ you need to watch out for the vowels. Before we practice saying the whole question, let’s review these three vowels:

a

e

o

In particular, make sure the ‘e’ in ‘le’ doesn’t sound like the ‘e’ in the English word ‘me’, and that the final ‘o’ in ‘pongo’ doesn’t sound like the ‘o’ in the English word ‘go’. You can practice these two vowels in Lessons 2 and 4 of my Spanish for beginners course.

Like with the previous two sentences, listen to it several times and then repeat it along with the speaker:

¿qué más le pongo? – what else can I give you?

In the forth sentence ‘¿alguna otra cosa?’ make sure again that you’re saying the vowels correctly:

a

o

u

You can practice these three vowels in Lessons 1, 4 and 5 of my Spanish for beginners course.

Also, don’t forget that the question must rise at the end. Practice this sentence like the ones before:

¿alguna otra cosa? – anything else?

The fifth and final question is ‘¿me puede decir cuánto es todo?’ (can you tell me how much everything is?). Here, make sure you’re saying the words ‘me’, ‘puede’ and ‘cuánto’ correctly:

me – me, to me

puede – you can

cuánto – how much

Remember not to drop the final ‘e’ in ‘puede’, and to say both the ‘u’ and the ‘a’ clearly in ‘cuánto’.

This last sentence is longer than the previous ones, so you might find it more difficult to master it. Listen to it as many times as you need to get familiar with its sound, and then repeat it out loud along with the speaker:

¿me puede decir cuánto es todo? – can you tell me how much everything is?

Speaking drill

To review the Spanish questions in this post, we’re going to do a speaking drill. Here are the five questions in English. Can you say them in Spanish? Press play to hear the right answer:

what are you going to have?

can you tell me how much everything is?

what time is it?

what else can I give you?

anything else?

Repeat this drill until you can get all five questions right. You may want to come back to it several times over the next few days to really master them.

If you liked this post, you can find many more interactive multimedia articles like this one on my other site, Spanish Bookworld.