How learning Spanish is like climbing a mountainIf doesn't happen very often but every now and then I have a student who decides to start having lessons with me after years wanting to learn Spanish but soon enough the student starts canceling lessons and showing lack of interest and what was an attempt of having lessons weekly ends in one lesson a month or less. Slowly, the student's commitment to learn Spanish drops and stops doing even enjoyable things on his/her own such as watching Spanish movies, doing some practical exercises at home, trying to speak Spanish with locals, etc. However, after a year the student asks: "It has been a year, shouldn't I be fluent by know?" and then the reality hits because that student hasn't been studying Spanish for a year. I don't blame her/him, live sometimes gets on our way but we need to be honest with ourselves and to admit how much time we have really invested in learning Spanish. When studying Spanish or any foreign language we can't count the days, weeks or months that we have been wanting to speak the language but the hours that we have made an effort in achieving our goal. When you are honest with yourself you can see how much you have done and eventually you need to admit that you haven't invested a year in leaning Spanish but 6 or 8 hours instead.  Photo by Mark McGregor There are many things that we can do to keep moving forwards, a teacher will help you with this but you can do many things on your own that don't cost money but commitment and effort. So if you have asked yourself that question and realised that the truth is not that you have been studying Spanish for years but for a few hours try to find out if you really want to learn Spanish, if you would really enjoy practicing by speaking Spanish with natives and if so try to know yourself and define what you can do about it.
To learn Spanish is like climbing a mountain. Think about the people around you that can help: your Spanish speaking friends and family, the people in that Spanish speaking country that you love, the teacher that will guide you to the top... you can really have a lot of support but remember that the person who has to use all the body and mind is you because one thing is to wish and want to climb the mountain and another very different thing is to actually do it.
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I know Spanish but nobody understands me... What can I do?SPANISH SOUNDS VERSUS LETTERS The Spanish and English alphabet are almost identical but many of the common letters in both languages are pronounced differently. To hear the difference we need to discover the Spanish alphabet and the sounds represented by each of the letters in order to pronounce Spanish properly.
Las despedidas en españolTo say goodbye, which in Spanish is called “Las despedidas”, we have also formal and informal ways to say them.
Often the greetings “buenos días”, “buenas tardes” and “buenas noches” are also used to say goodbye as they can be appropriate in several contexts such as when kids go to bed at night or when we finish a conversation on the phone. However, the most common way of saying goodbye is “adiós” and it can be used either in formal or informal contexts although we can also say “¡hasta pronto!” or “¡adiós!, ¡hasta pronto!”. If the conversation is very formal we can also say “saludos” or “un saludo”, which is something used commonly in written Spanish when saying goodbye in a formal letter or email. Los saludosWhen we want to say hello (hola) in Spanish we can use different expressions as in many other languages but one thing to remember is that some expressions are more formal than others.
“Los saludos” are the greetings used in Spanish to say "hi” to someone. We can use the common “good morning” (buenos días), “good afternoon” (buenas tardes) and “good night” (buenas noches) to say hello to somebody in a correct manner as they are the most formal ways of saying hello to anybody. We can also be a bit less formal and use some other expressions such as: ¡Hola!¿qué tal?, or ¡Hola!¿Cómo te va? If it has been a while since you have seen the person that you speaking too, you can also say ¡Hola!, ¡Cuánto tiempo! Have a look at the blackboard below to have a full description of all the Spanish greetings mentioned: How to say goodbye in Spanish: Las despedidasTo say goodbye, which is called “Las despedidas”, we have also formal and informal ways to say them.
Often the greetings “buenos días”, “buenas tardes” and “buenas noches” are also used to say goodbye as they can be appropriate in several contexts such as when kids go to bed at night or when we finish a conversation on the phone. However, the most common way of saying goodbye is “adiós” and it can be used either in formal or informal contexts although we can also say “¡hasta pronto!” or “¡adiós!, ¡hasta pronto!”. If the conversation is very formal we can also say “saludos” or “un saludo”, which is something used commonly in written Spanish when saying goodbye in a formal letter or email. Furthermore, the word "hasta" plus a word that indicates time is often used. We can say “¡hasta pronto!” (see you soon!), “¡hasta mañana!” (see you tomorrow!), “¡hasta luego!” (see you later!), “¡hasta la semana que viene!” (see you next week!) or even “¡hasta nunca!”, which literally means “see you never!” and it’s used if we want to end a bad conversation. We can also say “¡hasta la vista!” just like The Terminator did at the end of the movie Terminator 2. The English expression “take care!” has also an equivalent in Spanish, which is “¡Cuídate!”, but it's normally used in informal conversations. Have a look at the blackboard and memorise all these expressions to use them in the future: |
Silvia VegaI'm a Spanish and English philologist specialised in Spanish linguistics and in teaching Spanish as a Foreign Language (ELE) as I love sharing my language, my culture and a particular vision of the world with people from around the globe, getting to know more about the world itself through them and languages. 
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