Spanish Style

So you are learning Spanish and your goal is to develop fast Spanish skills. And you want real Spanish ability, not just an expanded vocabulary that you don't know how to use in a real conversation.

I am assuming that you have some plan. You are probably either going to go to a regular Spanish class or you are going to buy a Spanish program. Good for you, these are good first steps. Here are some fast Spanish learning tricks to keep in mind.

It is all about the sex

Well that probably got your attention. But you do need to think in terms of gender or sex when you are developing your vocabulary. For every word you encounter, you will need to learn two things. Obviously, you will need to learn the actual word. The Spanish for table! Or the Spanish for sausage! But you will also need to bear in mind that words which have no gender in English, like table and sausage, do have a gender in Spanish. Basically the table is a girl. And the sausage is a boy. Table is "la mesa" and sausage is "el chorizo" See what I mean? If you tackle this early on, then you will be on a faster track. Gender is much more important is Spanish, and adjectives are also modified based on the gender of the noun. So sex is fast Spanish trick number one.

Safety in numbers

OK, this writer has really lost it I hear you say! Why is he talking about safety? Learning Spanish is not dangerous. And fast Spanish skills will not get you a speeding ticket. Truth is - I'm not talking about safety, I'm talking about numbers. If you go to a bar, you will ask for a beer. "Waiter, I'd like a cold beer please." But the concept of "a" doesn't really exist in Spanish. A beer translates as "una cerveza" or one beer. See - it's safer to think it terms of numbers.

Help a Spanish speaker learn English

Hold on a minute. If I'm trying to learn Spanish, why would I waste my time teaching English? Well, lets go back to the bar. Remember that cold beer a few paragraphs back? You would say "a cold beer, please" to the waiter. A Spanish speaker with only very basic English might say "please, one beer cold" Why? Because this is a literal translation of how they would say it in Spanish - "por favor, una cerveza frio." Now that poor English is very helpful to you for developing fast Spanish speaking skills. There are a lot of lessons in that simple phrase. You have learned that the beer is a girl. You will note that generally please comes before the request, not after. And you can see that the adjective comes after the noun and not before it (beer cold, not cold beer.) You can also see that the word for cold has been modified to the female gender (ending in a) because of the gender of beer in Spanish. If you wanted a cold sausage it would translate as "uno chorizo frio."

You can see how simulating an immersion setting and hearing real conversations is so important to develop fast Spanish skills.

Learn about which Spanish programs best simulate immersion so you can develop Fast Spanish skills.

Spanish style scales

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