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! 

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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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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!

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