learn spanish fast

Common Spanish phrases found in Spanish phrase books can be helpful and many people get them before embarking on vacation to Mexico or Spain. However, many times, most Spanish learners discover that phrase books lock you to one way of saying something, and life isn’t like that at all.

Having the ability to say, “Can you tell me if this is the 10.15 or the 10.30 train leaving for Barcelona?” is all very well. But when you are in Bolivia and it’s a bus leaving at midnight you are hoping to catch to some unknown village you can’t even pronounce, it isn’t much help. You need to know more than just easy Spanish words, or at least you need to be able to adapt the Spanish phrases you know.

It is wise to begin by picking up the useful Spanish phrases. Learn how to greet people by saying “good day” (buenas días), “good afternoon” (buenas tardes), and “good evening” (buenas noches). You can always just say “hola” (hello) if you’re not sure which phrase to use.

You can naturally progress from there to a slightly more complicated greeting: “¿Cómo estás?” This means, “how are you?” However, that’s a rather formal and stilted. Typically, most people just say, “que tal?” If someone says that to you, answer them, “bien, ¿y tu?” (I’m well, and you?). They will be impressed with your command of their language, believe me!

In keeping with the popular Spanish phrase books, you need to also know how to ask for something if you are in a Spanish café or restaurant. As in most English speaking countries, native Spanish speakers have a number of courses to their meals. The first is the, “primero plato,” the second is the “segundo plato,” and the third is the “tercero plato.”

You may wish to have a glass of water (un vaso de agua) with your meal, or a coffee (un café). If you want your coffee to have milk, then it should be, “un café con leche.” A glass of red wine (un vaso de vino tinto), or white wine (un vaso de vino blanco) may also go down well. Perhaps you want an entire bottle of wine (una botella de vino). And now you can ask for one that’s either red or white too.

You may have realized that in all those Spanish phrases I didn’t say “please” once. Because we say “please all the time in English, we assume that everyone else does it too. In fact, we generally are not able to understand why anyone Could be so rude as to not use “please” when asking for a favor.

It just is not a Spanish custom. In fact, they think it is rude if you do say, “please” all the time. For instance, if you were to tell a Spanish barman, “un vaso de vino tinto, pro favor,” he would very likely get a little insulted.

Picture somebody standing at the bar in an English speaking country waiting for quite some time to get served. Finally, he says to the barman in a frustrated voice, “a glass of red wine, PLEASE.” The “please” at the end is said in a rather sarcastic way, and that’s very much how it comes over when you add “please” in Spanish. Don’t do it and and it will save you a lot of unecessary trouble and heartache.

learn spanish quickly

It’s not too difficult to learn Spanish fast if you start with the fundamentals. You will be surprised by how much Spanish you can learn by listening to a cd while being on the road every day. Just get down the simple verbs, some food phrases, and perhaps a few descriptive terms. Most of the time, a fair number of people learn Spanish quickly by beginning to learn the alphabet and practicing greetings such as “hello” and “goodnight,” but studying the facial features will allow you to have a certain level of variety and spice as you learn Spanish.

A very cool fundamental to start with while in the process of learning Spanish is the descriptions of the face. The face is recognized as the front part of the head. It encompasses the lips, nose, eyes, cheeks, eyebrows, nose, hair, teeth, lips, and chin.  The face functions as an instrument of communication and identity, and people’s faces are the body part that is most commonly used to distinguish them. Often caricatures will overemphasize certain parts of the face in order to make them instantly recognizable to the people who may be familiar with those memorable features.

If you have a bit of trouble remembering other people’s names, you may want to become more familiar with the features of the face. The size of someone’s eyes allow a mother know immediately which one of your children you are talking about.

It is good to be able to speak about someone’s facial features in Spanish because if you meet someone in a Spanish-speaking country you may have to describe that person to another person who speaks Spanish. Also, describing people’s facial features in Spanish will help you to learn Spanish in a fun and creative way.

To start with, if you see a person having a thin face, you can say “una cara delgada”. Translated into English, this means “She has a thin face.” In the event that you meet a person with a chubby face, you could say “una cara regordete.” If you meet a person you would like to describe as having had a face lift, you would say un lifting or un “estiramiento facial.” If someone has a face with a lot of wrinkles, you would say “arugas.” In the event that someone’s face looks cheerful, you can say “una cara alegre.” If someone has a big nose you could say “una nariz grande.”  If a person has eyes that look sunken, you could say “ojos hundidos.”  In the event that you see a person with shifty eyes, you would say “ojos furtivos.”

Those are just a couple of easy Spanish words that you may use to describe people’s faces as you continue to pick up Spanish. Now, you won’t be at a loss for words when you meet people who speak Spanish.

If you want to avoid the usual way of learning Spanish such as getting down the alphabet and, “What’s your name?” you may wish to consider picking up the physical anatomy in Spanish or learning how to say the different parts of a typical suburban neighborhood. When you differ from the usual, it not only can be interesting to learn Spanish, but it also can be very exciting.