Topic: Grammar
The videos on this page are sorted with the oldest on top (the order I made them). To see them sorted with the newest on top, click here.
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The Infinitive & Conjugation
One of the main reasons I failed Spanish my first time through is I was lost from the beginning. On the first day, the teacher starting using words like “conjugation” and “infinitive”. I didn’t even know what those words meant in English. Woulda been nice of her to explain that, no?
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Subject Pronouns
Subject pronouns in Spanish are pretty easy and straightforward. The words are small and they work generally the way they do in English. But there are a couple common pitfalls for gringos like you and me. Formal/Informal, Latin America vs Spain. Don’t worry, though, that’s what we’re here to talk about today.
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Ser Vs. Estar
“To be or not to be? That is the question.” I know very few lines from Shakespeare. But it’s no surprise to me that one of the few I do know, contains the verb “to be” twice. You see, I consider “to be” to be the mother of all verbs. I’d bet a lot of money that “to be” is the most frequently used verb in English and in Spanish. Anytime you say “is” “am” “are” “was” or “were”, you’re actually saying a conjugated form of “to be”. But here’s the thing. In Spanish, they have two different “to be’s”.
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The Conjugation Strategy
In this video, I’m going to go over the exact strategy I used when I was first learning Spanish, to practice all the different conjugations of a verb.
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The Three Enemigos
In this lesson, I present “ser”, “estar” and “ir” together. Very few books present “ser” and “estar” together. I don’t know why. Probably because the people who make those books have no idea how our Gringo minds work.
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The Sexualization of Nouns
In this lesson, I go over the whole masculine/feminine thing in Spanish. While not nearly as hard to “get” as all the verb conjugations, the sexuality of nouns still gives Spanish students a lot of trouble at the beginning. Or at least that’s how it was for me.
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Plural Forms of Nouns
Plural forms of nouns in Spanish are very much like plural forms of nouns in English. The sounds are almost exactly the same too. In this quick video, I give you two rules that have no exceptions and give you some examples of both rules–and how they compare to what we do in English.
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Definite & Indefinite Articles
Sometimes using terms when you’re learning a language can hurt more than it helps. This is possibly one of those times. But we need to refer to stuff somehow, right? In today’s lesson, I go over Definite & Indefinite Articles in Spanish. If you don’t know what those are, join the club. Even when I learned Spanish, since I learned on my own, I never knew what those were.
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More Than One One?
There aren’t many words to learn in this lesson–all but one have been taught in past lessons (see the Related Lessons section). This is more of an “idea” lesson. So just sit back, relax and listen to what I have to say.
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Spanish Adjectives
There are a couple tricky parts with adjectives. In this lesson, not only do I tell you the rules and exceptions to the rules for adjectives, but I go over those tricky parts to. It’s not difficult if you just focus. Then you’ll never have to worry about it again.