Last week we were extolling the virtues of taking an interest in culture as way to boost your motivation when learning a language. This week we turn our attention to a medium whose claim to being cultural is somewhat dubious, but nevertheless it is a fixture on television screens across the Spanish-speaking world and beyond, and it could help you to engage with the language in new ways: the Latin American soap opera.

You might wonder what value there is in watching what is often thought of as low-budget, low-brow entertainment such as this, but any and every means of practising a language can be helpful in order to supplement your conventional studies. Latin American soaps also give you some exposure to modern slang and expressions which you may not necessarily pick up in the classroom, but which will certainly help you to grasp everyday conversation when you visit any Spanish-speaking country.

Soap operas are hugely popular across Spain and Latin America and you can find them quite readily to stream online or download. You may find it helpful to seek out those that have English subtitles initially, but as you get more accustomed to the dialogue, you will hopefully find yourself needing to read them less and less often, and eventually do without them altogether. But be warned, though it may start out as an academic exercise, those plotlines can be seriously addictive!

If you live in London, don’t forget that we can help you with private or group Spanish lessons with native tutors, whether you’re a beginner, intermediate or more advanced student.

Research suggests that language learners do better if they take an active interest in the culture of the country whose language they are learning; they’re more likely to persevere with their studies and they enjoy better results. To that end, we’re going to take a look at one of the great pillars of Spanish culture, art.

Spain has a rich history of art dating back thousands of years. The oldest surviving examples of Spain’s early art are probably that of the ancient Iberians, whose cave paintings and sculptures are some of the finest of their kind. However, it’s for later artists that Spain is particularly famous – those of the Spanish Golden Age of the 15th to 17th centuries, when Spanish influence in the art world was at its height.

It’s during this period that Spain produced important artists such as Diego Velázquez, court painter to King Philip IV, and leading exponent of artistic realism. His portraits and landscapes were lauded throughout Europe and his most famous work, Las Meninas, is acknowledged to be one of the most significant paintings in the history of Western art. Also associated with this period are the great masters Francisco de Zurbarán, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo and, though not Spanish by birth, El Greco.

Later Spain produced noted artists like Goya, a romantic painter active during the Peninsular War, who is heralded as the last of the old masters and first of the modern. Spanish artists were also at the cutting edge of 20th-century art movements too, with Picasso and Gris being leading figures in cubism, Dali in surrealism and Miró in abstract art.

If this small taste of Spanish art has whetted your appetite for the language, we can help you with private Spanish lessons.

 

¡Feliz año nuevo! This is traditionally a time for making resolutions and many people resolve to learn another language. Spanish is an excellent choice as it is one of the most widely-spoken languages in the world and the number of speakers is growing all the time, so it’s one of the most useful languages you could acquire. As we’ve mentioned previously, Spanish is a very phonetic language, and its Latin roots make it one of the easiest languages for English speakers to learn. This means that there’s absolutely no reason to feel daunted as you embark on your Spanish course because you’ll come across a lot of words whose meaning you can easily understand.

One of the things that learners, and particularly adult learners, often struggle with is gaining the confidence to attempt to converse with native speakers of their new language. They fear making mistakes and appearing silly, but these self-imposed barriers to communication are really not necessary with Spanish. Whilst some languages like English and German typically demand that people speak to a high standard, especially if they are using the language for business purposes, the Spanish-speaking world is much more relaxed and nobody will think the worse of you if your first attempts at conversation are a little hesitant or not entirely correct grammatically. In fact, most people will applaud your efforts and do their best to help you, so there’s no need to feel nervous about those first attempts at Spanish outside of the classroom.

Of course, good preparation will help both your language skills and your confidence, and the best preparation is to undertake a course with a patient and experienced native tutor, such as those at Lingua Clinic.

 

Christmas in Spain is deeply religious. The country’s patron saint is the Virgin Mary and the Christmas season begins on 8 December, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, with a special ritual known as los Seises (the dance of six) in front of Seville’s Gothic cathedral in which not six but ten elaborately-dressed boys perform a dance with intricate movements and gestures which is very moving to watch.

Most homes have a manger with carved nativity figures around which families gather to sing carols, dance and play tambourines.  The cow is honoured at this time as it’s believed that when Mary gave birth, the cow in the stable breathed on the Baby Jesus to keep him warm.

On Christmas Eve, or Nochebuena, families rejoice around their nativity scenes and eat the traditional Christmas treat of turron, a kind of almond candy. Tiny oil lamps are lit in homes, and after the traditional Midnight Mass and Christmas Dinner, streets fill with revellers dancing the special Christmas dance, the Jota, to the sound of guitars and castanets. The words and music to the Jota are said to be hundreds of years old.

Tradition has it that gifts are brought by the Three Wise Men on 6 January. It is believed that the Magi re-enact their journey to Bethlehem every year at this time and children leave out shoes filled with straw, carrots, and barley for their horses. Though all of the Magi are revered in Spain, the children’s favourite is Balthazar who rides a donkey and is the one believed to leave gifts.

If you want to get more closely acquainted with the language and customs of Spain, a good place to start is with our Private Spanish lessons, provided at your workplace or home throughout London.

Spanish, as we already know, evolved from the Latin which came into the region some 2,000 years ago. Latin is not, however, the only language to have contributed to the development of modern-day Spanish. It’s also significantly influenced by Arabic, thanks to the long-term Muslim presence in the Iberian Peninsula between the years 711 and 1492 AD. Loan words from Arabic began to appear in Spanish in the 8th and 9th centuries as the number of speakers of the language increased, but the influence of Arabic peaked during the Reconquista, when large territories where large numbers of people spoke Arabic or Arabic-influenced local dialects were recaptured from their Moorish rulers. This was a period in which many Arabic words and their derivatives were absorbed into the Castilian language. One result of this is that Spanish often has both Arabic and Latin derived words with the same meaning, such as escorpión and alacrán, meaning scorpion. The Arabic versions are often favoured in areas which fell under Moorish rule for longer periods.

In more recent times, Spanish has borrowed words from various European languages, but the biggest influence is from English, with many words and expressions, particularly those relating to technology, coming into common usage in Spanish. In Latin America, thanks largely to US influences, there’s an even bigger trend for borrowing English words, often with the original spelling, other times using words of English derivation, such as la computadora (the computer) which is quite different from the Spanish el ordenador.

If you’d like to gain an insight into the wonderfully colourful and expressive Spanish language, our Private Spanish Lessons are the ideal place to begin.

Spanish literature down the centuries has provided a wealth of classics that any book lover should have on their must-read list. From Cervantes’ immortal Don Quixote de la Mancha, published in 1605 and considered to be the world’s first modern novel; the poetry and prose of Federico García Lorca, who was catapulted to fame posthumously after his murder at the start of the Spanish Civil war; through to modern classics like Love in the Time of Cholera by Nobel Prize-winning Columbian author Gabriel García Márquez, and the highly popular works of Carlos Ruiz Zafón. Spanish literature is truly magical.

Reading in any language broadens both the mind and the vocabulary. Though widely translated, there’s nothing quite like the sense of achievement gained from being able to read these famous texts in their original language. If you’re a traditional book reader, keep a Spanish dictionary on hand to help you out with any unfamiliar words. If you’re a fan of the e-book, it’s even easier. Here’s a great tip: as many classics are free, you can download both the Spanish and English versions and refer to them side by side. As your Spanish improves you may even spot some errors and omissions in the translation. Install a Spanish dictionary too and you can check anything you’re unsure of instantly. You can note any queries or points of interest for discussion with your Spanish tutor. Happy reading!

There are all sorts of ways in which you can set about learning a new language, but which is the most effective? Many audio languagecourses purport to have you speaking any language fluently in no time at all. Can it really be so easy? Well, in most cases the answer is no, though they can be a useful means of practising what you already know of a language and helping to improve your vocabulary.

Others believe that total immersion in the language is the only way to really learn. That too has its place, but it’s a method which isn’t available to every learner unless they are going to live in a Spanish-speaking country. No matter which additional learning and practice methods you adopt, you need a good, strong foundation in the form of real tuition.

The traditional learning environment is, of course, the classroom, but working with a private tutor is much more effective. Why? Well, there are numerous advantages to this way of learning. First, you can go at your own pace. In the classroom the pace is often set by the slower learners in the group; if you’re an eager and quick learner with a good ear for languages, you could find this limiting and frustrating.

Secondly, instead of having to cater for a group with mixed abilities and learning objectives, your private tutor can tailor lessons to suit just one person: you. Last but not least, a private tutor is able to give one-to-one coaching and can answer your questions immediately. This means you get maximum benefit from the time you spend with them. Contact us to find out more or start your own private Spanish lessons.

A common question from students is whether there is any difference between Spanish and Castellano, or Castilian as it is more commonly called in English, so in this blog we aim to answer that question. To do so, we need to explain a little bit about the origins of Spanish as it is spoken today.

As we already know, Spanish is largely derived from Latin. Latin came into usage in the region around 2,000 years ago, during Roman times. As typically happens when languages cross borders, it absorbed some of the vocabulary of the indigenous languages in use at the time and in that process became Vulgar Latin.

Several dialects of Vulgar Latin existed throughout the Iberian Peninsula, but it was the one spoken in the north-central part of Spain – an area which includes Castile – which spread throughout the whole region. Castilian’s position was cemented in the 13^th century during the reign of King Alfonso when its use for translation of historical documents saw it become the standard dialect used in education. He also made it the official language for government administration.

The spread of Castilian did not, however, lead to the extinction of other dialects. Other ‘languages’ of Latin derivation, like Galician and Catalan, are still widely spoken today. The non-Latin Basque dialect is also spoken by a minority. As all of these languages are themselves Spanish in origin, the term Castilian, or Castellano, is often used to differentiate standard Spanish from these other dialects. You are therefore likely to hear the word Castellano used to refer to the ‘pure’ Spanish which is endorsed by the Royal Spanish Academy.

You can discover Castellano for yourself by enrolling for our Private Spanish Lessons at home or at work throughout the London area.

 

If you’ve ever had lessons in any other European language –French during your school days, for example – then you probably already know that there are different forms of the English word “you” which change according to how well you know a person, amongst other factors.

Spanish is one of the many languages that has these different formal and informal, singular and plural forms of address, all of which translate to one simple English word, “you”. In several languages the formal and the plural form are the same, but in Spanish, there are four different ways to say “you”:

• Singular informal: tú
• Singular formal: usted
• Plural informal: vosotros
• Plural formal: ustedes

 

 

 

You will need to learn when to use the correct form, as using the informal tú when addressing, for example, a stranger, a person in authority or someone older than you is liable to make you appear rude or presumptuous.  Tú is generally reserved for close friends, family, children or pets. It is not an appropriate way to address someone you’re not on first name terms with – you would use usted for those people.

It’s important to understand the different forms of “you” so that you can use the corresponding words for “your” and “yours”, and so that you can conjugate verbs correctly. Our native Spanish tutors can help you to learn when each form should be used so that you can communicate confidently – and politely! Our lessons are tailored to your needs and are available throughout the London area.

On the surface you might not think there is much connection between Spanish and English, but you may be surprised to learn that they’re actually not-too-distant relations. They share the Latin alphabet for a start, which is a great foundation for any English speaker who wishes to learn a second language. What’s more, did you know that 30% to 40% of English words have a related word in Spanish? This is great news for students as words which appear and sound similar as well as having a similar meaning – known as cognates – make the job of learning and remembering the new language so much easier than learning a language like Chinese, for example, which has very few cognates in common.

Furthermore, as both languages are derived from Latin, sentences are formed in much the same way. There are a couple of differences in word order, for example adjectives go before nouns in English whereas the opposite is true in Spanish. So the translation of the English “the blue dress” in Spanish becomes “el vestido azul”, i.e. “the dress blue”. This, however, is a simple rule to learn and will quickly become second nature.

And so you see there is no reason to feel daunted about your decision to learn Spanish. It is, in fact, one of the easiest languages for English speakers to pick up. At Lingua Clinic we have a variety of learning delivery methods to suit your needs. Choose from private Spanish lessons, group training or intensive Spanish lessons if you want to learn the language quickly.