Please leave a comment and let me know what you think.

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

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..

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

Please leave a comment

That’s what the coordinator said to me when I was teaching English in Mexico to post graduate students.

You know what…

She was right, it can happen.

But she believed lack of comprehension was always about grammar and I believed it almost always about words.

You see, if you don’t understand a written sentence, it’s almost always because you don’t know a word. And if you know all the words in the sentence but you still don’t understand, 9 times out of 10 it’s still about the words.

More often than not, it’s not the grammar that stumps you, at least not the grammar that is usually taught.

Let me explain…

It’s the way words are combined to create different meanings that’s often the comprehension killer.

These are called collocations and they are one of the biggest stumbling blocks to comprehension, yet, they are almost never taught.

Let me show you what I mean.

Do you know the meanings of these words? mucho, bien, más, cuando, dar, quiere, cada, como, luz, decir, no, una, si, vez, caer, cuánto, tener, de, que

Most of the words look very familiar right?

How many do you know?

I expect you know at least 10-15 of those words, probably more.

What if we put the words together, do you know the meanings of these word combinations?

cuando mucho
cada cuánto?
dar a luz
tiene que
caer bien
como no
cómo si
de una vez
quiere decir
más bien

Here’s a tip: the meanings are very different from the individual words.

If you don’t know the combined meaning you’ll get confused about what people are saying to you.

Spanish will seem faster than it really is.

Here is an easy solution to building you mental database of collocations.

All you have to do is have someone point them out to you, then learn them as
you would individual words.

If you learn them so well that you recognize instantly, you’ll
make a big improvement to your ear for Spanish.

So, what did those combinations mean?

It may surprise you…

cuando mucho - at the most
cada cuánto? - how often?
dar a luz - to give birth to
tiene que - have to/has to (you should know this one)
caer bien - to be fond of/to like
cómo no - why not, of course
como si - as if
de una vez - once and for all
quiere decir - mean/means
más bien - rather/instead

Yikes,

Some combinations seem to have nothing to do with the individual words.

Could collocations be more important to understanding Spanish than they are given credit for?

Is it possible that this is more important than the usual grammar…

I believe so…

Let me tell you how I got a handle on the most important collocations.

When I was learning Spanish and kept seeing or hearing a collocation, I’d find its meaning and make a flashcard. I’d put the Spanish collocation on one side, the English meaning on the other. I also used to also make up a mnemonic to help me remember.

Then, next time I read or heard it again, it would spark my memory. I’d have a feeling of familiarity with the meaning. It only took me one or two times of hearing or reading it for it to sink in. After that, I would remember the meaning of many of the collocations forever, especially the more frequently used ones.

Here’s the bad news.

I used to make the cards with Rolodex cards. Then, I would carry some and store the rest in a plastic box.

You know where this is going right?

Yep.

Spring cleaning

“I guess I’m done with these cards? I know the meanings now”.

Oops.

How helpful they would have been to share with you

Not all is lost though. For the last year I have been busy cataloging collocations.
Actively listening for the most universal (all regions) and the most commonly used ones to share with my students.

I’m going to put the most common ones into a PDF and share them with you, gratis of course.

It’ll help you build a solid database of the most common collocations and improve your understanding of Spanish.

Over the coming months, I’ll be sharing more extensive information on this and 6 other ways you can build your comprehension of Spanish.

If you signed up for my Spanish Ear Training information, look for emails about the reports. If not, you can join the update list for my here.

Also, I’ll be soon opening a Spanish Ear Training Coaching Program for just a few people. We’ll have even more details of these hidden secrets to comprehending more Spanish. Plus, members will have access to step by step methods to actively build their understanding of Spanish every month.

I’ll have more details on the program shortly.

Please leave your comments.

The average is 4 words per second and sometimes it seems like some people speak even faster than that.

rat at tat tat

A machine gun volley of Spanish words flying at you so fast you start to feel lost.

What can we do?

Can anything be done?

Yes, there is a lot that you can do. The most important factor is the approach you take to learning.

Just like any skill, it’s how you learn that makes all the difference.

Let me explain…

I almost pulled my daughter out of her ballet class after watching her teacher chastise her and her little friends.

He’s Ukrainian, has lived in Mexico for 10 years, speaks great Spanish and English and perhaps more languages, he is a professional dancer in San Diego and looks like a ballet god.

so he has some gifts.

But teaching isn’t one of them…

Like many teachers, he blames the student for not learning.

I have taught language to students of all ages, social levels and education background, from factory workers to directors of big companies to PHD university students. While some people just don’t want to learn, most do want to get the thrill and reward of the result of learning how to do something… and its a shame when they aren’t able to learn because of a flawed approach.

Instead of complaining about the students as many teachers do, fixing the system, the approach or the method would be a better use of time and energy.

The ballet teacher’s approach may seem like it has nothing to do with learning Spanish, but it actually has everything to do with learning Spanish.

Here’s his approach to a problem, which is unfortunately quite common

1) chastise 3 and 4 year old girls with comments like;

pobre piso (poor floor)

bailen como elefantes

muy mal, niñas

2) Instead of fixing what they were doing wrong, go onto the next part of the lesson (because we have to do all the things in the lesson list in the allotted time).

I could have taught them better myself… There’s an image for you, me teaching ballet.

I could have taught them to improve what he was complaining about in a few minutes. Here’s what I would have done

1) I would have got them to slow down the movements

2) I would have broken the movements into pieces.

lift knee

step forward with same knee

lift other knee

step forward with same leg

3) Then all the parts in one movement, slowly.

4) Then speed it up.

Do you think that may have worked better than doing it full speed every time?

Instead of looking like they had some kind of muscular disorder, I guarantee within five minutes they would have made plenty of improvement and his pobre piso, wouldn’t have had to suffer las niñas elefantes anymore.

Why the long story, and what’s it got to do with understanding Spanish spoken quickly.

I hope you can see the parallel, learning any new skill, dancing, music, martial arts, driving a car… it doesn’t matter what it is…you need to first start slowly.

You didn’t learn to drive in the Indy 500 or the Monaco Formula One.

You learned to drive first, slowly, one gear at a time and without distractions (other cars).

To develop your ear for Spanish you need to do the same.

Break it into smaller pieces.

Slow it down

Learn in steps.

Clarify the confusing parts.

Then when you are comfortable with the theme, put it together in longer combinations

Speed it up

and get involved

Well what do you know… That blur of words is not such a blur anymore. You can actually start to make sense of it all.

I am very close to finishing the first installment of my new Spanish ear training audio newsletter, which will help you develop your ear for Spanish in an easy to follow systematic approach.

If you think your ear could do with a tune up, and you’d like to be able to keep up with people when they speak quickly, you can get on the audio newsletter list by adding your name and email below.

I look forward to helping you advance in your Spanish in ways that significantly improve your ability to interact in the real world with real native Spanish speakers, which is the point of learning Spanish in the first place, isn’t it?I’d be delighted to hear your comments. If you have any thoughts, please leave a comment below.