I don’t know about you but I don’t have the same energy every day, and I don’t want to do the same kind of things every day. Some days, I am more focused and social, some other times I feel more easily distracted and introspective. Sure, I could force myself […]
Calm & Activate Much has been said about the key ingredients to a successful learning process. Being <em><strong>disciplined</strong></em> and <strong><em>constant</em></strong> is essential to learning, implementing and following a routine around the language that combines your goals and your time and that works for you is a very important step to reach […]
“There are no foreign languages, there are onlylanguages I can’t communicate in (…yet)”. This sentence summarizes the two weeks I spent in Montréal to attend LangFest 2019. What a conference! It was a celebration of one of the best forms of communication known to man: languages. It was a language lovers […]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ELITns6n2o There are four past tenses in Spanish; the perfecto, the indefinido, the imperfecto and the pluscuamperfecto. These four tenses dance together when we tell stories about the past or anecdotes… The four are necessary to express when the action happens, but also to set up the context of that past story. In this blogpost, I […]
“Confidence is preparation. Everything else is beyond your control.” – Richard Kline But, what does “fluent” even mean? According to the dictionary, FLUENCY is about expressing oneself easily, articulately and effortlessly in Spanish. And yet, being fluent in Spanish means something different for each person depending on their needs. […]
“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” ― Benjamin Franklin “How do we learn better?” This question keeps going round in my head over and over since I started teaching. What is the best way to access knowledge? And, the best way […]
Every language has its own prosody – the patterns of stress and intonation–. That’s why when we are in a foreign country we can recognise our compatriots by hearing them speaking even if we don’t hear what they say. In this post you will learn: The intonation in Spanish Five […]
This post focuses on the speaking tasks of DELE B2, DELE C1 and DELE C2 oral exam. These tasks involve expressing an opinion and negotiating / arguing with the examiner in a formal / informal conversation. In this post we also cover the DELE exam topics for the DELE B2, […]
How to give commands or instructions in Spanish? The most common way of doing so is with the Imperative form. Of course, you can always use the polite indirect question like: ¿Puedes hacerme un café por favor? (Can you make a coffee for me, please?) or ¿Te importaría cerrar la […]
The Spanish that you Already Know There is a lot you already know when you start learning Spanish, even if you haven’t studied it before. First of all, languages are not isolated things. Each language has commonalities with other languages. They are all part of a family and influence each other, so […]
“Learning Spanish is more difficult when you are an adult”, they say. The common misconception is that when you start learning a foreign language at that age you won’t reach fluency and you will never sound like a Spanish native speaker. The older you are, the more difficult it is […]
Gaby Carreira, nacida en Argentina se mudó a Galicia con su familia y de ahí a Valencia, donde vive actualmente. Gaby es una buscadora vital, viajante y bloguera que se hace muchas preguntas transcendentales.Haciendo honor a su afán de compartir, Gaby nos habla de libros y recursos interesantes que le han […]
My Story After fourteen years of teaching experience both in schools and privately, my teaching journey has been a windy one. It started with a professional path separated from the personal one because I felt that I, with all my varied passions and quirks, was not adequate for the task […]
Yo soy yo y mi circunstancia, y si no la salvo a ella no me salvo yo. – Ortega y Gasset Philosophy and philosophers might seem far too abstract and disconnected with the “real” world, however, different philosophical principles and concepts from different times, ie. Ancient Greece, are still very much alive […]
Ana transformó un hobby que se le daba bien en una profesión cuando la crisis golpeó al tigre celta. Lanzarse al vacío e iniciar la aventura empresarial de crear tu propia empresa de fotografía requería de ella algo más que tener buen ojo. Tomar la valiente decisión de crear un trabajo […]
Whether you are inclined to a beer or a glass of wine, having a drink and a small bite is part of Spanish culture as much as eating paella on Sundays. Every neighbourhood is populated with dozens of bars, from the tasca de barrio to the new restobar or gastropub. Almost every […]
Giovanni sabía que, a pesar de que se le dieran bien las matemáticas, una ingeniería no era lo suyo, pero la presión del entorno fue más fuerte. Decidir entre lo que se supone que es lo mejor para ti según los dictados de la sociedad y el entorno, y aquello […]
Cada día es un nuevo comienzo.(Every day is a new beginning) <img width=”1170″ height=”350″ src=”https://mariaortegagarcia.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Headers-1-1.png” alt=”” srcset=”https://mariaortegagarcia.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Headers-1-1.png 1170w, https://mariaortegagarcia.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Headers-1-1-300×90.png 300w, https://mariaortegagarcia.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Headers-1-1-768×230.png 768w, https://mariaortegagarcia.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Headers-1-1-1024×306.png 1024w” sizes=”(max-width: 1170px) 100vw, 1170px” /> There are multiple reasons why you should be comfortable describing your morning routine, one of them being the DELE exam (as […]
Una imagen vale más que mil palabras. (A picture speaks a thousand words) Many Spanish official exams (including DELE) ask for a description of a photo or image in the speaking and/or writing part. As I have been preparing DELE exams students for years, and for many hours a day […]
It is all about the intention. We know that the Indicative expresses a statement about a fact (affirm or suppose), while subjunctive expresses a virtual idea, something that we can’t or don’t want to express as a fact. So, in this realm of the not real, not tangible, not facts, we […]
