I talk to a lot of people who’ve made the decision to learn Spanish and the question they always ask is “How do I get started?”. Some people immediately gravitate towards grammar books and start doing all sorts of written exercises. Well, that approach has its place, but in my opinion it’s best to jump…
The meaning of the verb bajar in Spanish is to go down. Or should I say that’s one of it’s meanings. Bajar seems simple enough on the surface but it actually has more than eight different uses. Listen to this podcast to learn some of the most common uses of the Spanish verb bajar.…
Over the years YouTube has become a fantastic source of learning materials. In fact, using YouTube channels for learning Spanish has become my primary method of language learning. While there are many really good YouTube channels for learning Spanish out there, it’s simply information overload. How do you know which ones to choose? Well, that’s…
Saber has a couple of surprising uses that you may not know about. Your textbook says it means to to know facts, but it’s used for so much more than that. Listen the podcast to learn everything you really need to know about the verb saber to help you get closer to Spanish fluency.…
You may have heard the Spanish verb dejar before but did you know it has over 18 different uses in Spanish? In this podcast I explain the 18 most common uses of the verb dejar. Dejar is very much a high frequency verb that you’ll hear daily in spoken Spanish, so you need to…
There’s nothing better than sipping on a refreshing margarita during happy hour no matter if it’s on the beaches of Cancun or at your local Mexican restaurant. Here are three ways to ask your bartender about happy hour drink specials. ¿Tiene especiales de bebidas? Do you have any drink specials? ¿Tiene ofertas de happy…
The Spanish verb quedar has a wide variety of meanings on it’s own, but on top of that it’s very often confused with quedarse, which is reflexive and has completely different meanings. In this podcast I’ll explain the most common uses of quedar and remove the mystery and confusion surrounding this very flexible and useful…
In the last quick tip I gave you some handy phrases to help you make plans with your Spanish speaking amigos, How to say I’m on the way. Today I’ll give you some phrases to let them know when to expect you. Voy a llegar tarde – I’m going to get there late Voy tarde –…
Spanish teachers and textbooks typically teach you to use the verb repetir to get someone to repeat what they said. But if you want to sound more like a native speaker there are several other options that will keep you from sounding like you learned Spanish from a grammar book. In this episode of the Real Life Spanish…
About two weeks ago I caught up with an old friend who had spent a bit of time in Nicaragua. As we were talking about various things she said ¿Cuánto tiempo dilata? . With what I’m sure was a perplexed look on my face, I said ¿Cómo?. I had most certainly not heard the word dilata…
