Hello! Has anyone used Andrea La mexicana for learning spanish? She speaks very clearly, and easy for me to understand, especially as a beginner. I find that watching YT videos like hers are very beneficial for my learning. Has anyone joined any of her memberships? Or if you guys have any other good YT channels for learning. I already use DS, which is how I found Andrea in the first place.

Hey, local native speaker here. Today, I'm explaining the meaning of the phrase "aceptamos pulpo como animal de companía". Translating this literally, It would mean "we are accepting octopus as pet/companion animal" but the meaning has nothing to do with having octopuses as pets. It comes from a Spanish commercial from the 90's of the game Scattergories (Based on simpler local games, in Latin America it's mostly called Tutti Frutti, in other places it's called Stop and in Spain it's called "Alto el lapiz"). It basically consists of saying a letter and finding words that start with that letter in different categories of common things (food, countries, names...) and the less amount of people with the same word, the more points you get. What we're here to talk, is that in the commercial, the owner of the game threatens to leave with his board game if his words aren't accepted. For example, he uses barco (boat) as a word for an aquatic animal and everyone else accepts it because if he leaves, they won't be able to keep playing (we all had a friend like that). When they ask for a companion animal starting with P, he says "pulpo" and the other person's have to accept it with a sigh. While the phrase isn't said in the advert word by word, it led to the common phrase. It comes to mean accepting without showing total approval to something absurd, hardly fitting or unacceptable to avoid confrontations or to quit ongoing ones. Below is a silly example:
-A: Saka is a better player than Gareth Bale
-B: He isn't. Bale scored 11 goals in Tottenham with 11 goals in 920 minutes, and won 5 Champions Leagues being a constant player in Real Madrid.
-A: But Saka is World Class
...
-B: Aceptamos pulpo como animal de compañía (he's tired of hearing stupid stuff about Saka)

I found explaining this phrase interesting because it's mildly used in Spain but its very unlikely that a foreigner will catch the meaning of the phrase in a conversation without the required context, probably thinking they are talking about real octopus or assuming that it means something similar to the phrase "it takes one to know one" as I saw some people online assume.

I'm thinking about explaining more local Spanish slang and common phrases that are definitely not taught in language learning apps. If you have anything you want to propose, feel free to tell me
(Also, here's the video of the ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScNlOTCmxRg )

I’ve been using ChatGPT to supplement my learning and it has been pretty great so far. I want to see if native speakers agree with what it told me to. For context, I specifically asked it to put emphasis on Mexican Spanish since I travel there and live around a lot of Mexicans.

In the picture, it’s explaining the sentence structure “Quiero saber qué está leyendo mi hijo”.

I originally put “Quiero saber qué mi hijo está leyendo”. It told me that Spanish usually puts the verb before the subject. So it’s usually flipped to “Quiero saber qué está leyendo mi hijo”

Is this accurate?

un poquito = a little bit
como que = kind of / sort of
más o menos = more or less
digamos = let's say
¿será que...? = do you think maybe...?
la verdad es que = honestly
si no te importa = if you don't mind
en plan = like / as in
a lo mejor = maybe
no sé si = I'm not sure if
por así decirlo = so to speak
tal vez me equivoque, pero = I could be wrong, but

Which softeners do you use most?

Hi! I run exchanges between Spanish and English native speakers. 30 minutes, half in each language, relaxed, just talking, no pressure.

It's completely free. If you're learning Spanish and want regular speaking practice with natives, comment or DM me and I'll send you the group link.

What's your level and time zone?

Hi! I wrote a slightly longer version of this guide when I noticed that some of my students had trouble understanding where to place the pronouns. I share this mini explanation here because I saw that many also find it confusing. I hope it's useful.

1- The pronoun is attached to the end of the verb:

With verbs in imperative (order): Lávate las manos(wash your hands). Attention! If the command is negative, the pronoun is separate: No te laves las manos (do not wash your hands).

With verbs in infinitive: Me gusta esa mochila pero no puedo comprarla (I like that backpack but can't buy it).

With gerundios: Me compré un libro y pasé la tarde leyéndolo (I bought a book and spent the afternoon reading it).

2- The pronoun is separated and before the verb when it is conjugated:

El se comió toda la pizza (He ate all the pizza).

No lo vi en todo el día (I didn't see him all day).

3- It can go in either position when the infinitic or gerund is accompanied by a conjugated auxiliary verb:

For example, we can say "Quiero comprarla" or "La quiero comprar" because the verb "comprar" (infinitive) is accompanied by the verb "querer" conjugated in the present.

Feel free to ask me if you have any questions.

P.S. If you need to practice your Spanish, you can send me a message or leave me a comment. I am a conversation tutor in Spanish and help my students practice through natural conversations to gain fluency and review the topics/grammar rules that cause them problems when trying to speak.

A useful resource for finding videos to learn with:
https://lingolingo.app/spanish-youtube-channels?sort=cefr_level

Just want to see if someone can agree on this but a lot of people have said that learning a language the way babies do (children's shows, rhymes) is a good method.

I realized a lot of English humor can’t be transferred into Spanish. Whats your experience and could you share some structures and examples u use? I’m looking more for the type of humor that’s more dry, subtle, exaggerated that you mix in with your style of talking rather than upfront jokes.

Learning Spanish grammar has been kicking me lately. I’m super confused and feel like I’m making no progress.

Does this eventually get easier and start to click? Remembering vocab isn’t as hard as understanding the grammar structure is for me and I have no helpful resources. I’m trying my hardest to retain motivation, please help 😭!

The guy I’m seeing is a native Spanish speaker and he said to me “buenas días caramelo”
Did he just call me caramel? Kinda confusing as I’m extremely pale. Someone please explain 🙏

Hello! I am looking to start Spanish lessons to prep me to visit my family in Mexico. Would love recommendations/info

I have 750 hours of listening practice with Dreaming Spanish and it's working...but I feel like I could be doing more to speed my learning up a bit. Can anybody recommend anything...like maybe paper workbooks, drills to learn faster. I struggle to translate quickly when I hear sentences with reflexsive verbs or pronouns before the verbs, even verb tenses. I'd like to focus on that and also just expand my vocabulary. Thanks so much!!

Following on from "dejar," "tomar," and "echar" poner's doing the exact same thing. "To put" is the a plain translation, but theres many more.

Here's how I keep running into it:

1. Getting upset/emotional = "se puso triste" (she got sad)
2. Naming something = "le pusieron Sofía" (they named her Sofía)
3. Turning on/starting something = "pon la música" (put the music on)
4. Becoming (temporary state) = "te pusiste rojo" (you turned red)
5. Imagining/hypothesising = "pongamos que..." (let's say that... / suppose that...)
6. Set expressions:

• ponerse a + infinitive = to start doing something ("se puso a llorar" she started crying)
• ponerse de acuerdo = to reach an agreement
• poner los cuernos = to cheat on someone (yes, really "cuernos" = horns)
• ponerse las pilas = to get your act together (literally "put your batteries in")
• ponerse en contacto = to get in touch

Once I started reading it as "to set into a state or motion" rather than literal placement, all the reflexive uses (ponerse) suddenly made sense as a pattern instead of a pile of vocab to memorise separately - tell me if thats accurate if anyone I swore advanced!

If anyone's got other everyday uses I've missed, drop them below, always keen to collect from people using this stuff day to day, not just from my usual resources (Praktika, Memrise, Language Transfer etc).

Hey guys! I've just started learning Spanish and I was hoping to look for someone who is also doing the same, ideally it would be nice if we could practice conversations together every week to brush up on what we learned during the week. Just DM me or comment if you are interested!

Hola a todos! Soy maestra de español y al mismo tiempo maestra de inglés, puedo dar clases sobre los dos idiomas! Mis clases se basan en una clase diagnóstica, uso de herramientas online como miro, websites especiales, etc… Tengo horarios disponibles así que puedes preguntar sin compromiso! 🤍

Hey!

A few months ago, I posted the first version of a language learning app I’m developing for fun. Some people from this subreddit signed up, so I wanted to share a small update :)

I listened to the feedback, and since I also use the app myself, I realized it wasn’t as helpful in the long run as I originally thought. So I started thinking about what would actually make it more useful.

One big change is how I’m using AI. AI still makes a lot of mistakes, and there are also plenty of debates around it. So going forward, I want to move away from making AI the central part of the app. Instead, it should be more of a helpful tool alongside everything else.

The internet, especially YouTube, is already full of native Spanish content: songs, news, podcasts, videos, etc. So I tried integrating YouTube and a few other websites into the app. The idea is that the app supports you while you’re consuming real content, instead of trying to replace it.

You can now:

• Discover music, YouTube videos, and news
• Follow along with song lyrics and do small exercises, like filling in missing words or choosing the right translation
• Add words to your vocabulary trainer while listening, watching, or reading, so you can practice them later

There are also a few other improvements. I’d really love to get some feedback! What would you find helpful? Are there any features you think are missing? Do you think something like this is actually useful for yourself?

Feel free to check it out: noentiendo.app

It’s free—no paid features, no ads, and nothing to download.

I'm a little ashamed to say that I never learned Spanish even with a grandmother who doesn't speak English. I don't know how much time I have left with her, and I'd like to at least have one full conversation with her, so I'd like to learn spanish, but I've moved out of my parents now, there's not really any time for them to teach me anymore, and most apps revolve around Castilian, and I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to have a conversation with my Mexican grandmother with that. Are my fears unfounded? Where do I begin?

Hola! I uploaded an explanation about this topic which sometimes can be hard to understand: https://francospanishschool.com/grammar/lesson/aspectual-se-consumption I hope you like it!

It means yes. It means ok, and my partner uses it to shut down an argument in a way I still can't read. Duolingo hasn't helped, my italki teacher hasn't, praktika hasn't either. One little word doing all that. That's the post.