Learn Spanish - Speaking

Moving on to the Rocket Spanish Mini Course Part 3 -

Greetings again, but this time a full 25 minutes of audio going into depth on how to greet people in Spanish, how to respond to greetings, and how to explain either that you either don't speak Spanish, you do speak Spanish, or you speak only a little Spanish.

A lot of repetition, but it drives the necessary vocabulary home. This is actually quite necessary. I don't know about you, but whenever I've been trying out a new language in another country - and this certainly happened to me when I first moved to France - one of the biggest problems is always getting the brain to work quick enough and co-ordinate with the mout to be able to respond to someone sufficiently quickly and intelligibly - even with the simplest of phrases. That's because it's still not coming out naturally.

And it needs to be (almost) instinctively, without thinking. So I think that this is the right approach to learning Spanish - get those basic, fundamental, essential phrases firmly engrained in the brain so that they appear at the right times without having to think to hard and seeming to be lost for words.

So here we go again:-

¿Cómo te llamas? (what's your name?)

¿De dónde eres? (where do you come from?)

Soy de los Estados Unidos (I'm from the United States)

Repetitive - yes. But not boring. These guys seem to be able to put it all together - even the simplest stuff in an interesting and practical way. Take a look yourself. It's free to sign up for this mini Spanish course. Here's the web address again: Rocket Spanish

Until next time. Let's go learn Spanish !

Learn Spanish - Greetings

Learning Spanish - Minicourse - Part 2

¿Cómo está usted?

You've guessed it - ¿Cómo está usted? means "how are you" in Spanish.
but hadn't we just leant that to say "how are you?" in Spanish, the expression is ¿Cómo estás?

Well, the difference is that this new form is a more polite form of the greeting tu use with people we don't know so well or have only just met.

I suppose that Spanish then is just like many other European languages in this way. It's the same sort of idea as in French and German.

So, Part 2 of the Rocket Spanish Mini Course goes into a lot of detail explaining some basic greetings in their various forms, pretty much hammering them home and considers both male and female speakers.

It also explains how to reply to these greetings and what to expect in response. So you shouldn't be lost for words.

This second part of the mini Spanish course is in written form - no audio this time - so you get to see the Spanish words written down and come to grips more with reading as it relates to the spoken Spanish.

This little course seems to be alternating between audio components and then the written Word.

So far so good! The pace is just about right for me - a complete novice to learning Spanish and who doesn't have too much time to spare on copious Spanish grammar exercises.

Take a look yourself. It's free to sign up for this mini Spanish course. Here's the web address again: Rocket Spanish

Now let's go learn Spanish !