Deconstructing A Very Mexican Saying

Mexico is where two worlds have fused together to produce a version of Spanish that is far richer in culture than that of its European birthplace. This richness of the Mexican culture should, to a great extent, explain our bias toward their flavor of the Spanish language. A language this rich in cultural heritage often grows into an interesting stewpot of local refranes (sayings) and proverbs unique to its people. It is said, Mexicans are loaded...

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How To Remember The Conjugations For Ir Using Mnemonics

It’s one thing to acquire Spanish vocabulary effortlessly using mnemonic devices and flashcards and quite another to memorize the conjugations for the myriad Spanish verbs vital to everyday conversation. Most newbies have had a mighty difficult time with the Spanish verb, ir (to go) and its conjugations that seem extremely unrelated from one conjugation to another! Come to think of it, who would expect voy (I go) and fui (I went) to be forms of...

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Tame The Stubborn Subjunctives With This Song Of Separation

Not sure if it’s crazy or just plain ignorance but most of us have found nothing as unfamiliar and alien as the subjunctives while learning Spanish. We’ve discussed the grammar behind this “mood” at length in two previous articles; while one story discusses a subjunctive-laden song by Juanes, the other focuses on Ojalá, a terribly important keyword of Latin American Spanish relevant to the subjunctive mood. This article introduces you to yet another...

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A Mexican Song For The Spanish Past Tense

If you have been diligently following the 22 things a smart-ass would do learning Spanish that we discussed a little while ago, you are probably keen on getting even with the Spanish past tense before any other. Once again, don’t ask why or how this order matters but if you are lazy enough, you don’t care anyways. So, can anything make it easier for us to grasp and recall the infamous past tense conjugations in Spanish? Well, there’s always a song...

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Spanish Subjunctive With An Arabic Twist

You say, “May God make me an instant billionnaire,” when your wish calls for some divine intervention. Arabs say, “Oh Allah,” for the same effect and the world being a small place, this Semitic phrase ended up in Spanish as, “¡Ojalá!” It’s not hard to draw parallels between the two expressions given their almost identical pronunciations. Thank them Moors for this useful element of Spanish which is strangely more common in Latin America than in Spain...

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One sentence, Three Learnings

We have often used sentences, phrases, and expressions from real-life Spanish conversations to learn and teach some of the most annoying and hard-to-grasp aspects of the Spanish grammar and drive home new vocabulary in the process. The philosophy behind this methodology is that you’re more likely (and strongly urged) to use these sentences in your own day-to-day conversations and help yourself get comfortably fluent in the Spanish language without...

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34 Words You Must Recognize In A Hispanic Marketplace

This article is yet another demonstration of just how easy Spanish vocabulary can be despite its difficult and memory-resistant first impression. If you ever get a chance to visit a Latino mercado (marketplace), you will not take too long to notice that the sign on almost every tienda (store) reads something that ends in -ería. This should at least be enough to tell you that this suffix refers to some sort of place where something is either made...

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13 Kitchen Words In Spanish In Less Than 4 Minutes

The Latin word, furnus became “furnace” in English and forno in Old Spanish, which later morphed into horno in modern Spanish. Armed with this little piece of history, you should find it a piece of cake to remember and recall that the Spanish for “oven” is horno! Similarly, Latin had unda (wave) which made the English verb, “undulate” also meaning “to wave”. This Latin unda later evolved into the onda of modern Spanish. No points for guessing...

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Let Juanes Help You Learn The Spanish Subjunctive

All too often, the Spanish subjunctive is made to appear way more intimidating to those learning the language than it needs to. Grammar books say it is not a tense but a mood. We’d rather choose to keep things simple and for the sake of staying away from unnecessarily complicated grammatical nomenclature, will call it a form of the verb. Quite simply put, this form is used for any verb in Spanish when we are not being objective or certain about...

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Learn To Recount Your Imagination In Spanish

They say, imagination is the cheapest luxury one can afford. What few realize is that it can also be one of the most effective tool for learning Spanish. Whenever we deconstruct a sentence, we essentially break down an overwhelming behemoth of a sentence into tiny, easily understandable fragments that our minds instantly assimilate. The sentence that we are going to break down here has nothing grand about it but would prove immensely helpful if...

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A Novel And A Movie To Teach You Mexican Spanish

Como agua para chocolate is a very commonly heard expression in some Spanish-speaking countries, particularly Mexico, and was the inspiration behind the title of a novel by the much-celebrated Mexican screenwriter, Laura Esquivel. Mexico is the birthplace of chocolate; in many Latin American countries (and of course, in Mexico as well) hot chocolate is a staple traditionally made by melting chocolate over a pot of boiling water and the phrase, como...

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Some Costa Rican Words For Your Private Organs

Regardless of who you are and how you are learning Spanish, one of the first things that strike you as irresistibly interesting is the glossary of naughty words. There are known to be countless learners, quite unsurprisingly, who have researched and assimilated the vulgar and taboo vocabulary even before they learn how to say, “¡Buenos días!” in Spanish! Even some us might as well be one of them. And this is only human; anything forbidden charms...

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