Spanish course: How to Request Action by a Group That Includes Yourself

Either the Imperative Mood or 'Vamos a' May Be Used

Spanish has two main ways of making suggestions or commands to a group that includes the person speaking. Both of them can be used as the equivalent of the English "let's" in a sentence such as "Let's work."

Imperative mood: The most straightforward way is to use the first-person plural imperative mood, which takes the same form as the first-person plural form of the subjunctive mood. In regular -ar verbs, the ending is replaced by -emos, and in -er and -irverbs, the ending is replaced by -amos:

• Bailemos un vals. Let's dance a waltz.
• Compremos una casa en España. Let's buy a house in Spain.
• Hagamos un trato. Let's make a deal.
• Tratemos de ser felices. Let's try to be happy.

If you're using the imperative form of a reflexive verb, the -emos ending becomes -émonos, and the -amos ending becomes -ámonos. In other words, the -nos ending is added to the verb, but the -s is dropped before the pronoun:

• Levantémonos a las seis de la mañana. Let's get up at 6 a.m.
• Lavémonos las manos. Let's wash our hands.
• Riámonos un ratito. Let's laugh a little bit. (Réirseis an irregular verb.)

In the negative form, however, the pronoun comes before the verb: No nos mejoremos. Let's not improve ourselves.

With a form of ir: Probably more common than the imperative mood, and even easier to learn, is to use the third-person form of ir followed by a, i.e., "vamos a," followed by the infinitive:

• Vamos a nadar. Let's go swimming.
• Vamos a casarnos. Let's get married.
• Vamos a estudiar. Let's study.
• Vamos a viajar a Italia. Let's go to Italy.

You may note that "vamos a + infinitive" can also mean "we are going to + infinitive," so the first sample sentence above could also mean "We are going to swim." Indeed, "ir a + infinitive" is a very common substitute for the future tense in Spanish. In the first-person plural, then, context will determine what is meant.
It is not uncommon when meaning "let's" to replace "vamos a" with simply "a." For example, "a ver" is a very common way of saying "let's see."

Final translation note: When translating from English, do not confuse "let's" as a suggestion to the group with "let us" as a way of asking for permission. For example, one way you might say "let us help you" would be "Permítenos ayudarte," where the verbpermitir is used in the third person (the person being addressed) rather than the first person (the people who want to help).

Source: About.com, Gerald Erichsen

Learn Spanish by playing online games

Spanish Matching games are a great way to build and retain Spanish vocabulary.

Words are matched to the appropriate images and incorrect answers are displayed. Students will learn new vocabulary words in a way that is more enjoyable than reading from a textbook.

Try Drag-n-match with Spanish animal names:



Source: 123teachme.com

Barack Obama: American children should learn to speak Spanish

The American president Barack Obama says in this video that he thinks that American children should learn Spanish as well as English. If he says so...



Source: Youtube

The two most common problems in speaking Spanish

If you already speak some Spanish, chances are good that you have some of these problems:
1. difficulty understanding native speakers
2. translating in your head before you speak

Why You Have These Problems?
Think back on your Spanish classes. How much time did you actually spend speaking Spanish out loud, in a conversational setting? How much one-on-one time did you get practicing with a native speaker? In most classes you don't get very much individual practice at all.

A Different Path
If you would like to learn to speak Spanish and to actually understand native speakers, it is very likely that the problem is not that you don't know enough.
You probably know quite a few words, and understand quite a bit of grammar. Learning more words and studying more grammar is not the path to conversational fluency. The path of success lies in lots of one-on-one practice with a native speaker.

Learning to speak Spanish in 2 simple steps

Step 1: Learn to speak Spanish using the correct method, and you will learn to build sentences and become conversational quickly. It isn’t only about learning some words and phrases, but you will actually have to learn to build sentences in order to be able to speak Spanish. Keep in mind that learning Spanish can be fun and easy if you choose the right Spanish course.

Step 2: Start speaking Spanish with others, and your confidence will grow quickly. Perhaps this is the most important step. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, everyone does this in the beginning. Just go on and you’ll get better at it along the way.

You will become fluent in conversational Spanish faster than you ever thought possible.

We highly recommend you to try the course of David Rivera, he even offers free courses on his website!

Learn Spanish because it is one of the most spoken languages in the world!

In 1999, there were according to Ethnologue 358 million people speaking Spanish as a native language and a total of 417 million speakers worldwide. Currently these figures are up to 400 and 500 million people respectively. Spanish is the second most natively spoken language in the world, after Mandarin Chinese. Mexico contains the largest population of Spanish speakers. Spanish is one of the six official languages of the United Nations, and used as an official language of the European Union, and Mercosur.

You see, Spanish is spoken by so many people in the world that it is worth the effort to learn it!

Source: wikipedia

Spanish Language Basics : Everyday Spanish Phrases by Priscilla Monserrate-Sanders

Priscilla Monserrate-Sanders has developed Spanish learning programs for Latino children and youths for over 10 years. In this short youtube film she introduces you to the most commonly used Spanish phrases including "hola" for hello, "buenos dias" for good morning and "gracias" for thank you. Learn some conversational Spanish with help from the founder of a Spanish language school in this free video on everyday Spanish phrases.

Source: youtube (holaschool.com)

Learn Spanish for professional use

Spanish is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world so learn Spanish now to improve your resume to get the best job possible.If learning Spanish language is not a pressing matter such as a requirement at your job, you may tend to neglect it when tired or overloaded with other work but if you have someone else in the house learning it with you he or she can help keep you on track everyday.

A language learner who acquires about five hundred important words could have a working knowledge of the language in no time at all. Figure it out.

To learn Spanish language fast you must make it fun and practice as often as you remember but at least once everyday and before you know you will be able to follow and converse with native Spanish speakers just like you were from their country origin.

Source: http://prudentarticles.com/reference-education/easy-ways-to-learn-spanish-language

Beginning to learn Spanish

In order to learn Spanish language you must try and learn a bit about it first: it has Latin origins and many different dialects spoken all over Spain, South America and all over US by the many Spanish speaking citizens that have their origins in one of the Spanish speaking countries. If you know or have in any way come across Latin or any other Latin origin languages, you will find Spanish very easy to grasp and speak. Spanish is usually pronounced as written with a few exceptions, the grammar can be hard and it is suggested not to be studied in the beginning of the course.

To learn Spanish language fast and have fun while doing so join an interactive course whether it is online or a traditional class. When you have company while studying you will learn faster from other’s mistakes, pronunciation and practice; you will also have a teacher who will be able to guide you instantly if you made a mistake instead of you having to find out after a week of using it that way.

Source: http://prudentarticles.com/reference-education/easy-ways-to-learn-spanish-language

Learn Spanish Lesson 1

Source: youtube

Common Spanish Phrases

Spanish, just like English is a language where a finite list of common phrases can come in handy. Sometimes you don't need to learn lots and become fluent in a language, you just need some basics. So, that's wht we're going to address here with some basic Spanish phrases and their English equivalents.

Also, as we see in English some sayings are common in different areas. Words and sayings that may be common in England, may sound out of place or not be understood in the United States (and that may depend on the region of the US.) So, keep in mind that you may find regional variations on some of these.

For each of them I will give the english equivalent first.

Yes
Si

No
No

(Those first two were easy weren't they?)

How are you?
Como esta Usted? (this is the formal way of asking...)
Como estas? (less formal - use with peers/those younger than you/friends/etc.)

Fine, thank you
Bien, gracias

So, So
asi asi

What time is it?
Que hora es?

My name is...
me llamo ....
(mi nombre es...)

and you?
y usted? (formal)
y tu? (less formal)

please
por favor

thanks/thank you
gracias

may I?
puedo?

you're welcome
de nada

Hello
Hola

Good Day
Buenos Dias
(sometimes just Buenos in casual conversation)

Good evening
Buenos tardes

Good night
Buenos noches

move it/come on
andale

where is....?
Donde esta....?

How much is....?
Cuanto cuesta...?

welcome
bienvenidos

I don't believe it.
No lo creo.

It can't be.
No puede ser.

Look!
Mira!

Goodbye....
adios/

see you later
hasta luego

until we meet again
hasta la vista

I don't understand (I don't understand it)
no comprendo (no lo comprendo)/ no entiendo

I'm sorry
Lo siento/ perdon

slowly please
mas despacio por favor

I may follow this up with a bit more in the future. Of course, these are very basic and those in the Unite States may already know many of these. But it can be useful to try to ad a few more phrases into your repertoire if there are some in the list that you haven't seen before. When I do add more I'll try to get into a bit more advanced listing of phrases.

This has given me the thought that maybe I shoul try to give some basics of Spanish for the self taught. Of course, with a couple of languages I have started out knowing just a few phrases and then studied just a bit more and dug a bit deeper. At that point the phrases start to make a bit more sense. The bottom line though is it helps immensely to have a good idea of the basics before you plunge in and start studying phrases and memorizing vocabulary words.

What basics? It's really more than just a few common phrases, and really probably is best put as a little dose of grammar. For instance, what do the verbs look like, how do you say I, you, he, she, it, us, they, etc..... and how do you work with verbs at list in the present tense. Are there other basic, easy rules that can spice up your understanding of the language?

This has given me some good food for thought and perhaps an upcoming series of posts. Other work is (and always seems to stay) busy these days. So, I may not be able to dig into that series quickly, but I will get there.