Spanish Tips

One of the most important things  to memorize once you are in a foreign country are those words or phrases that you can use to express courtesy and respect.

You should memorize these right away:

• Please: Por favor (por fah BOR)
• Thank you: Gracias (GRAH-s’yahs)
• You’re welcome: De nada (deh NAH-thah)
• Excuse me: Disculpe (dees-KOOL-peh)
• I’m sorry: Lo siento (loh S’YEN-toh)

Pronouncing the vowels correctly is essential to authentic Spanish pronunciation and, therefore, to communication.

Spanish Vowels tend to sound shorter than english vowels. There is a little tip to obtain clipped vowels: You can add an h (silent h, not pronounced) after a, e and o. By doing this, you get ah, eh, oh.

The spanish vowels e and u, can be represented by “ee” and “oo”.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/n_s_p/2889722862/

This can be a little confusing at first, so let’s check some examples. The spanish words sábado (Saturday), libro (Book) and computadora (Computer) are trnascribed as “sah-bah-doh”, “lee-bro” and “khom-poo-tah-doh-ra”.

Pronouncing Spanish Vowels

Below, you can find individual examples for each vowel:

• ‘a’: The spanish a is pronounced like the “a” in the English word “father”.
  • Example: terraza (teh-rrah-sah)
• ‘e’: The spanish e is pronounced like a shortened version of the “e” in the English word “cafe”.
  • Example: Mesa (meh-sah)
• ‘i’: The spanish i is pronounced like the “ee” in the English word “see”.
  • Example: silla (see-yah)
• ‘o’: The spanish o is pronounced like the “o” in the English word “obey” (but it is clipped short).
  • Example: no (noh)
• ‘u’: The spanish u is pronounced like the “u” in the English word “rule”.
  • Example: azul (ah-sool)

There always seems to be a misunderstanding about the pronunciation of the ‘h’ in Spanish.

In this post, we are going to give a detailed and quick guide to pronouncing the letter ‘h’ in Spanish (or, to be more precise, not pronouncing it).

The reality is that the ‘H’ in Spanish is always silent.

So, for example, the word “hay” is pronounced like the English word eye.

How to pronounce the ‘h’ in Spanish:

Honduras is pronounced onduras
And Havana is pronounced avana

It is confusing at first, but it just like the letter ‘k’ in English: You write ‘know’, but you don’t pronounce the letter.

Wait for more quick pronunciation tips here at language4students.

There are quite a few methodologies for learning a new language: learning by doing, learning the theory and then apply what you´ve learnt, etc.

One method we are strongly against is giving our students translation exercises. Why? Because you cannot speak a foreign language fluently if you just try to translate every word you are thinking from one language to the other.

Translation as a learning method that doesn´t work: That´s a fact.
Scientific studies have proven time and time again translating is an ineffective method for learning.

Instead of looking for an academy that gives you translation exercises, you should look for the type of classes that immerse you in the language so that you begin thinking in that language.

So, how do you find a class that truly makes you think in a different language?

Fun classes! Where you can relax and really think in Spanish. Learn and enjoy while doing it. Our Spanish lessons are fun and dynamic, so that you can learn in an effective way.

Translating one word at a time it´s not only slow and ineffective, it can also be really painful to learn a new language.
Want to know more about our classes? Visit: http://language4students.com/

There is a formal and an informal way to address a Spanish-speaking person. Which one you use depends on how well you know the person and/or his/her age.

It is always best to address someone you do not know well or who is older than you are by using usted (Ud.) (oos-tehd).

Once you get to know someone well and especially if he or she has requested that you do so, use tú (too).

Greetings in Spanish

• Good morning. Buenos días. (bweh-nohs dee-ahs)
• Good afternoon. Buenas tardes. (bweh-nahs tahr-dehs)
• Good evening./Good night. Buenas noches. (bweh-nahs nohchehs)
• Hi. Hola. (oh-lah)
• How are you? ¿Cómo está usted? (koh-moh ehs-tahoos-tehd)
• ¿Cómo estás tú? (koh-moh ehs-tahs too)
• How is it going? ¿Cómo le va? (koh-moh leh bah)
• I am fine, thanks. And you? Estoy bien, gracias. ¿Y Ud.? (ehs-toh-eebyehn grah-syahs ee oos-tehd)
• Very well. Muy bien. (moo-ee byehn)
• So-so. Regular./Así, así. (rreh-goo-lahr/ah-seeah-see)

This is the first post of a series of tips for learning spanish we will be sharing with our readers. We hope this first lesson turns out useful for many of you.

Keep coming to our website, or register to our feed to check all of our upcoming free tips for learning Spanish.

If you want to learn Spanish in Madrid, please feel free to contact us.
info@language4students.com