In this lesson we talk about the differences between Pude vs Podía and Quise vs Quería. This is the difference between the Preterite and the Imperfect past tenses.

So, if you are not sure about the difference between Pude vs Podía, then this is the lesson for you!

Be sure to check out our other Spanish student videocasts here. We release a new videocast each week and vary the level from Beginner to Advanced.

If you would like to have regular lessons with Gordon and Cynthia, why not consider joining our Ser Socio subscriber group HERE. The first month is free with the coupon code: FREEMONTH

Un saludo,

Gordon y Cynthia:)

Video for This Spanish Lesson

As well as the lessons that you receive as a Socio, we also offer many other resources to help you make your Spanish move forward at a pace.

Free Videocasts Take a look at our range of 160 free podcasts and many other lessons all designed to take your Spanish forward at LightSpeed! Every videocast that we have produced comes with a comprehensive helpsheet to guide you through the grammar and to test your understanding.

Our Fantastic Books Check out our ever increasing range of high acclaimed, no-nonsense workbooks that explain Spanish grammar in easy-to-follow language. (Link to books)

Our Total Immersion Courses Set close to Madrid in Spain we offer week-long total immersion courses designed to boost your confidence levels sky high! Remember that as a Socio you have a 50 Euro discount from the cost of the course.

Online one-to-one and group lessons. Why not have a free, no obligation chat with Ana and find out more about what is available to really get your Spanish moving!

Gordon’s Diaries. Catch up on the 100s of free ‘Diarios de Gordon’ in which he talks about Spain, life and anything else that comes to his mind.

Cynthia’s Insights. Join Cynthia as she gives her take on life in Spain and on life in general in her free range of video diaries.

All of our Playlists. Come and browse through the hundreds of videos that we have for you to enjoy on Youtube. If you have any questions or want to know more, please feel free to write to [email protected]

Audio for This Spanish Lesson

The post 46 Early Inter Pude vs Podía Quise vs Quería appeared first on Lightspeed Spanish.

In this lesson we talk about the infamous Spanish redundant pronoun LE, which catches many students out when they don’t know wjht it is there. If you are curious about it, then watch on!

In this videocast, we explain everything in a simple to understand way, so that you can begin to understand and use the Spanish redundant pronoun well and with confidence.

Be sure to check out our other Spanish student videocasts here. We release a new videocast each week and vary the level from Beginner to Advanced.

If you would like to have regular lessons with Gordon and Cynthia, why not consider joining our Ser Socio subscriber group HERE. The first month is free with the coupon code: FREEMONTH

Un saludo,

Gordon y Cynthia:)

Video for This Spanish Lesson

As well as the lessons that you receive as a Socio, we also offer many other resources to help you make your Spanish move forward at a pace.

Free Videocasts Take a look at our range of 160 free podcasts and many other lessons all designed to take your Spanish forward at LightSpeed! Every videocast that we have produced comes with a comprehensive helpsheet to guide you through the grammar and to test your understanding.

Our Fantastic Books Check out our ever increasing range of high acclaimed, no-nonsense workbooks that explain Spanish grammar in easy-to-follow language. (Link to books)

Our Total Immersion Courses Set close to Madrid in Spain we offer week-long total immersion courses designed to boost your confidence levels sky high! Remember that as a Socio you have a 50 Euro discount from the cost of the course.

Online one-to-one and group lessons. Why not have a free, no obligation chat with Ana and find out more about what is available to really get your Spanish moving!

Gordon’s Diaries. Catch up on the 100s of free ‘Diarios de Gordon’ in which he talks about Spain, life and anything else that comes to his mind.

Cynthia’s Insights. Join Cynthia as she gives her take on life in Spain and on life in general in her free range of video diaries.

All of our Playlists. Come and browse through the hundreds of videos that we have for you to enjoy on Youtube. If you have any questions or want to know more, please feel free to write to [email protected]

Audio for This Spanish Lesson

The post 45 Early Inter Spanish Redundant Pronoun LE appeared first on Lightspeed Spanish.

In this lesson we talk about Spanish word order and show you just how flexible it can be. We also explain another important thing about Spanish word order: changing it can change the emphasis of the sentence! A must watch!

Be sure to check out our other Spanish student videocasts here. We release a new videocast each week and vary the level from Beginner to Advanced.

If you would like to have regular lessons with Gordon and Cynthia, why not consider joining our Ser Socio subscriber group HERE. The first month is free with the coupon code: FREEMONTH

Un saludo,

Gordon y Cynthia:)

Video for This Spanish Lesson

As well as the lessons that you receive as a Socio, we also offer many other resources to help you make your Spanish move forward at a pace.

Free Videocasts Take a look at our range of 160 free podcasts and many other lessons all designed to take your Spanish forward at LightSpeed! Every videocast that we have produced comes with a comprehensive helpsheet to guide you through the grammar and to test your understanding.

Our Fantastic Books Check out our ever increasing range of high acclaimed, no-nonsense workbooks that explain Spanish grammar in easy-to-follow language. (Link to books)

Our Total Immersion Courses Set close to Madrid in Spain we offer week-long total immersion courses designed to boost your confidence levels sky high! Remember that as a Socio you have a 50 Euro discount from the cost of the course.

Online one-to-one and group lessons. Why not have a free, no obligation chat with Ana and find out more about what is available to really get your Spanish moving!

Gordon’s Diaries. Catch up on the 100s of free ‘Diarios de Gordon’ in which he talks about Spain, life and anything else that comes to his mind.

Cynthia’s Insights. Join Cynthia as she gives her take on life in Spain and on life in general in her free range of video diaries.

All of our Playlists. Come and browse through the hundreds of videos that we have for you to enjoy on Youtube. If you have any questions or want to know more, please feel free to write to [email protected]

Audio for This Spanish Lesson

The post 44 Early Intermediate Spanish word order appeared first on Lightspeed Spanish.

In this lesson we talk about the way we use the Spanish present subjunctive with NO.

Even at the early intermediate level, there are things about the subjunctive that you MUST know. Listen in as we tell you what they are. The use of the Spanish Present Subjunctive with NO is a vital part of this puzzle.

If you would like to take a look at our book: Demystifying the Spanish Subjunctive, then you can see it HERE.

Un saludo,

Gordon y Cynthia:)

Video for This Spanish Lesson

As well as the lessons that you receive as a Socio, we also offer many other resources to help you make your Spanish move forward at a pace.

Free Videocasts Take a look at our range of 160 free podcasts and many other lessons all designed to take your Spanish forward at LightSpeed! Every videocast that we have produced comes with a comprehensive helpsheet to guide you through the grammar and to test your understanding.

Our Fantastic Books Check out our ever increasing range of high acclaimed, no-nonsense workbooks that explain Spanish grammar in easy-to-follow language. (Link to books)

Our Total Immersion Courses Set close to Madrid in Spain we offer week-long total immersion courses designed to boost your confidence levels sky high! Remember that as a Socio you have a 50 Euro discount from the cost of the course.

Online one-to-one and group lessons. Why not have a free, no obligation chat with Ana and find out more about what is available to really get your Spanish moving!

Gordon’s Diaries. Catch up on the 100s of free ‘Diarios de Gordon’ in which he talks about Spain, life and anything else that comes to his mind.

Cynthia’s Insights. Join Cynthia as she gives her take on life in Spain and on life in general in her free range of video diaries.

All of our Playlists. Come and browse through the hundreds of videos that we have for you to enjoy on Youtube. If you have any questions or want to know more, please feel free to write to [email protected]

Audio for This Spanish Lesson

The post 43 Early Inter Spanish Present Subjunctive with NO appeared first on Lightspeed Spanish.

In this lesson we help you to understand how we use the Spanish Present Perfect tense with pronouns. Do you know the RID rule? You will after this lesson.

Come and join us for some great information on the Spanish Present Perfect and on how to use it well!

Un saludo,

Gordon y Cynthia:)

Video for This Spanish Lesson

As well as the lessons that you receive as a Socio, we also offer many other resources to help you make your Spanish move forward at a pace.

Free Videocasts Take a look at our range of 160 free podcasts and many other lessons all designed to take your Spanish forward at LightSpeed! Every videocast that we have produced comes with a comprehensive helpsheet to guide you through the grammar and to test your understanding.

Our Fantastic Books Check out our ever increasing range of high acclaimed, no-nonsense workbooks that explain Spanish grammar in easy-to-follow language. (Link to books)

Our Total Immersion Courses Set close to Madrid in Spain we offer week-long total immersion courses designed to boost your confidence levels sky high! Remember that as a Socio you have a 50 Euro discount from the cost of the course.

Online one-to-one and group lessons. Why not have a free, no obligation chat with Ana and find out more about what is available to really get your Spanish moving!

Gordon’s Diaries. Catch up on the 100s of free ‘Diarios de Gordon’ in which he talks about Spain, life and anything else that comes to his mind.

Cynthia’s Insights. Join Cynthia as she gives her take on life in Spain and on life in general in her free range of video diaries.

All of our Playlists. Come and browse through the hundreds of videos that we have for you to enjoy on Youtube. If you have any questions or want to know more, please feel free to write to [email protected]

Audio for This Spanish Lesson

The post 42 Early Intermediate The Spanish Present Perfect appeared first on Lightspeed Spanish.

In this lesson we help you with the Spanish Personal A and the curious ways that it is used. You’ll find out that Spanish speakers even break all of the rules with it!

Come and join us on our quick tip lesson as we help you with the Spanish Personal A and all of its uses.

Un saludo,

Gordon y Cynthia:)

Video for This Spanish Lesson

As well as the lessons that you receive as a Socio, we also offer many other resources to help you make your Spanish move forward at a pace.

Free Videocasts Take a look at our range of 160 free podcasts and many other lessons all designed to take your Spanish forward at LightSpeed! Every videocast that we have produced comes with a comprehensive helpsheet to guide you through the grammar and to test your understanding.

Our Fantastic Books Check out our ever increasing range of high acclaimed, no-nonsense workbooks that explain Spanish grammar in easy-to-follow language. (Link to books)

Our Total Immersion Courses Set close to Madrid in Spain we offer week-long total immersion courses designed to boost your confidence levels sky high! Remember that as a Socio you have a 50 Euro discount from the cost of the course.

Online one-to-one and group lessons. Why not have a free, no obligation chat with Ana and find out more about what is available to really get your Spanish moving!

Gordon’s Diaries. Catch up on the 100s of free ‘Diarios de Gordon’ in which he talks about Spain, life and anything else that comes to his mind.

Cynthia’s Insights. Join Cynthia as she gives her take on life in Spain and on life in general in her free range of video diaries.

All of our Playlists. Come and browse through the hundreds of videos that we have for you to enjoy on Youtube. If you have any questions or want to know more, please feel free to write to [email protected]

Audio for This Spanish Lesson

The post 41 Early Intermediate The Spanish personal A appeared first on Lightspeed Spanish.

¿Tú, or Usted in Spanish.

The question of the use of Tú and Usted in Spanish rather reminds me of the other famous question that we all know: ‘How long is a piece of string?’

The reason I say that is that over the years I have realised that I should not use the words ‘always’ and ‘never’ when I am talking about the rules and regulations of the Spanish language. I’ve been caught out so many times by one of my students who comes to class with evidence of an exception to my rule.  The same applies to the use of Tú and Usted in Spanish.

Now, I only ever use words like: ‘For the most part.’ or ‘Most times’ and even then, I am ‘rozando el limite’ of what is really the case.

It depends on where you are.

There really is no hard and fast rule to the use of Tú and Usted in Spanish apart from this one:

If in doubt, always start with Usted.

Recently I met a Colombian girl on a course I attended and we chatted about the use of Usted in Spanish in her country. She said that in her experience, most everyone used Usted and Ustedes only.

She surprised my by saying that her husband called her ‘señora’ and she called him ‘señor’ and both only talked to one other using ‘usted’. What was more, she said that in families and between friends, ‘usted’ is used.

Although she said that to use ‘tú’ you would need to be exceedingly close with a person, I asked her when it was that she had last used ‘tú’ with a person and she couldn’t think of one time.

Listen to what others use.

The case of the use of Tú and Usted in Spain is very different and it’s constantly changing. Spain is so much more informal than it was even 10 years ago. Yet, Usted in Spanish used in Spain still exists and is used daily. However, there are very specific situations in which Usted is used.

The safest way to manage this tricky situation is to listen to how the people speak to you and just ‘do the same’. If they use Usted in Spanish, then you do that to. If they speak to you in Tú, do that! Let them lead you.

In this Podcast and the Helpsheets that accompany it, we go into more detail of the ways to manage the situation of Tú and Usted in Spanish. Listen in as Cynthia and I help you with this.

 

Un saludo,

Gordon 🙂

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The post 40 Early Intermediate Tú or Usted in Spanish LightSpeed Spanish appeared first on Lightspeed Spanish.

Mí and Ti in Spanish. (Not to mention Sí)

I often used to wonder what the rule was about when to use Mí and Ti in Spanish. I kind of knew when to do it because I had heard others using them.

For example, in a restaurant I knew I had to say, ‘Para mí‘. When I used ‘Gustar’ I knew I had to say: ¿A ti te gusta…?

What I didn’t know, however, was the system. And so, what happens when you don’t have a system is that your Spanish becomes a bit random. You get it right most times because it sounds right, but then, a new sentence needs to be created and you botch it up.

No System = Frustration

Across the years I have worked hard to find systems to help my Spanish and that of others. Most times, once you get to know your material, you find that there is one. Until you have that system, you can go through a lot of frustration as people correct you and you don’t know why.

This was what used to happen to me with Mí and Ti in Spanish. Until, that is, I found the system. Well, in truth, I didn’t find it, it was given to me by my beautiful wife.

Cynthia has this curious way of very nonchalantly sharing absolutely vital information as though it were nothing of great importance.

I recall the day that I had made yet another mistake with Mí or Ti in Spanish, I’m not sure which, and she said in a throw away comment:

You do know that if you are following a preposition you have to use Mí, don’t you?

There was a silence whilst I processed that little gem of information and suddenly, all of my confusions turned to smoke and everything clicked into place.

It had been right in front of my face.

The answer was so simple! Yet, I had never seen it up until that moment. I could have kissed Cynthia at that moment, and probably did so. I also was very frustrated with her.

‘Why haven’t you told me that before?’ I asked her. ‘I thought you already knew it.’ She replied surprised.

Sure! That’s why I had been getting it wrong for so long!

Watch the Podcast.

Now, you don’t need to be confused any more. Just watch the Podcast to understand the Mí and Ti in Spanish and then, if you want more practice and a deeper understanding, you might be interested in our Helpsheets which are available on the website.

un saludo,

Gordon:)

 

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The post 39 Early Intermediate Mí and Ti in Spanish. When do we use them? appeared first on Lightspeed Spanish.

The Passive voice in Spanish and the Active voice.

 

Once, whilst I was working in a college giving evening classes in Spanish I was asked to cover an ‘A’ level class for a teacher who was also a native speaker. In preparation for the class she talked me through the lesson plan for that day.  She said that we had to cover the ways of avoiding the Passive voice in Spanish.

As I sat there staring at her with my fake ‘I know exactly what you are talking about.’ face on, inside I was in panic. ‘What the hell was the Passive voice?’ I was asking myself. Up until that point I had never come across that name. Of course, I had used the Passive and Active voice millions of times in my life, I just didn’t know what it was called.

Fortunately, she put me out of my misery by giving me an example of both of them and I instantly knew what she meant. However, that was one of the moments in my learning journey that reinforced to me how idiotic the grammatical names are. Most times they don’t give any clue as to what they are referring. (Like the pluperfect/pluscuamperfecto, for example!)

So what is the Passive Voice?

Well, the Passive voice in Spanish and in English is the kind of sentence in which we don’t know who it was that did the act.  This is an example:

The building was built in the 17th century. = El edificio fue construido en el siglo 17.

This is a Passive sentence because there are no perpetrators. We don’t know who built the building. We can, of course, add ‘by some men’ if we want to clear up the mystery, but the sentence can stand alone perfectly without the extra information.

It’s important to know that the Passive voice in Spanish is not commonly used in spoken language. Yet, in English it’s everywhere!

We love it in English.

The boy was arrested.

The table was set.

The swords were drawn.

Rather than using the passive voice in Spanish, however, they prefer to use the Active voice. ‘What’s that?’, I hear you ask. Well, the Active voice is the sentence in which we know exactly who did it, It’s the ‘whodunnit’ structure. Here are some examples:

They constructed the building in the 17th century.

The police arrested the boy.

The lady set the table.

The men drew the swords.

Active voice = The blame game.

With the active voice, as you can see, all you need to do is to blame the people who did the act. Listen in to the Podcast as we show you this in detail with lots of examples.

 

Un saludo,

Gordon 🙂

 

 

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The post 38 Early Intermediate The Passive Voice in Spanish and how to avoid it! appeared first on Lightspeed Spanish.

Haber in Spanish. Clearing up the mystery

The strangest part of most students concerns about what we tend to call the Perfect tenses, which are those that take Haber in Spanish and the Past Participle (I have eaten/He comido) is that for every tense that exists in Spanish we have the very same one in English. (Less the Subjunctive ones, of course.)

All that we have to do to understand how to use Haber in Spanish is to learn what the equivalent of each tense is in English. Look at this:

I have eaten.

I had eaten.

I will have eaten.

I would have eaten.

I may have eaten. (Similar to the Sunjunctive)

I might have eaten. (Similar to the Sunjunctive)

 

So, as you can see, the Perfect tenses are pretty prolific in English too. The issue is that we are so accustomed to them that we don’t really realise that we are using them. On the contrary, however, when we are trying to break down Haber in Spanish we have to really start thinking about what we are doing. It’s so much more difficult.

This podcast and the helpsheets sort it out.

What we have done in this Podcast is to start to help you understand the way that Haber in Spanish works and we have backed up the learning with our comprehensive Helpsheets that go into even more detail and offer you lots of examples and exercises.

 

The HAY of the storm.

Probably the most confusing part of the use of Haber in Spanish is the way that HAY = There is /are, works.  It’s a word that encapsulates both the singular and plural in one word.

Now, in present tense that isn’t so much of a problem but as we use this through the other tenses, we often feel tempted to make the verb plural. However, as you will see, there is no need. Take a look at this:

 

Hay = this is/are

Había = there was/were

Ha habido = there has/have been

Había habido = there had been

Habrá habido = there will have been

Habría habido = there would have been

 

As you can see, regardless of whether we are talking about one or more things, the conjugations always remain the same.

A common mistake is for people (I used to do this a lot!) to say:

Habían dos hombres. = There were two men.

 This is wrong. You never have to make the verb plural when you are using the version of HAY which comes from Haber in Spanish. The correct way is:

Había dos hombres.

So, watch on as we talk you through all of these fascinating aspects to Haber in Spanish and remember to grab your helpsheets if you need more clarification.

Un saludo,

                           Gordon:)

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The post 37 Early Intermediate Haber in Spanish LightSpeed Spanish appeared first on Lightspeed Spanish.