Be happy when you study

How do you face your responsibilities in your daily life? Do you smile at them and start doing them in a positive manner? Do you complain about what you have to do and make excuses for not doing them?

There is no deny that negative people take more effort in doing the same things positive people do, and in many cases, the results negative people get are worse. Do you want to study in a bad mood? Go home and come back later with a smile on your face!

There's no difference in learning, only by feeling in a good mood and doing things in a happy manner leads us to success. I have seen many students struggling just because they do not approach learning with the proper attitude.

To study you need to know a couple of things. Firstly, believe you can achieve studying what you want. In the case of foreign languages, beleive you will speak that language perfectly.

Secondly, never give up. It's simple, when you quit, everything's finished and you have failed. Are you impacient? We all are in a way or another, but remember you believe in yourself. Do yourself a favour, never quit.

Thirdly, be happy. Enjoy your class as much as possible, enjoy your colleagues, enjoy the new contents, enjoy life while you learn! If you are studying and you feel disapointed, you won't do well.

The thing is, you do not neccesarily need to be unhappy to miss a class, but being worried, sad, or tu push yourself too much. If you are under preassure, you won't do well.

Distractions are a dangerous thing too. Because you do not have to be unhappy to be distracted in a class really. But I see it the other way round, you are distracted because you are bored. If you are bored, you won't do well.

So what to do to do well? Just enjoy the class and see it as a game. When you learnt your first language you were an adorable baby who really enjoyed talking. Behave like a kid in your mood, and like an adult in your obligations, and you'll get it.

An article by

LINGUA-FRANCA

Verb tenses. Pretérito Perfecto Simple de Indicativo, también Pretérito Indefinido

Do you struggle with verb tenses?

Pretérito Perfecto Simple de Indicativo

(Also known as Pretérito Indefinido)

This past tense is nearly the same as the last one, Pretérito Perfecto Compuesto, as they express similar ideas.

On one hand, the "Compuesto" is a tense that tells us several actions in the past with a certain connection to the present; on the other hand, this "Simple" tense expresses actions in the past that aren't connected to the present at all. Anyway, this is use as another past tense.

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Regular Forms

Cantar      Beber     Vivir

Yo            canté       bebí      viví

Tú            cantaste    bebiste   viviste

Él            cantó       bebió     vivió

Nosotros      cantamos    bebimos   vivimos

Vosotros      cantasteis  bebisteis vivisteis

Ellos         cantaron    bebieron  vivieron

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Pretérito Perfecto Simple

The concept this tense represents is what happened or what we did in the past. These are the actions that no longer have an effect in the present. It is commonly confused with the Compuesto, however, the reasons are as follow:

Comí paella el jueves

(I ate paella on Thursday)

Both the paella and Thursday are finished at the time of speaking, that is why we use this tense.

Los niños fueron al zoológico el año pasado

(Kids went to the zoo last year)

Last year is finished and so it takes us to this tense. The opposite would be "han ido al zoológico este año" taking into account this year is not finished yet.

Primero fuí a Granada, luego visitamos a unos amigos en Córdoba...

(I first went to Granada, then we visited some friends in Cordoba)

Storytelling. We can tell our stories and make a long chain of events just by using this tense. The only rule is that you ALWAYS tell what happened from the oldest issue and then you go on chronologically with the rest (to go back in time while we speak we'd need Pretérito Pluscuamperfecto).

CLARIFICATION

The changes of the tense regarding whether the action or the time are finished, represent the standard form of Spanish on this regarding.

However, throught the rich variety of Spanish slangs, dialects and realities, this may change. The rule above represent the general and traditional rule. Spanish from South America, Canary islands, northern Spain and several other regions do not necessarily follow this rule. These speakers will prefer to use THIS tense as the ONLY tense for the past, and they forget the "Compuesto" tense.

Verb Tenses. Pretérito Perfecto Compuesto de Indicativo

Do you struggle with verb tenses?

Pretérito Perfecto Compuesto de Indicativo



This is one of the most common tenses used in Spanish. It is a typical European tense, and as a curiosity, both American English and American Spanish avoid it. In America people prefer simple tenses, but here in the old Europe, we still use compound tenses to express ourselves.

The Pretérito Compuesto uses the verb HABER as an auxiliary verb. The auxiliary will be conjugated in Presente de Indicativo, while the main verb will be in the Past Participle form.

Presente de Ind. HABER + Participio = Pretérito Perf. Compuesto Ind.

HABER                  PARTICIPIO

He                     Cantar: Cantado

Has

Ha                     Beber: Bebido

Hemos                  Vivir: Vivido

Habéis

Han

Participle refers to the completed action of the verb. The endings are related to each group

(-AR: -ado; -ER: -ido; -IR: -ido)

However, Spanish is full of irregular participles, here are some examples:

Hacer: Hecho; Ver: Visto; Decir: Dicho...

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Compound tenses are very easily formed as they tend to change less than other tenses.

Pretérito Perfecto Compuesto de Indicativo is half way between the Past and the Present. We use this tense to refer to past actions with a present result.

Present result according to the action:

He limpiado mis zapatos

(I have cleaned my shoes)

I did the action in the past, and I can only say it if the shoes are still clean now (a present result)

Hemos cocinado un pastel de chocolate

(We’ve cooked a chocolate cake)

We can only say it if we still have some more cake left to offer (a present result, but not when somebody has eaten it all!

Present result according to the time:

He visto la televisión hoy.

(I’ve watched telly today)

The time expressed, today, is not finished yet, and that’s make it to the present.

Este año hemos visitado a los abuelos.

(We’ve visited our grandparents this year)

This year is still going on so we can only use Pretérito Perfecto Compuesto de Indicativo.

He escalado en Everest.

(I have climbed the Everest)

Achievements in life are always expressed in this tense as if you’re speaking, your lifetime hasn’t finished yet.

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In many other situations, the action or the time are finished. That means somebody has already eaten the cake or that the time is finished (yesterday). In those situations we’d use the Pretérito Perfecto Simple de Indicativo (also known as Pretérito Indefinido) and we will study that tense in our next article about tenses.

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This is a Lingua–Franca article

www.lingua-franca.es

http://wanna-learn-spanish.blogspot.com/



Verb Tenses. Presente de Indicativo

DO YOU STRUGGLE WITH VERB TENSES?

PRESENTE DE INDICATIVO

Verb tenses represent one of the weakest points for all Spanish learner. No need to say they are extemely important for speaking and understanding, if you don’t get them because they are too many and probably too weird... this is the right moment to understand them.

We are making an analysis of all tenses with valuable examples and a bit of humour, so you don’t get that bored with them.

Most of my students succeed in tenses once they understand this. In order to reduce space verb forms are not included in this article, if you need them this website may help you.

Spanish verbs are divided into three groups according to their ending in infinitive. The groups are –AR, -ER, -IR. To conjugate other verbs you can remember –or check on the link above- any verb with the same ending.

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Regular Forms

Cantar   Beber    Vivir

Yo            canto    bebo     vivo

Tú            cantas   bebes    vives

Él            canta    bebe     vive

Nosotros      cantamos bebemos  vivimos

Vosotros      cantáis  bebéis   vivís

Ellos         cantan   beben    viven

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Presente de Indicativo

The present is NOT what we are doing now, but what we NORMALLY do or what it ALWAYS happen. It’s used to talk about routines and to describe things, and it refers to things that do not change.

España es bonita

(Spain is beautiful)

You don’t really expect something beautiful to change, do you? Any descriptions are made in present

Nosotros bebemos cerveza.

(We drink beer)

Humans tend to choose a drink in their adulthood and hold on to it for ages. That is a perfect example of the use of the Present.

No me gustan los gatos, pero me gusta tu gato.

(I don’t like cats, but I like your cat)

The verb “gustar” works differently as what you like is the subject of the sentence, so that means you conjugate the verb accordingly to that, and not to the speaker.

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This is a Lingua–Franca article

www.lingua-franca.es

http://wanna-learn-spanish.blogspot.com/

Vocabulary

THE NUMBER OF WORDS YOU CAN REMEMBER IS NOT YOUR LEVEL IN A CERTAIN LANGUAGE

It is thought that the more vocabulary you know, the better you'll know a language. That's not completely untrue, however, vocabulary is overstimated for second language students.

To get to know the importance of vocabulary, we must think of our mother tongues. Can you express a word you don't know in your own language? In many occassions we face objects or procedures we do not understand at all, but we can explain them. We would be amazed of the number of words we do not know in our own language. Does it make any bigger difference in your life? The answer is that it doesn't.

What we do in those cases is using descriptions, definitions, or even gestures to explain ourselves.

The problem comes when we are studying a new language and we think we must know all vocabulary given. Sometimes we are so busy translating we completely forget about our class or about understanding anything we are listening to. Why don't we use the same strategies as in mother tongue instead?

HOW WE LEARN NEW WORDS

The proccess of learning a new word is a complex system inside our brains. The word is firstly received in the shape of a sound or in a written form. If the word is unknown and we understand the meaning in the context or the word is explained to us (I said explained, no necesarily translated) we have been introduced to a brand new word.

The word will come into your short period memory first, and it will stay there for no longer than a few minutes. After that time, if the word has proven to be important or has capted your attention, it will be passed to the medium period memory store room.

There, it will be remembered for a longer period. However, after a few days or weeks (time depends on each individual and the importance given to the concept, if your life depended on it you would probably remember it better) the word will be forgotten. The only way to remember that word is to keep the input with it, listening, speaking, reading, writing or whatever.

The word will finally come to the long period memory. Thoughts there can stay as long as you can live, as long as you use them. As this store room has a limited space, concepts that aren't used commonly will be forgotten (they are not actually forgotten but taken into the subconscious parts of your brain, if you want to take them back ask a psichologist). The only way to remember is using that word.

ACTIVE AND PASSIVE VOCABULARY

The vocabulary we know, after the whole proccess above, is then dividen in two groups. Passive vocabulary is that you can remember and understand, but not use. There are many words your doctor tells you that you understand but you wouldn't use them unless reading a medical text.

Active vocabulary is that you can use speaking or writing. This is the position in which you want all the rest of vocabulary in any language to be. The system is very simple to take things in here.

HOW TO MAKE ALL MY VOCABULARY ACTIVE

If active vocabulary is that one you can use speaking, force yourselft to use new words in your speech for at least three weeks after you first hear them. You don't need to repeat them all the time, but using them a couple of times per week in natural contexts is a great idea. If the word lasts for nearly a month it will be added to your own mental dictionary.

And now you know that all the hours spent memorizing vocabulary were futile, but you've got a much more powerful tool now!

Think in a second language!!!!!!!!!

During the first eigth years in a human being’s life, the main reason to exist is just to manage the correct use of a language. It’s our survival tip.

For children, this is an automatic task, however, it is a bit more complicated for adults. Our brain needs some understandable information, what we call “formal operations”. This basically means that we need to know the reason why the things work in a certain way, and therefore here comes the grear importance of grammar. However, once we start the process we tend to translate anything arround us.

Translation will delay our learning, translating is a very difficult task for which not everyone is still ready. We must only try to understand it, as simply as that. It seems more difficult at the beginning as it really is, but it is much better in long term basis. To have a thinking mind in the second language there are several steps we can follow. Here are the best three of them:

1.- PLANIFY YOUR LIFE IN L2

       We all have plenty of things to do daily, and we normally travel by bus or leave home thinking of buying something from the supermarket, going to the bank or visiting a friend. Well, all those small actions are easily expressed in a second language, think in Spanish day by day.

2.- SUBTITLES

       Cinema and television are very effective learning methods. When we watch a film in second language, we are more than usually helped on subtitles. MOTHER TONGUE SUBTITLES ARE USELESS. If our brain is expossed to both languages, as it cannot proccess two languages at the same time, it is going to centre in that one that seems easier for it. That is exactly the one you’re not studying.

       Subtitles are good for learning as long as they represent an accurate transcription of what you are listening at the same time. Remember to change subtitles on second language as a rule.

3.- REPEAT WHAT YOU GET. Use the same expressions people use.

       Learning to speak is basically an imitation proccess. Since we are kids, we imitate all sounds produced by our parents and we try to give a sense and a meaning to them. That is why it is extremely neccessary that we listen to everyone carefully, read as much as we can and try to use all those structures in our speech. When we talk to people, we read advertising of a clothes shop or listening the tape recording of the supermarket offers we are constantly receiving language input. Listen to it, understand it and then USE IT. Human brain cannot remember any word that hasn’t been verbally used, so we only have to use it in a conversation!