I have always wanted something like this to offer you, and now someone else has created it… and made it free.
Best of all, it’s a great tool for understanding more of what people say to you.
You know, having a good vocabulary goes a long way to understanding more Spanish, especially when your friends speak fast. The trouble is most books have words listed by themes. If you are not careful, you can learn a bunch of words you’ll hardly ever use.
It’s very common that people learn word in lists. They know how to say in Spanish things like bobby pin, headband and hairclip. The trouble is that unless you’re a hairstylist those words won’t get you very far.
Instead, it’s much better to learn the most frequently used words first. You see, studies have shown that as few as 100 words are used in 50% of all Spanish communication
That’s why in Shortcut to Spanish, as well as over 3000 instant Spanish words, I also built in the 100 most common words.
Likewise, in Synergy Spanish you can learn to combine Synergy Verbs with Brick and Mortar Words to make as many as 88,000 phrases from just 138 words.
High frequency Spanish words are great for your listening and reading skills as well.
Learn the 1000 most common words and you’ll make a lot more sense out of the Spanish you read and hear… Even when people speak fast.
I have often thought about creating a product to teach the 1000 most common Spanish words as quickly as possible.
Well it looks like someone has beat me to it and done it very well.
Plus, they are giving it away.
Yes, I just found a piece of software that makes it easy to learn the 1000 most common Spanish words, y es gratis.
Click here to download Wordgalore software and start learning the 1000 most common Spanish words. (3.5MB)
or you can get the big daddy
Get the Wordsgalore badboy version with 9100 Spanish word audio file.
Here’s where it comes from Wordgalore if you want to thank the author.
Please leave a comment and let me know what you think.
A faster way to download my Spanish lesson.
Some people mentioned that they had trouble downloading the Bonus Spanish Lesson. You may remember on the page we had MP3 players so you could play the Spanish lessons online.
Looks like those players slow down the download, so here’s some direct links that will let you download the lessons more quickly.
Saludos
Marcus Santamaria
Download Track 1 – Tengo Sueño, Estoy cansado
Download Track 2 – Sueño Hecho realidad
Download Track 3 – Sueña Con Los Angelitos
Download Track 4 - Me Despierto y Me Levanto
Download Track 5 - Camas Gemelas
Download Track 6 - Me Duermo
Bonus Spanish Lesson
Sueños - all about being tired, going to bed, dreams etc.
I’ve actually been working on ideas for an audio newsletter for a long time. I’ve researched and written a lot material. In fact, I’ve even recorded several unreleased sessions.
The sessions were created before I developed the final format for my Spanish Ear Training program.
In Spanish Ear Training, I have two main focuses.
1. To build your ear to keep up with the speed of Spanish.
2. To expand your understanding of how your Spanish speakers friends use their language.
Even though I have a lot of similar lessons in Spanish Ear Training, these lessons didn’t fit into the final themes in that program.
Yet, they are still really helpful lessons. So I decided the best thing to do with them is to share them with you.
I hope you enjoy them, let me know by leaving a comment here on the blog.
Let’s get started, in this lesson you’ll learn many ways to talk about sleeping, being tired, and going to bed..
Did I goof by saying that you speak to children with informal Spanish?
You may remember in my Synergy Spanish blog post, when to use Informal Spanish, I advised you to use informal Spanish when speaking to kids.
Well, it turns out that it’s not always the case, at least not 100% of the time. I’m going to tell you about an interesting exception to the rule.
You know, one of the best things about teaching my own second language is that I’ve spent years observing how Spanish speakers use their language. I never did that with English…
English just happened to me.
That’s why, I am so much better at teaching Spanish than I am at teaching English.
It’s counter intuitive; you’d think that I’d be better at teaching my native language. Yet, it’s just so much easier for me to teach you what I’ve had to learn.
I’ve already walked that path before you and it’s easy to show you the way. I truly believe is a key factor in why I get so much amazing feedback.
Recently, I’ve been given an insiders perspective on speaking to children.
You see, as a father of two “little Mexican jumping beans”, I have a daily insight into how to speak to kids.
I’ve noticed with my son, Andre, who’s not yet two years old, if he misbehaves Elena addressing him as usted.
Have you heard of the terrible twos? Lately, Andre’s been “usted” quite often.
You see, as well as using the usted form to speak respectful, it can also convey a sense of seriousness.
You can probably imagine something similar to this in English with people’s full names… For example, my brother’s name is Benjamin, but he’s always been called Ben. However, when he was in trouble with my Mom he suddenly went from Ben to Benjamin, “Benjamin, come here right now”.
Another use of usted that may surprise you
Our neighbor has a new puppy called Axa. He’s cute and my kids love him. However, he likes to jump the fence into our yard and either pull down the clothes from the line or tear up our plants. Usted isn’t the first word that comes to mind…
The other day I heard Elena, yelling at Axa, “a su casa”, (go) to your house.
Notice the formal Spanish, a su casa, and not the informal, a tu casa.
In Spanish, when you’re being serious, even a dog can be addressed with formal Spanish.
Or like Jose Luis joked…
Que respetuosos son en este vecindario, aqui hasta a los perrros les hablan de usted
How respectful they are in this neighborhood, here even to the dogs they speak to in (the) usted (form).
So, if you are starting to advance in your Spanish you might like to start observing these subtle variations in the language.
I have a couple of resources to help you with understanding and using more Spanish…
Firstly, I always enjoyed the comic Condorito. Hopefully you can get it where you live, if not, you can see some of the comic strip by clicking here. Once you get to the page, just click the anterior or siguiente links for more of Condorito.
Elena’s family think it’s funny that Condorito helped teach me Spanish. I always found it really helpful. Just like the examples with Andre and Axa, I always enjoyed noticing how the characters in the comic use the language and then seeing how my Spanish speaking friends use the language in the similar expressive ways.
Here’s your second resource. It’s some audios from a series of lessons on Informal Spanish commands or the imperative that I created for members of Spanish Ear Training.
My students in Spanish Ear Training are becoming quite advanced in the Spanish they are able to handle. So, I can take them into more complex directions than I would for students in my other programs. Nonetheless, I think you’ll find these audios helpful even if you are not at the same level just yet.
Informal Spanish audio 1
Informal Spanish audio 2
Informal Spanish 1 and 2 Transcript
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