Master Spanish Conditionals Through Pop Music

Conditionals: they can give a headache to even the most steadfast of Spanish learners. Conditional constructions describe hypothetical or impossible events, and often begin with the word si (“if”). Here’s an example: If I had to pick the trickiest part of Spanish grammar, I would choose the conditional. Sadly, we live in a world of “ifs”, and you can’t get by very long speaking Spanish if you avoid all conditional constructions. But luckily, Spanish music is here to help you: there are plenty of songs that use conditionals, and can help you sneak in some extra practice. In this article, we’ll check out two of them from the Spanish speaking world. One of them is from Argentina!.

Tame The Stubborn Subjunctives With This Song Of Separation

Not sure if it’s crazy or just plain ignorance but most of us have found nothing as unfamiliar and alien as the subjunctives while learning Spanish. We’ve discussed the grammar behind this “mood” at length in two previous articles; while one story discusses a subjunctive-laden song by Juanes, the other focuses on Ojalá, a terribly important keyword of Latin American Spanish relevant to the subjunctive mood. This article introduces you to yet another wonderful song that helps further reinforce all the subjunctive you might have acquired thus far. Hopefully you should end this read feeling more at ease with the subjunctives.

A Mexican Song For The Spanish Past Tense

If you have been diligently following the 22 things a smart-ass would do learning Spanish that we discussed a little while ago, you are probably keen on getting even with the Spanish past tense before any other. Once again, don’t ask why or how this order matters but if you are lazy enough, you don’t care anyways. So, can anything make it easier for us to grasp and recall the infamous past tense conjugations in Spanish? Well, there’s always a song for anything you want to learn and digest in Spanish, really! This time, we call upon this sensational and prodigious Latin pop group from Mexico, officially known as Camila.

Spanish Subjunctive With An Arabic Twist

You say, “May God make me an instant billionnaire,” when your wish calls for some divine intervention. Arabs say, “Oh Allah,” for the same effect and the world being a small place, this Semitic phrase ended up in Spanish as, “¡Ojalá!” It’s not hard to draw parallels between the two expressions given their almost identical pronunciations. Thank them Moors for this useful element of Spanish which is strangely more common in Latin America than in Spain these days. Though it doesn’t have an exact literal equivalent in English, ojalá can be roughly translated as, “May God ensure that...” or even, “I really, really hope that...”

Let Juanes Help You Learn The Spanish Subjunctive

All too often, the Spanish subjunctive is made to appear way more intimidating to those learning the language than it needs to. Grammar books say it is not a tense but a mood. We’d rather choose to keep things simple and for the sake of staying away from unnecessarily complicated grammatical nomenclature, will call it a form of the verb. Quite simply put, this form is used for any verb in Spanish when we are not being objective or certain about the action being performed. Today, we’ll use a wonderful Spanish language chartbuster from a world-famous Colombian musician to reinforce this concept permanently and painlessly!

Let Beyoncé Sing So You Learn The Spanish Adverb, Ya

The Spanish word, ya is notorious for giving immense pain to those learning Spanish even in their third or fourth year. Honestly, most of us have struggled with this word enough to have even quit Spanish for at least a while out of sheer frustration! One particularly exhaustive lesson on About.com is dedicated to this topic and so are hundreds of others elsewhere on the Internet. So, learning is never an issue; the issue is with recalling it when required. Luckily, today, we have a gorgeous teacher just to ensure we never forget the word’s usage rules anymore. If Belanova can help with gustar, Beyoncé can help with ya!

Vez Or Tiempo? Let This Latin Grammy Winner Teach You

Ever found yourself struggling with the quintessential dilemma every newbie learning Spanish faces at some stage: The choice between vez and tiempo? Both of them, says your dictionary, translate into “time” in English. Well, grammar dictates that vez is to be used when talking about instances or frequency of occurrences (e.g., this time, once, another time, twice, in turn, etc.) while tiempo fills in for all other situations. Fair enough, now how to remember this? Music to your rescue again – Here’s the perfect song to drill this piece of Spanish grammar right into you! The song in question is Por Esta Vez by Belanova.

Learn Gustar With Luis Fonsi

Not sure about all but quite a few rookie learners have often had a particularly tough time understanding the Spanish verb, gustar, which roughly – only roughly – stands for, “to like”. Well, knowing how to use gustar is no rocket-science and certainly not the hardest aspect of learning Spanish. The hard part is recalling the usage while actually conversing in Spanish. One song by Luis Fonsi appears to have been crafted specifically to address this problem. That’s the thing with Spanish music – it can do much more than just put you on the dance floor. It can simplify linguistic concepts enough to keep you in the groove!

A Nursery Rhyme For The Spanish Reflexive

Kids enjoy learning and so do we. The only difference is while we know we are learning when we are because of all the conscious efforts we are putting in, kids rarely do. How many of you ever realized you were subconsciously absorbing new vocabulary and new grammar rules while you were having fun singing along those innocent-sounding nursery rhymes as kids? To kids, they are little more than fun-filled jingles. To the Spanish learner in us, they are, or at least ought to be, opportunities. And there is no reason why we adults should pass up any such opportunities of learning Spanish especially when they don’t cost a dime.

2 Songs To Learn Those Pesky Stem-Changers

If you always hear puedo (the present tense first person singular form of poder) whenever the context is “I can”, you will have to actually try hard to come up with an incorrect podo while speaking. This is the self-correcting trait of any matured language seasoned over time like Spanish. Given the right amount of input, your Spanish can correct itself without you depending on some complicated grammatical label, such as “stem-changing verb”, and help you produce more accurate sentences spontaneously without any mental editing each time you speak. And what source can get fill you with more Spanish language than Latino music?

7 Bands No Spanish Learner Must Ignore

There’s no better way to consolidate your knowledge of the Spanish language than Spanish music. It draws emotions into learning thereby serving as an important linguistic anchor in your subconscious. Deep cultural insights notwithstanding, contemporary music exposes you to the limits and flexibilities of Spanish as well as the poetry of its vocabulary, puns, and metaphors. Native speakers love to play with their Spanish and this is not manifested in any other medium as beautifully as in the sheer range and fervor of música Latina. Today this language boasts of a rich array of musical choices for fans of every genre.