Welcome to the Think Spanish Blog!

Welcome to the Learning Spanish Blog brought to you by Think Spanish Audio Magazine. Here you will find everything you need to know about learning the Spanish language and discovering the Spanish culture. Each week you will find new lessons and quizzes, product reviews, travel and culture trips and innovative ways to keep your Spanish skills strong.

We welcome your comments and study tips and look forward to creating a valuable and enjoyable language-learning community together!

Spanish Idioms and Sayings

In our email newsletter we talked about Spanish idioms and sayings common to the Spanish language. We listed some of our favorites and we have a few more we'd like to share.

• A diario una manzana es cosa sana. An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
  
• A donde el corazon se inclina, el pie camina. Home is where the heart is.
• A todos les llega su momento de gloria. Every dog has its day.
• A beber y a tragar, que el mundo se va a acabar. Eat, drink and be merry.
• Mejor solo que mal acompañado. Better alone than poorly accompanied.

Do you know any funny or unusual Spanish sayings? Please post a comment and share them with us!

¿Dónde está el acento?

If we know how to say a word in Spanish, we then know where the inflection is. It usually occurs on the second last syllable of the word when the word ends in a vowel, an “n”, or an “s.”

For example, gato, hablan, perros, verduras, acento

When a word ends in a consonant other than “n” or “s,” the inflection is usually on the last syllable, such as the word, pared. We don’t need to write the accent mark on such words. But in cases where these rules do not hold, an accent mark is in fact necessary.

For example, música, ratón, dólares, inglés, café

These words require accent marks because they do not follow the usual inflections of the language. A common mistake occurs with the words: examen, which does not require an accent and exámenes, which does require one since the inflection is no longer on the second last syllable.

There are also certain homonyms that are accented to distinguish one meaning from another. Here are a couple of examples of the distinctions:

Esta refers to the feminine “that,” while está means “is.”

De means “of” or “from,” while Dé is an imperative form of third personal singular of the verb "dar."

Se is used with reflexive verbs, while sé means “I know.”

Also, question words that come at the beginning of sentences (¿Dónde?, ¿Cómo?, ¿Cuándo?, ¿Qué?, and ¿Quién? ) require accent marks, whereas the same words with different meanings or uses do not have accent marks (donde, como, cuando, que, and quien).

If you learn these rules, you’ll never make mistakes writing accent marks, and you’ll have better Spanish pronunciation! ¡Qué bien!

Spanish Accents Quiz

Learning Spanish Embarrassing Blunders

I was studying abroad in Madrid, Spain and discovered something about Spanish in the most embarrassing way! A Spanish friend of mine asked me whether I liked his friend, Miguel—“¿Te gusta Miguel?” I responded with—“¡Si, claro!” because yes, of course, I liked Miguel just fine. He was nice, not to mention, a great dancer. But then after a little too much attention from Miguel, I realized that gustar meant “to like—in a romantic way.” What I meant to say was “Me cae bien,” which means that I like him as a friend. I’ll never make that mistake again! When I found out, I expressed how embarazada I was. Little did I realize that I was telling them that I was very pregnant!

Sometimes you learn Spanish the hard way! Please share your embarrassing Spanish learning blunders with us! Add a comment below.