The researchers believe a second language provides a useful cognitive distance from automatic processes, promoting analytical thought and reducing unthinking, emotional reaction.

“Given that more and more people use a foreign language on a daily basis, our discovery could have far-reaching implications,” they wrote, suggesting that people who speak a second language might use it when considering financial decisions. “Over a long time horizon, this might very well be beneficial.”

Well… I think of Spanish as a language of love, as a musical language that could enhance emotions, but this article goes in a different direction. Fascinating! Yet another reason to work on that Spanish!

Maybe I will start the dinner conversation with my husband like this: “Kelly, mi vida, tenemos que platicar… cuanto dinero tienes?”

Learn Spanish to Be More Rational… Really! is a post from: Learn Spanish Rapidly: The Blog.

“How can I better understand the Imperfect vs. Preterite verb tenses in Spanish?”

This is perhaps the most common question I get as a Spanish teacher. Let me take some time to clear up the confusion and help establish the meaning and uses of these two confusing verb tenses.

Think about preterite as the simplest form of the past tense, such as “We ate lunch” or “she repaired the door.” The emphasis in these two statements is that the verb (the action) occurred in the past, it happened relatively quickly, and now it’s over. In fact, many times you will use the preterite verb tense when you want to emphasize that your action is over or not happening anymore. If you were to imagine a timeline with a single dot for the present, actions that happen in the preterite would be a similar dot on a timeline, but in the past (see graphic).

Ok, now that we have established that the preterite is a single instance (a single dot) that took place in the past, lets now look at the imperfect. Instead of a single dot on a timeline, the imperfect is best represented by a span of time in the past. So it looks more like a mini timeline that happens in the past. If that’s confusing, think back to our timeline and the dot that represents the present. To the left of that dot is the past. As opposed to a dot like we used for the preterite, the imperfect is best represented by a shorter line that represents a span of time in the past (see graphic).

People often use the imperfect when relating an event that happened in the past. Two examples are “We were eating dinner…” or “She was repairing the door…” Both examples are happening in the past, but they are part of an event or story that lasts longer than a single instant.

When you use the imperfect, you’re not necessarily trying to emphasize that the action is already complete like you are when you use the preterite. The imperfect is used to set up the conditions of your story (we were playing…, he was thinking…, etc). With the preterite, the action is complete, it’s over, and you are emphasizing the fact that it’s finished. (‘We ate lunch’ or ‘She repaired the door’).

Here is another example that uses both forms that may help you understand:

“We were eating lunch when suddenly the bell rang.”
We were eating = Imperfect
the bell rang = Preterite

Notice that this sentence is actually telling a story (or an event). First, you set up the story by saying “we were eating lunch”. This is a perfect example of the imperfect. Then you finish the story with “the bell rang”. The bell ringing is a perfect example of the preterite because it happened and now it’s over. One more:
“She was watching TV when the man screamed.”
she was watching = imperfect (setting up the story or event)
the man screamed = preterite (it happened and now it’s over)

Before I go, there is one more use of the imperfect that you should know. If you ever did anything with regularity in the past, the imperfect should be used. I call this the “used to…” rule. For example:
I ‘used to’ run 3 miles every day
We ‘would’ eat dinner together every night

Again you are telling a story of an event that happened with regularity over a length of time, but still in the past.

You can get more Spanish language tips by visiting Scott’s site at www.eSpanishTeacher.com.

Imperfect and Preterite Tenses in Spanish is a post from: Learn Spanish Rapidly: The Blog.

The author, Claire Handscome, has taught Spanish and French as a tutor, so she provides a different point of view than I do. She’s British and writing for a British audience so there are some references to O levels and other aspects of the British education system that I just ignored. I did enjoy her dry British humor!

The book’s strengths are in motivation, in mentioning a variety of websites, and in giving a more favorable view of classes than I do!

Conquering Babel: An Enjoyable Short Read is a post from: Learn Spanish Rapidly: The Blog.

I didn’t take it for a spin myself but I looked around the site and it looks good. He has quite a few happy customers.

Scott said in an email to me that his course involves listening, watching, and doing, and that he thinks the doing part is the strength of his course.

So if you are looking for a basic course, you might like to give it a try. If you do, come back here and post your thoughts about it!

Here are some of the topics: parts of speech, introduction to spanish verbs, it’s all about usted, phrases and questions, present tense irregular yo, boot verbs, pronunciations, ser vs estar, articles, and more.

A New Website for Learning Spanish from a Reasonably Priced CD is a post from: Learn Spanish Rapidly: The Blog.

This Blog Was Hacked, Is Fixed Now! is a post from: Learn Spanish Rapidly: The Blog.

Well, that’s always one of my themes here, all the more so these days. So here is the url:

http://www.squidoo.com/learnspanishforfreenow

The list includes some things I have written about and some other good things. It starts out with BBC Spanish, which I recognized as Mi Vida Loca.  had trouble downloading it from Mexico but it might work better now. Anyway, you can see what this fellow has to say on his page… err lens.

BBC Spanish

BBC Spanish is probably the best free way to learn Spanish out there.

In fact, from what I found, it’s actually better than most paid software applications!

From www.squidoo.com (share this quote)

Here’s a List of 6 Free Resources for Learning Spanish is a post from: Learn Spanish Rapidly: The Blog.

A Mexican friend of mine told me that she thinks getting estar and ser right is the hardest thing for non-native speakers learning Spanish. She gave as an example an Italian friend of hers who spoke perfect Spanish EXCEPT for mistakes confusing these two verbs.  (Italian is extremely close to Spanish… I can get the drift of Italian movies just from my Spanish.)

I’ve written once before about this: To Be or To Be? In Spanish, That’s the Question is a review of a very useful little book on the subject. Now, I’m going to provide you with some solid information from around the web. (This is going to be a format I’ll use more here. I will always provide links to what I quote…)

Ser and Estar Online

I sifted through a lot of pages to find a good one. One of the clearest explanations is at Spanishdict.com, a site I have blogged about before. On this subject, I liked their memory aid for ser:  DOCTOR stands for Description, Occupation, Characteristic, Time, Origin, and Relationship. Read the article for more.

Clipped from: www.spanishdict.com (share this clip)

A Video about These Two Verbs

Professor Jason has a lot of good videos for learning Spanish on YouTube. I blogged about him a couple of years ago. Here is his lesson on ser and estar:

I discovered that there are a lot of videos made by high school students on ser and estar but none that held my interest enough to share with you.

Estar and Ser: How to Use These Two Versions of To Be is a post from: Learn Spanish Rapidly: The Blog.

Learn Spanish with Comics has a bunch of short comics on the pages, with the text in Spanish. You can click on the speech bubble to see the translation into English.

The page you come to from that link just has one example. Clicking on “Click to view” is necessary to see all the pages. Looks like fun.

If you read and write good enough Spanish, the webmaster wants volunteers to help with the project.

I didn’t check out the email course.

The other site is called Verbling and seems to be just for English and Spanish speakers so far, with plans to add more languages later. It’s a language exchange (“intercambio” in Spanish) site, using live video. Evidently they have more native Spanish-speakers than native English-speakers signed up so far, so it’s a good time to try it.

You sign up and get paired up with a native Spanish speaker. The two of you speak one language for five minutes and then the other, and then you go to someone else.

Most of the people shown look waaay younger than me, which could be fun too. I admit I haven’t tried it. If you do, please come back and post a comment about your experiences!

Two Free Sites for Learning Spanish: Conversation and Comic Books is a post from: Learn Spanish Rapidly: The Blog.

When the site loads, you’ll hear the voice of Dave Clark, who taught college-level Spanish. That led to his developing this program, as he explains in the brief video. Just underneath it is a red box offering free Spanish lessons. So of course I clicked on it.A new window opened, with the lesson you see part of below. (I made the image smaller to fit in my blog.)

The red outline draws your attention to the section being taught at the moment. This screenshot only shows part of the screen. A native English speaker says words in English, and then a native Spanish speaker says the words that mean the same thing in Spanish. There is plenty of time for you to repeat the Spanish. Here, the sentence being demonstrated is “I need to go to the park.”

One thing I liked right away was that if I knew what was being said, my eyes could roam over the whole page and I might spot something new to learn. This gave the program a nice flexibility.

As they tell you on the screen, this kind of lesson is called a Listen & Repeat. Roughly 1/5 of the over 500 lessons are this sort. As it tells you, these lessons teach you vocabulary and how to build hundreds of combinations of sentences in 13 major topics.

I went to the next activity, called a virtual instructor, and it was followed by a memory machine. Next came a software tour, and then a video on how it works. This explains that the visual images are linked in your brain to the Spanish words you learn. They have found that words linked to moving images are particularly well retained.

I was fascinated when the video explained the three different learning styles that we humans have, and that each of us has a primary and a secondary style. I had learned this in grad school, and was pleased to see it applied here.

Looks like a good program! There are 11 free lessons. Find out more by clicking on the image:

Visual Link Spanish: My First Impressions is a post from: Learn Spanish Rapidly: The Blog.

Venezuela... Image via Wikipedia

Yesterday I had the chance to chat with a woman from Venezuela who lives part of the year in our little town in Colorado. The moment she realized that I had lived in Mexico, she started speaking Spanish and of course I followed. I immediately admitted that while my pronunciation is far from perfect, I do love to speak Spanish.

Latin American Spanish has many forms, though, and I soon realized that she was dropping the ends of some of her words and doing other things that seemed strange to my ears, being used to Mexican Spanish.

I had no trouble understanding her. When English speakers learn Spanish, we tend to learn either Spanish as spoken in Spain, or a generic Latin American version. But just as we can understand people from England, Scotland, Australia, and New Zealand — sometimes with a few laughs and misunderstandings — chances are that whatever version of Spanish you learn originally will enable you to converse in any country in the Spanish-speaking world. It may take some adjusting at first, admittedly.

This topic came up again today, when a friend came over for lunch. He learned his Spanish mostly in Denver, going to parties and events designed for getting native speakers and learners together. “I find the Mexican accent the hardest,” he admitted. I don’t even notice it!

Well, I got curious and did a bit of websurfing. Here are a couple of articles on Latin American Spanish:

http://www.omniglot.com/language/articles/latin_american_spanish.htm

This one describes many different regions and what the Spanish is like there.

And here’s another: http://www.spanish.bz/dialects.htm

I enjoyed them both.

Latin American Spanish Has Many Variations is a post from: Learn Spanish Rapidly: The Blog.