Visual Spanish Lessons

Naming things - The Articles

2009-06-10T17:58:00.000-07:00

When you name things you use the for everything, in spanish you have four articles depending on

Genre
Number

La: Femenine-Singular
Las: Femenine-Plural
El: Masculine-Singular
Los: Masculine-Plural

Listen some examples.

As general rule (with lot of exceptions) if the last sillabe of any has an A it is Femenine and if it has an O is masculine. Like what happens with most names. The most obvious exceptions are words beginning in A, that you should use the masculine article to avoid cacophony. ej. El Agua (The water) El águila (the eagle)

Some more tips on pronunciation..

the R at beginnings of words, and double R (RR) are strong, when a single R is in the middle of the word is much softer. In the Strong R the tongue bounces a couple of times on your hard palate, the soft R is the same but without the bouncing :). you have some examples on the months' video. (Noviembre, Diciembre)

the CH together used to be the fourth letter of the alpabeth when I did my primary school, but like the LL both were removed. Don't know how to describe it but you have and example on the video or probably heard about Che Guevara :P

Lyrics Translated

2009-06-09T00:59:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm bored and can't sleep so here goes another post, I will skip some steps for a moment and transcribe the lyrics of a song from Charly García, one of the best Argentinian musician of all time, the song is from '81 (a year before I born) and maybe the peak of this carrier. Beside the fact of being an incredible musician he said things that a few would dare in times where thing got pretty difficult around here for some.

this is not the best, neither the most representative song but it's easy to understand and translate, and what it says somewhat indentifies me and it's a quite universal feeling I guess.

Mouse over the lyrics to see what it means

Quisiera una canción para un amigo,I would like a song for a friend,

que no puede salir de la melancolía eterna de sufrirthat can't get out of eternal melancholy of suffering

de amor..for love...

Y busca en cualquier parte y hace todo para amarteAnd he looks anywhere and does everything to love you

sin embargo nunca pide perdón.however never apologizes

Sueña que vos sos como quiere él He dreams that you are like he wants you to be

y así todo lo va a perder.and like that he's gonna lose everything

Miente y se equivoca cada vez que abre la boca he lies and fails everytime he open his mouth

y hace todo para mostrar que fieland does everything to show that he's loyal

para colocarte en la cárcel de su ser. to put you in the jail of his being

Quisiera una canción para un amigo, I would like a song for a friend,

que no puede salir de la melancolia eterna de sufrirthat can't get out the eternal melancholy of suffering

de amor..for love...

Si quieres un consejo no la cuides desde lejosIf you want an advice, don't take care of her from far away

ni le digas lo que tiene que hacerneither tell her what she has to do

ella debe ser como quiere sershe must be the way she wants to be

y eso ya lo tienes que verand that is something that you must see

Rompe las cadenas que atan a la eterna pena de ser hombre y de poseerbreak the chains that bond you to the eternal sorrow of being a man and to possess

es un paso grande en la ruta de crecer.is a big step on the road of growing up.

First thing first - Vowels

2009-06-08T20:25:00.000-07:00

Before jumping into how to form phrases I think its important to know the fundamentals of pronunciation, sometimes it's useful to know how to pronunciate something despite not knowing the meaning. When I studied some portuguese it helped me a lot to grab some text and read it out loud, following the pronunciation rules disregarding what I didn't understand, just to gain confidence..

listen to the vowels (and speak them) and then I tell you the differences,

I don't know if its my ignorance but I feel like your vowels change depending where they are positioned, and dont feel that happens in spanish, where they sound the same in any sillabe, but really dont know how much that is biased for being my native language.

A rough aproximation would be

our A = your O (Us english) A (UK english)
when US say money or mother, we listen máni and mader,

E = A (US english)
I = ee, y, e

O = O (UK english) and sometimes A

U = U when you say U we listen IU (or ee-u)
another ex. you say MUSIC - we listen MIUSIC
so if you can split that sound you'll get the sound for the U

that´s it and now for some instant gratification, a phrase that one of you had a hard time trying to say hehe..

Are you having a good time?

like any language when a word ends and the next starts (in or with?, help!) a vowel it sound like the same sillabe, in music metrics you count it as one.

Welcome! - The Months

2009-06-05T20:19:00.001-07:00

Hi everyone,

Welcome to this blog which as you may guess, I'll try to do my best so you can learn to speak spanish, this was inspired on Lucy, Harriet, Rick and Ryan, all english friends I met during the time they spent here in Buenos Aires, and wanted to learn the language. As I told them, I never really studied english in a formal way but that was possible because there's a lot more of resources to learn english and the spread the language has worldwide. So.. this blog is an attempt to shrink that gap a little, and to keep the communication channel open.

Comment the posts with any questions you may have o requests for speaking specific words or phrases I´ll post it whenever I have time. I think I´ll be updating this thing twice a week so keep coming if you find it interesting.

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The fun thing about learning languages is talking, so for each lesson I'll post some video so you can practice. Those who had the displeasure of listening to my voice, know that it is truly awful so luckyly for you my friend Melisa accepted to help me with the videos.

So there it goes before I dull you.

These are the months, spelled by sillabe in a karaoke way.

The focus of the lessons will be informal talking, specifically from Buenos Aires but I´ll make the distinction whenever necessary (and if I know it). The first thing I could say about this in this video, is the difference in the pronunciation of the Y (May, Mayo) that in Buenos Aires it would be like your SH, like in Shallow and the rest of Latin America and Spain would be a plain E.

Another one: the Z in Argentina sounds the same as the S (like you just heard in Marzo), to get the sound of Spanish Z you have to say it while bitting your tongue (yes, really)

It'll make more sense when I post the vowels on the next post.

By for now, hope you liked it.