Pedro Teaches Conjugation – The Simple Present Tense Of Spanish

For most Spanish leaners, the present indicative tense, or simple present, is invariably the first step into the utterly confusing and demotivating world of Spanish verb conjugations. While conjugations eventually come naturally once you have acquired even a basic level of proficiency with the language, you are often left with no choice but to memorize them painfully until that stage comes. And memorization using traditional rote method, as we all...

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The Spanish Preterit: Once And For All

Past actions in the Spanish language can be expressed in two ways depending on whether they were completed once for all or otherwise. Spanish grammar categorizes them as the preterit and the imperfect. While the imperfect handles all habitual, continuous, or repetitive actions and verbs denoting a state of being, preterit covers pretty much whatever is left – actions that were performed and also concluded well within the past. This article delves...

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Tú Or Vos? The Culture Dilemma

English, as we know it today, is a very simple language when it comes to addressing people. You have just one word (you) that can be used for strangers and acquaintances alike regardless of your level of intimacy with them. With Spanish, life gets a bit complicated because depending on where you are and who you are with, you must carefully choose from three different pronouns to sound appropriate. While knowledge of tú and usted is commonplace,...

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Tricks To Instantly Recall The Spanish Imperfect Conjugations

The Spanish language, like its other Romance cousins, is notorious for its myriad spirit-throttling conjugations. The first conjugation set any novice learner memorizes is the one for the simple present tense. While that one was relatively easier, it turns out there are many more such sets to be mugged up – for at least a dozen other tenses – and that’s where it starts to get intimidating. In this article, we’ll see how simple mnemonic cues and...

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Tips On Using The World's Largest Language Learning Community

In the process of acquiring Spanish, we have used and abused an insane amount of free resources both offline and online. It is only with hit-and-trial that you eventually appreciate what works best for you, be it learning Spanish or acquiring any other skill. One of the resources many learners have used quite extensively is Livemocha and this article is going to focus on our experiences – and those of many other Spanish learners all over the world...

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Positive Emotions In Spanish

Expressing one’s emotions is perhaps the single most important aspect of human communication in any language. Almost every real-life communication involves expression of the speakers’ feelings and sentiments, positive or negative, in varying degrees. Hence, it becomes obviously imperative for anyone learning Spanish to learn to be able to express themselves and their emotions efficiently in that language before they set out on any confident conversation...

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Irregular Spanish Imperative Made Easy With Vin Diesel

Few real-life Spanish language interactions can last meaningfully long without the use of the imperative. This is the quintessential tense you speak in whenever you make a direct request or a command. Hence, it’s imperative that you master this tense quite early on while learning Spanish. While the English imperative is pretty straightforward with a single word for both requests and for commands, both negative and positive, Spanish has different...

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