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May 31st, 2008 by Lyda
Using ’ser’ or ‘estar’
When someone starts learning a language, he or she always finds some specific aspects more difficult than others. When you’re learning Spanish, this is the case of ’ser’ and ‘estar’. In English we have one ‘to be’ verb but in Spanish we have to ways to say ‘to be’: ’ser’ and ‘estar’.
Today I want to give you some tips on how to use ’ser’ and ‘estar’:
1. If you want to express essential characteristics you need to use ‘ser‘:
I am intelligent. = Yo soy inteligente.
I am a woman. = Yo soy mujer.
Essential characteristics are expressed in Spanish using the verb ’ser’. Don’t get confused with tenses. In present, preterit, future, or any other tense if you want to express an essential characteristic, you have to use the verb ’ser’:
When I was a child I used to be thin. = Cuando yo era niña era delgada.
I have always been intelligent. = Yo siempre he sido inteligente.
You change the tense and the conjugation but you continue using the same verb: ’ser’.
2. If you want to express condition, you need to use ‘estar‘:
I am fine. = Yo estoy bien
I am sad. = Yo estoy triste.
I am happy. = Yo estoy feliz.
Once again don’t forget to use ‘estar’ if you are expressing condition. Change the tense, change the sentence but always choose ‘estar‘ if you want to talk about your own or someone’s condition:
I was sad on the weekend and I was happy yesterday. = Yo estuve triste el fin de semana y estuve feliz ayer.
In English you use one ‘to be’ verb but in Spanish you need to use two: ’ser’ and ‘estar’.
I have a paragraph here, using ’ser’ and ‘estar’. I’m using different tenses but still following the ‘rule’ about essential characteristics using ’ser’ and condition using ‘estar’.
Yo soy Lyda. Soy colombiana y soy bonita. Cuando era niña yo era rubia. Ahora soy una mujer adulta y no soy rubia. Cuando era pequeña siempre estaba feliz. Yo nunca estaba triste.
Ahora estoy feliz. Yo casi nunca estoy triste.
Esta semana yo no he estado triste. Toda la semana he estado bien.
¡Yo soy Lyda y estoy feliz!
I am Lyda. I am Colombian and I am pretty. When I was a child I was blond. Now I am an adult woman and I am not blond. When I was little I was always happy. I was never sad. Now I am happy. I am almost never sad.
This week I’ve not been sad. All week I’ve been fine.
I am Lyda and I am happy.
Check how in the previous paragraph we used two different verbs in Spanish: ’ser’ and ‘estar’ and in English we used just one: ‘to be’. Try to write a similar paragraph with your personal information paying attention to the uses of ’ser’ and ‘estar’.
It’s not easy. It’s difficult for beginners and advanced students. Paying attention to the ‘rules’ and practice will help you use them appropriately.
Next time we will talk about some more ‘tips’ on when to use ’ser’ and ‘estar’.
May 17th, 2008 by Lyda
Quality and Qualifications
When thinking about studying Spanish online, what do you look for? Do you look for the cheapest service or do you also make sure that you find a quality service? You have plenty of options when trying to find a tutor. Think about it. How many countries on earth speak Spanish? There are quite a few. Just in Mexico, how many people speak Spanish as a mother tongue? TONS! But just because a language is your mother tongue, does that make you qualified to teach it? If English is your mother tongue, does that make you qualified to teach English to foreigners? There are plenty of people teaching languages whose only qualifications are being a native speaker. We recommend finding a tutor who is not only a native speaker, but also a qualified teacher.
Pricing
I’ve found websites with unbelievable prices for live tutoring. They are so cheap than I can’t understand how they survive paying taxes, expenses and teachers. Do you pay taxes? Me too. Do you deserve a decent salary? Me too. Your Spanish teacher could be in Guatemala, Colombia or Spain. The location of your teacher is not important when your learning on line. The important thing is: Is this a legal business? Do they pay taxes? Are the teachers working with them qualified? What are the labor conditions for this teachers? Are the teachers receiving fare payment?
I work with a great team in Spanish L2. I work with happy people. I work with qualified language teachers. I enjoy my job. I learn with my colleagues and with my students. We love learning. We love teaching. We, here at Spanish L2, offer a qualify service: Teachers with experience teaching Spanish to foreigners. Teachers with an academic background. People who love to teach languages. We are not the most inexpensive service, but we are are far from the most expensive service! We are, however, extremely qualified. We are professional and efficient. And no less important: We are a legal company based in the United States. We pay American taxes and fare salaries. We truly believe fare salaries make for happy teachers.
You don’t have to study with us. But you can consider my advice: Don’t look for the cheapest service out there. Look for the highest-quality service! (Hint: That’s us!)
May 11th, 2008 by Esteban
Tildes
Why do Spanish speakers hate to put ‘tildes’? From my experience learning and teaching Spanish linguistics I’ve noticed that people simply don’t care about ‘tildes’. They think they’re not necessary as you can get the meaning of a word or sentence without any ‘tildes’. Is it that hard to write a short tiny little line over a vowel once in a while?
I agree… sometimes I understand what I read with or without accents. But… is it correct? NO! It’s not correct, there are rules. And if the rule says you have to put an accent there, put it! Believe me: it’s not THAT difficult!
Therefore, if you’re learning a language and want to be proficient, then you should make a little effort and learn how to write well. And ‘well’ means correctly and ‘correctly means with ’tildes’.
There are some easy rules to learn and with a little practice you’ll simply KNOW that an accent must be placed here or there. Ok, language it’s about communicating and if others get what I say, it’s enough… true. Skipping a ‘tilde’ is not a big deal, but if you’re my Spanish student, I’ll ask you to practice ‘tildes’ once in a while.
Here’s a little example to think about:
Fábrica – Fabrica
Secretaria – Secretaría
Tú – Tu
‘Tildes’ make part of this language for a reason, if not, they wouldn’t exist.
May 11th, 2008 by Vivian
In Colombia, we are celebrating the mother’s day… what does it mean?
There is a special day to pay tribute to those women who are mothers… Do you think this is a good way to pay tribute to them? I don’t know…. I’ll be blunt, some people use to give a present to their mother in the mother’s day, but what about the rest of the year days? Are they really good children? Do they use to say ‘I love you mom’? Or do they seize the opportunity to say and do the things they don’t use to? Is there just one day to make our mothers feel happy, loved and comfortable?
I think there are few people who decide to buy a gift to their mother without having a special reason, lots of people are too busy to be with their mother and talk to her and listen to her, but those people know that they always have that woman who support them, help them and think about them without a special reason…
Why don’t give her a bouquet of flowers on Monday, a box of chocolates on Tuesday, a necklace on Wednesday, a sweater on Thursday, a massage on Friday and a perfume on Saturday? Why don’t invite her to a restaurant on Sunday?
If you do that kind of things without a special reason, commercial celebration or something like that you are celebrating your mom’s day always and you are a really very good child…and I have to confess myself …. I don’t use to do that, sometimes I try to make my mom feel comfortable and relaxed, but being blunt the mother’s commercial day is the only mother’s day to her…This situation should be changed.
Are you part of the number of people who have just one mother’s day, like me? Or are you part of the few people who celebrate the mother’s day every day?
If you are in the first group…REMEMBER… this situation should be changed.
May 6th, 2008 by Esteban
I’ve heard so many people from Bogotá say: “We don’t have any accent, our accent is neutral”. Well… I always have to disagree.
I know Mexicans speak in a very particular way; they tend to “sing” a bit at the end of each word. Argentineans have their own way of pronouncing some words and letters, too. In Colombia, we have different accents depending on the region. For example, in some southern cities, people speak similar to Ecuadorians and in some northern cities, people speak similar to Venezuelans. But what about Bogota?
Ok, our accent is not as “strong” as other accents in Colombia and in Latin America, but… is it possible NOT to have an accent at all? What do you think?
Personally, I think we DO have an accent. Actually, I’m pretty sure I have an accent, everybody does! Yes…it’s true that people from Bogota speak clearer than others, it’s true that we don’t “swallow” some letters, it’s true that we don’t “sing” on the last syllables… but I bet we have an accent! What do you think?
May 6th, 2008 by Lyda
Yes, there are some differences between Spanish from Spain and Spanish from South America, but the essence is the same. The base is the same. The grammar is the same. One is not better than the other. Spanish from Spanish is not ‘the real Spanish’ just because Spain brought Spanish to the new world. We can’t think in that way because we are forgetting that languages are products of evolution, use, and languages are always growing and changing. New vocabulary, new expressions, and new uses are always adding life to a language.
I know that people from Europe want to learn Spanish from Spain and people from the States want to learn Spanish from South American countries. They find one or the other useful. I also know that a lot of people think people from South America can’t understand Spanish from Spain, or people from Spain can’t understand Spanish from Mexico, Colombia, Chile, or Argentina. This is not true.
When we believe in the existence of communicative problems between Spaniards and Colombians, Mexicans, Ecuadorians or Chileans we are denying the essence of Spanish. Spanish is one language. We are going to find different expressions, uses and vocabulary, but in the base we are going to find the same structure.
Have you heard about the ‘RAE’? Don’t worry. It’s not a disease that people get from studying Spanish. The ‘RAE’ (Real Academia de la lengua española) is the academy in charge of maintaining “the correct usage” of Spanish. I’m from Colombia and the ‘RAE’ website is one of the tools that I use every day. I use their dictionary. I use their rules and I follow their suggestions. The ‘RAE’ is based in Spain but there are subsidiaries in every country in South America. Why do we follow the ‘RAE’? Because Spanish is one language. A language following the same rules and the same grammar, in Spain, Colombia, Peru, Mexico and Venezuela. Yes, Spaniards use ‘Vosotros’, while we use Usted’ in South America. But it’s also true that in a country like Colombia we learn to conjugate ‘Vosotros’ in school. South America is not a box. We have Spanish TV channels. We watch movies from Spain. Mexican and Colombian actors are huge in Spain. Why? Because we speak the same language: Spanish.
Depending on the region where they are from, Spaniards have pronounce some words differently with /s,c,z/. But this is not a general rule for Spain. These are differences inside the same country. Are there differences (thinking about pronunciation and vocabulary) within your country? My guess is ‘yes’!
Of course, thinking about informal language we are going to have bigger differences when communicating. In each and every Spanish speaking country, there are different informal expressions, but this happens everywhere. Have you had problems understanding your kid’s text messages? Informal language changes rapidly and that doesn’t matter where you are. But when we talk about the ‘basics’ of Spanish, you’ll find that all Spanish speaking countries speak Spanish. If you speak Spanish, you’ll be able to communicate with people in Madrid, Mexico City, Bogotá, and all the way to Patagonia. Let’s forget crazy ideas, and let’s learn one Spanish, one language, one great tool!
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