The other day, I saw yet again the awkward and somewhat embarrasing kissing charade between Spanish and non-Spanish people.  Everyone knows that the Spanish take every possible opportunity to smack a gooey kiss on the cheeks of as many people as can be possibly managed each day, we’ve all seen it, and when we are here, we try to do as they do .. and often miserably fail.

The particular occasion was with a lovely couple of Scottish ladies and a dark-faced, smiling local farmer.  Paco, this is Kate, Kate, Paco..  Paco heads for the leftcheak, eagerly, with his broad smile growing broader as Kate, heads right and SMACK, a beauty – full on the lips!

Shrieks of embarrasment from Kate and her friend, a surpised and somewhat pleased (in an afterthought sort of way) local farmer now positively beaming, from pleasure – or pure hysterical amusement – “estos guiris locos…” (these crazy foreigners!)

The reason this happens is simple – we never know which way to head for the first kiss – left or right – and many people who have lived here for a long time still get it wrong.  So here, folks, is that all-important unwritten rule:

Kiss left, THEN kiss right (and not the other way around!!)

PS – Dutch people – you don’t apply – you always get it right and you even make it THREE KISSES!!!  Left, right and the left again!  Wonderful!

Popularity: 5% [?]

There have been many experiments with teaching languages, both at school and to adults.  Recent tendencies appear to be to avoid at all costs boring old grammar and the rules of language, and concentrate on conversation, useful phrases, and so on – ‘to stop the pupils getting bored’.  I even have to endure an advert every day on the local radio run by an American guy who seems to think that if he teaches his pupils of English the 1000 – odd words that end in “-tion” which are the same in Spanish except they use “-ción”, then that is enough to get to grips with the language!

I say, that is just not possible.  If you learn a sentence off by heart, or a series of phrases, like “my name is..” and “how much is..” and “two beers please” that’s great!  But you are always going to be stuck with your limited sentences – you just can’t venture beyond them. 

Language is like a series of building blocks.  If you know how to put the blocks in the right order, instead of just being able to build a wall, you can build a whole house, a bridge or a sky-scraper!

The building blocks of any language are many, but the most important and the basics are VERBS, and then lots and lots of VOCAB!  I say, take time, and lots of it, to embrace the way verbs are conjugated, and you will find you can go beyond those fixed-learned phrases and sentences and make your own! 

So here’s my advice on the basic building blocks of Spanish:

1.  Learn how to conjugate the -AR, -ER and -IR regular verbs off by heart (instead of the phrases)

2. Practise one or two verbs each day.  It is very hypnotic to chant “yo como, tu comes, el come….” when in the shower, or taking a walk with the dog, and the more you repeat, the easier it’ll be for your brain to remember and quickly find the right conjugation when in conversation.

3.  Learn the really irregular verbs (those juiciest ones!) by heart – SER is a cracker!  And IR!  The juciest irregulars are always the most commonly used and essential verbs in life – that’s why they are the most irregular.

4. Write down every new word you learn in a vocab book.  Learn the new ones each day and go over them all regularly.  Practise combining your new verb conjugation skills with your new vocab and test it out on the locals!

5.  Don’t rush it.  DON’T start on past tenses until you have fully mastered the Present tense. 

5. Above all, enjoy the learning process.  Make it a part of your daily life and love every minute of it!

Spanish Language Practice

IR – to go

Yo voy
Tu vas
El/Ella/Usted va
Nosotros vamos
Vosotros vais
Ellos van

When practicing, shorten it by taking out those pronouns and just repeat over and over again:

voy-vas-va,  vamos-vais-van

SER – to be (permanent being)

soy, eres, es,  somos, sois, son

You can even sing them! 

Popularity: 25% [?]

Technorati Tags: learn Spanish, Spanish, Spanish language, Spanish learning tips, Spanish school

Julen hard at it!

When we came over to live in Malaga, our two boys were 9 and 5 years old.  I remember a Spanish friend of ours in the UK said to me, best to take them over before 11, before they make real, lasting friendships and before their education gets too complicated.

Our kids, Mikel and Julen were lucky, because they had been brought up hearing us chatter away in Spanish constantly, so they were always going to be bilingual.  But we have many clients whose children have come here as late as 12 years old, and had little or no problem adapting and picking up Spanish or integrating with the local children.

There are a limited number of private English National Curriculum schools, which is an option every parent seriously needs to consider, as future job prospects, whether in Spain or elsewhere, are bound to be more plentiful with written English qualifications.  There are also a number of Spanish national curriculmim ‘international’ or ‘bilingual’ schools where lessons are in English and Spanish.  However, my children are doing fine in the Spanish state system and despite one or two negatives, I would say that on the whole their level of education is excellent and they certainly work the children very hard indeed.

Here are some things to think about when making that difficult decision:

1) Are you planning on settling in Spain forever, or for a few years?  If you are here temporarily, disrupting your children’s education by switching to the Spanish system may be damaging

2) Where are the ‘bilingual’ schools located?  A downside to sending kids to a non-local school is that they will find it much harder to make locally based friends of their own age.  But getting your kids involved in local after-school activities could help to integrate them.

3) If you are worried about the cost of private school fees, but are afraid that at a state school the kids won’t get the extra tuition and support they need, think about getting them extra private tuition in the afternoons – there are plenty of excellent private teachers and support ‘academias’.

4) If you choose Spanish state education, work with your children on their written English.  When they get to 14 or 15, enrol them on a distance learning GCSE English course, which you can register for on the Internet.  Allow at least 2 years before they take the exams, to get them up to speed.

5) Finally, keep your kids thinking ‘international’!  Just because you’re here doesn’t mean that they should think their only option for their own future is here in Spain.

Spanish Language Practice

Escuela – School (up to age 11 or 12)  This is Educación Primaria

Instituto – Secondary School (12 to 18) Educación Secundaria
At the Instituto, children do a 4-year course, equivalent to GCSE, at the end of which they get a certificate, or qualification in ESO (Educación Secundaria Obligatoria)
From 16 to 18 they can stay on to do “Bachillerato” (Equivalent of A’Levels)

Popularity: 20% [?]

Technorati Tags: children, children in Spain, Education, education in Spain, Spanish school

Growing veggies in Spain is just fabulous fun – you must try it!!

If you are lucky enough to own a little piece of Andalusia, and you haven’t done so yet, you have just GOT to get veggie-crazy!  There is simply no excuse not to, as this wonderful climate that we live in is a vegetable’s idea of heaven.

The nicest thing about growing your own veggies here in Spain is that you can practically have vegetables and fruit ALL YEAR ROUND!  Find a good patch – it doesn’t have to be more than 4m x 4m, and if possible under a tree or some shade that moves around with the passing of the sun each day.  If your soil is not perfect, mix an area with good soil brought from outside, and if you are in an apartment or town house, GET OUT THOSE POTS!!  Don’t forget to set up some sort of watering system for your plot.  This can be a  hosepipe from an outside tap to your plot, with a central dispurser, obtained from any garden centre.  Water in the evenings during the warmer months and ensure the soil is always a little damp somewhere within one fingers’ length under the surface.  Watch out for green runner beans – unless they get a huge amount of water, even if they look good, they may be stringy and hard-skinned – so best reserved for Autumn and Winter growing.

Strawberries, lettuces, tomatoes, onions, spinach, carrots, potatoes, herbs, melons, green peppers, beetroot, beans – you name it, it grows here! 

Plant ‘delicate’ veggies in the Autumn – lettuces, spinach, peas, coliflour and other such tender species are best in the milder months, and there is nothing better than a fresh lettuce from your garden served on Christmas day!  And as each lettuce is pulled up, replace it with a baby one – that way you don’t get all your lettuces at once.

You can buy baby plants for cents at the “viveros” and garden centres, or grow from seed and then thin out later.  Put rows of onions and leaks with next to rows of carrots (the carrots you can sow from seed straight into the ground) – this will stop any carrot fly affecting your crop. 

If you are in an area where there are a lot of birds, you might stick a few canes in the ground and throw a net over the top until the plants are established and less tender – there’s nothing more frustrating than growing vegetables just to feed the local area’s bird population!  There are practically no slugs here, although snails  can be a problem at certain times of the year.   Put gravel around the veggie plot and crushed egg shells - they find it really difficult to get over this!  Also, sink clean jamjars filled with beer into the ground to surface level, at points around the veggies – snails will go to this, get drunk and drown happily - (typically Spanish!)

Try aromatic herbs too.  There is peppermint (menta) as well as ordinary mint (hierba buena), and try out hierba Maria Luisa, and camomile (manzanilla), great, medicinal infusion herbs and very popular in Spain.  In many parts of Andalusia you will also find wild esparragus growing – transfer some to your plot but watch out for prickles- and also the wonderful smelling and deliciously tasty fennel (hinojo).

By March, you should be planting more heat-abiding veggies, ready for the Summer.  Tomatoes and green peppers do well in the hotter months, but by this time there is little point in planting too many of the delicates, as they will “shoot up” and try to flower – not good!  (Having said that, I had NO IDEA how beautiful the lettuce flower can be, so you might like to leave one or two to check this out for yourselves!)  Melons and cougettes are fine in the hotter months too.

In July and August, apart from watering the above heat-abiding types, give yourself and your plot a break.  In late September, dig the plot over, add a tiny amount of natural fertiliser and start again! 

ENJOY – ONCE YOU START YOU CAN’T STOP!

Spanish Language Practice

Veggie vocab

patatas (potatoes)
tomates (tomatoes)
zanahorias (carrots)
cebollas (onions)
cebolletas (spring onions)
remolacha (beetroot)
coliflor (coliflour)
col (cabbage)
espinacas (spinach)
acelgas (a local spinach, with large leaf – very tasty)
pimientos verdes (green peppers)
calabaza (pumpkin)
calabacín (courgette)
lechuga (lettuce)
semillas (seeds)
manguera (hosepipe)
riego (irrigation)
irrigation system (sistema de riego)
planting soil (tierra para plantar)
verduras / hortalizas (vegetables)

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Technorati Tags: grow vegetables in Spain, learn Spanish, Spain, Spanish language, Spanish vegetable plot, vegetable growing

SER….ESTAR…. THEY BOTH MEAN “TO BE” – SO WHICH TO USE WHEN??

It is very confusing!  Two completely different verbs for TO BE.  Why do they have to do it??

Well, really it’s not confusing at all.  Yes, they are awkward to memorise, especially SER, which seems to follow no rules at all!  But really it is ENGLISH that is missing something. 

Think about this:  when you say “I am at the station” it means my location is at the station at this moment.  While if you say “I am a girl” you are saying you, as a being, happen to be female.  What relationship is there between the use of “am” in each case?  The answer, if you think about it, is NOTHING!

So remember how simple it is:

SER: this is about being you.  Or a thing being a thing.  These are permanent conditions, things you are born with.  You are you.  A table is a table.  An elephant is an elephant.  Nothing will ever change this pretty definite fact! In other words, use it when you use TO BE in a state of permanence.

ESTAR: If you have a temporary situation, which means you are in a place at a certain time, or you are feeling ill today, but tomorrow – or soon enough – you’ll be fine, or you are excited (because other times you will be bored, tired, sad, happy, concerned, nervous, etc etc etc), then this is a temporary state – so use ESTAR for temporary states.

And it’s more or less as simple as that!!

Here’s some ones to watch for:

- Ese chico es bueno (That boy is good) (He’s a good boy – that’s part of his permanent character as a person)

- Ese chico está bueno (That boy is hot!) (He’s looking sexy today – tomorrow morning, he might look a mess and be unshaven and smelly!)

- La carne es mala (The meat is bad) (It’s not a good cut, might be chewy and tough, etc.  This is part of the permanent make-up of the meat, it’s never going to be a good piece of meat)

- La carne está mala (The meat is off) (It was once ok, but now it has changed and it’s not good, because it has gone from good to bad).

Here are the conjugations of SER and ESTAR in the present tense:

SER

Yo soy (I am)
Tu eres (You are) (Single You, Informal form)
El es (He is)  / Ella es (She is)  / Usted es (You are, Single You, Formal form)

Nosotros somos (We are)
Vosotros sois (You  are, Plural You, Informal form)
Ellos son (They are), Ellas son (They are – all feminine), Ustedes son (You are, Plural You, Formal form)

Examples: 
Yo soy Toni (I am Toni). 
Nosotros somos de España (We are from Spain).
La mesa es de madera (The table is wooden).

ESTAR  (translations and forms exactly as above)

Yo estoy
Tu estás
El está  / Ella está  / Usted está

Nosotros estamos
Vosotros estáis
Ellos están  / Ellas están  / Ustedes están

Examples:
Vosotros estáis en la clase (You -plural informal – are in the class). 
Tu estás guapa hoy (You are pretty today). 
Yo estoy cansado (I am tired).

Happy practicing!!  Any questions, email me!

Popularity: 20% [?]

Technorati Tags: estar, language, learn Spanish, ser, ser and estar, Spanish, Spanish grammer

Being in Spain gives you a chance to sample some of the very nicest wines at incredibly good prices -after all, who can afford more than a fiver on a bottle these days!  At the Escuela we are always on the look-out for a bargain to sip at home, share with our students, or offer our guests.

So here are a couple you might like to look out for:

Terra Alta “Vespral” 2004.  Now this is my latest find!  Matured in oak barrels over time, this Catalan wine is bursting with a whole variety of flavours and has a wonderful bouquet.  It is lovely on its own, (sitting in the sun just before

Terra Alta Reserva "Vespral" 2004

lunch – don’t tell anyone! ) - and is a delight when accompanied by meat and game.  And for a 5 year old wine, it’s at a fabulous price – under 2 Euros in LIDL!  Check it out!

If you want something a little more local, I highly recommend the local raisin wine from our own Axarquía region.  You can get it anywhere, although there are subtle differences from village to village.  The commonest of these is a sweet, honey-coloured wine, served in short glasses, with a wonderful aroma and a scintilating taste that seems to linger with you long after you have drained the glass.  But I prefer the dry version, with a slightly more sherry-like feel to it, but still with the zing of those raisin grapes.

The vineyards of Axarquía are almost without exception dedicated to producing raisins, and if you look around you in the countryside, you will see the white raisin drying beds dotted all around, especially on the steep,

Vino del Terreno (Frigiliana bottled)

dry hillsides.  If you join us on a residential Spanish course, you might just get to visit one, sample some wine and chat with the locals!

You can buy this wine, bottled,  in most villages and it is a popular tourist purchase in mountain villages such as

Raisin drying bed

Frigiliana and Cómpeta (such as the one in the photo from Frigiliana).  However, best to spend a while wandering from village to village, sampling the different local offerings – just walk into any bar and ask for “vino del terreno” and they will usually pour it straight out of a plastic container bought from the local farmers! 

Happy sampling!

Spanish Language Practice

Los vinos del terreno de La Axarquía son muy ricos.  Se llama “vino del terreno” y lo puedes pedir en cualquier bar o restaurante de La Axarquía.  El vino se hace con pasas, que son uvas secadas al sol y al aire libre, en zonas de terrenos pendientes, normalmente bien soleados.  Estas zonas se llaman “paseros”.  Los puedes ver en el campo en muchos sitios, sobre todo las laderas de Axarquía Este (Arenas, Corumbela, Archez, Cómpeta, Sayalonga, etc),  y la zona de Cútar, Almáchar, Iznate, etc.  Se puede comprar enbotellado o simplemente en garráfas de plástico.

Popularity: 100% [?]

Technorati Tags: accoommodation in Malaga, Axarquia, bed and breakfast Malaga, courses, Malaga, Spain, Spanish, Velez-Malaga, wine