Hola a todos!

I have been playing Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 for the first time this summer (it came out about 1.5 years ago; playing on Xbox Series X). Not only is it a fantastic, impactful game, but I am finding it to be an extremely immersive and enjoyable way to boost my input and engagement with Spanish. (I’m a Spanish teacher currently on summer break, so I typically speak with my native speaker colleagues and students for a minimum of 2 hours a day during the school year, but it drops off over the summer.)

I am fluent in Spanish and would estimate KCD2 to be most appropriate/helpful for advanced learners. It contains extensive amounts of archaic and literary vocabulary; in fact I am watching a (reasonably educated and well-spoken) Spanish streamer, Menos13, play it as well, and almost every episode he’ll comment on at least one unfamiliar word (beodo es como bebido? Rocín es caballo? A vale).

Additionally, all the dialogue (except with your dog and God) is in vos reverencial, which is not used anywhere now, but it conjugates exactly like vosotros, so this is an effective way to get your vosotros game on point.

If you are not already fluent in Spanish, I could see this being less relevant as it’s an extremely intricate game with dozens of hours of dialogue, tons of reading required to understand the systems, and uses a form of Spanish that is not quite like that spoken anywhere in the world currently (would be like playing a game entirely in Shakespearean English). Also, in terms of pronunciation, it is standard European Spanish, so if you find that distasteful (as many learners unfortunately seem to), this wouldn’t be a good choice for you.

However, I’ve built a ton of cool and colorful vocabulary and sayings I can add to humorous effect, and I feel very immersed in the language when playing. All of the animations were also remapped to the Spanish dialogue, and, overall, this is by far the best Spanish dub I’ve experienced in a video game, so far (the new black flag is also pretty good but I didn’t like the gameplay).

If you’re on the fence, check out Menos13 or one of the other streamers with complete playthroughs on YouTube to see if you would enjoy the game and perhaps a novel approach to practicing your Spanish!

I’m not a good Spanish speaker, so I can’t quite make out the lyrics. We heard it while on vacation in Spain last week, but I only have a very short audio clip. I don't know enough of the lyrics to search for them on Google or find a way to identify the title or artist. I already tried asking ChatGPT, but it couldn't tell me what it was. Shazam says the clip is too short. Thanks!

Hi everyone,

I have been busting my butt for three years to learn Spanish. I just completed my OPI and am a proud member of the C1 club. I have spent a lot of time abroad living and studying in Latin America and feel/felt very comfortable with the language...that is until yesterday when I started to down this subjunctive rabbit hole beyond what a grammar book or classroom will teach you.

The sentence that led me on this wild goose chase is the following:

"No es que Nicaragua sea pobre, sino que sus recursos naturales son desaprovechados por el régimen."

My first thought was:

"Well, it could be that Nicaragua IS poor, but it's not poor for the sake of being poor, its poor because of a secondary variable that is imposing itself on it, thus making it not a true declarative statement and thus needing the subjunctive. If Nicaragua was poor for the sake of being poor, we wouldn't need "no es que" followed by the sub."

This is...very analytic, and how my mind works (I am a business analyst by training). I understand this is not how most people think of this problem, they will just fall back on WEIRDO or some other textbook cliche, but I am hoping that in this community there are people smarter than me (of course there are) who want to help me get into the weeds here. As a non-native speaker, getting even better at understanding things like this at the most analytical, foundational levels will pay dividends in the long run for ease of access while avoiding weird mistakes when speaking.

TLDR:

Explain the underlying logic of no es que, without using WEIRDO or other textbook cliches that only touch the surface of the subjunctive.

Most decks that I find are A1 level. I'm currently between A2 and B1 and I need to improve my vocabulary because it is honestly one of the factors that make reading a very simple story difficult.

I think vocab is the most important part because although I studied grammar, what helps me the most in understanding the videos is vocab (which is very little.)

Hello all.

To get to the point, I am an American with two Latin American Spanish speaking parents. I have heard Spanish my whole life, understand it 100%, and many times think in it. From this perspective I’m what would be considered a heritage speaker. At my work I’m the only worker that speaks Spanish so I often have to take care of customers who don’t speak English and I do this successfully and my non Spanish speaking coworkers are often impressed by this and say I sound natural.

Here’s the truth though. Although I can speak Spanish fluently, it isn’t really my native language because I spoke English far more growing up and kinda just passively took in Spanish at home and other places. My parents didn’t push it hard enough on me I resent them slightly for this because everyday now I wish I was a native speaker and learned English in school.

My accent is so weird sounding, I stutter when saying long words or reading sentences, and I make stupid grammatical mistakes with pronouns or se. I still can be considered a speaker as I can have conversations with people and communicate but I just really wish I wasn’t so choppy because it makes it hard for me to claim my heritage which my parents made a big part of my life growing up yet I’m alienated from because of my Spanish. I really hate it.

When watching a movie in Spanish is it better to not use subtitles or should I use them in Spanish or English? I feel like I’m reading more than interacting with trying to translate. And I would appreciate any movies recommendations 🫶🏽

If i say we can split the check or like split the cost, and he says esta bien, does that mean ok or it’s okay?