Andromeda Jones - Spanish for Geniuses: Advanced Classes to Get You Speaking with Fluency and Confidence

Spanish for Geniuses: Advanced classes to get you speaking with fluency and confidence By Andromeda Jones Copyright 2016 by Andromeda Jones All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at the address below. Printed in the United Kingdom
www.bilinguanation.com Publishers Cataloging-in-Publication data
Jones, Andromeda.
Spanish for Geniuses/ Andromeda Jones.
1. Spanish language learning. 2.

Spanish grammar and vocabulary
Contents Part II Introduction You picked this book because youre learning Spanish. Not just a few holiday phrases a buenos das or dame un caf no you want to speak with fluency in a wide variety of conversations or even master the language if you can. But why in a world where so many speak English do we embark on such a journey nowadays? Well everyone has their reasons but most agree on one thing speaking a foreign language, even at the most basic level, is exciting. You know the scene. Youre at a restaurant in a foreign country and the waitress appears. You open your mouth and in another language a few halting words work their way out.

You wonder if anything youve said has made sense. But yes, incredibly she has understood and replies. You understand her also or at least enough to muddle through and complete your order. Probably no one else present will have understood what you just accomplished. But you know and the work it took to get there and now you may find yourself wondering; how far could you take this? With a few more months of study could you get to a good conversational level? With a few more years could you pass for fluent? All of this is possible but how do you get there? I chose the title Spanish for Geniuses not because only a genius can learn a language but because there are certain genius ways to learn it quicker and more proficiently than the traditional study route. Lets start with the grammar.

The grammar Yes, learning grammar is hard work and no, you cant do it in a month as some books claim but there are hacks to help you learn it quicker and thereafter make fewer mistakes. Hack one is to recognise that though Spanish is a foreign language it is not an alien one. It is actually very similar to English both in verb tenses and expression. Dont believe me? Take a look at these sayings: Matar dos pajaros con un tiro To kill two birds with one stone. Llevarse como el perro y el gato To fight like cat and dog. Coger el toro por los cuernos To take the bull by its horns.

Es pan comida Its a piece of cake. Dicho y hecho All said and done. In my decade of learning and speaking Spanish I have found around 80% of sentence structure and tenses to be the same or similar to English. Part I of Spanish for Geniuses teaches verb tenses, noun, adjective, adverb, preposition and pronoun rules with detailed explanations about how they relate to English. But what about the other 20%? The differences Well, this is where students will slip up because the sentence structure or tense is different. Differences can be discouraging.

I am an English teacher and I have had many a Spanish student trying to learn our language declare theyll never speak proficiently because of all the differences. What students often fail to recognise is that differences are your friend. If you take 80% of the languages to be the same or similar then you only have to learn the 20% to eliminate your mistakes. Sure its going to take time and practice but it is achievable and to help you the book highlights all Spanish/English differences in their own box outs with clear explanations to help you speak correctly. The words Youve done learning the grammar and youve memorised the differences. Now you travel to a Spanish speaking country expecting to make at least passable conversation but when you open your mouth nothing comes out.

Why is this? Well its because youre missing a vital component in your language armoury. You may know which words to use and in what tense but you lack the knowledge of how to say it. When I first started learning a guy I knew, who was an English/Spanish bilingual, advised me to learn phrases rather than words. Many miscommunications and awkward moments later, I finally got what he meant. Vocabulary is important, of course, but you cannot translate word for word the sentences youre used to saying in English. The equivalent would be a Spanish speaker walking into a caf in London and saying give me a coffee.

The bar tender would understand what he meant but there would be a raised eyebrow or two as the proper (and polite) way to say this is can I have a coffee. The same is true of Spanish. Their way of speaking is often not quite the same as ours and so a broad knowledge of phrases is essential. The second half of Spanish for Geniuses opens the door onto the way Spanish speakers really speak with phrases and tip bits to make thousands of conversations from chatting with friends, organising, negotiating, receiving a service or solving an emergency. You need it? Youll find it there. About this book This book is written for English speakers who wish to learn Spanish to a high level.

For this reason it talks a lot about the way we use our native language as I discovered when teaching English that understanding how our own grammar works is the key to understanding the grammar of other languages. Because I live in Spain the emphasis is on Castilian Spanish but it can be applied to South American also as, with the exception of Argentina and Uruguay, there are only a few differences in vocabulary and pronunciation. About the author I am a British English teacher teaching in Spain. Ten years ago I started out like you learning Spanish though my own interest. Somewhere along the way I got ambitious and started noting and categorising the phrases people used around me to create a resource that went way beyond traditional Spanish language books. I published because I figured that there were others out there like me who could use them.

Those being the afictionados the people who wanted to do more than order a meal the people who want to know everything or at least as much as the could. This is why I wrote Spanish for Geniuses. For Geniuses like you. Nouns and articles Gender A good place to start are nouns. Spanish nouns are either masculine or feminine. Most of the time it is easy to tell them apart as masculine nouns end in o and feminine a such as el bolgrafo or la manzana.

Nouns with the following endings are masculine: -aje: El paisaje (the landscape), El equipaje (the equiment), El reciclaje (the recycling).
- n: el desvn (the attic).
- or: el amor (love), el valor (courage). Exceptions are la flor (flower), la coliflor (cauliflower) la labor (task).
- ambre: el alambre (the wire), el hambre (hunger) In addition, all nouns ending in a vowel with an accent are masculine. This includes El sof, el caf, and el champ. Nouns with the following endings are feminine: -dad (This is ity in English): La ciudad (the city), La calidad (quality). -in: La direccin (the address), La estacin (the station), la informacin (the information). -umbre: La certidumbre (the certainty), la muchedumbre (the crowd). -ie: La serie (the series), la especie (the species). -isis: La crisis (the crisis), la dosis (the dose). -isis: La crisis (the crisis), la dosis (the dose).

The irregulars There is a small list of nouns that do the exact opposite. Feminine nouns ending in o La foto (the photo), la moto (the motorbike), la mano (the hand), la radio (the radio), la disco. Masculine nouns ending in a El da (the day), el mapa (the map), el yoga, el planeta (the planet), el tranva, (the tram) el gua (the guide). In addition, many nouns ending in ma are also masculine. These include: El clima (the climate), el problema (the problem), el sistema (the system), el programa (the program), el tema (the subject), el drama (the drama), el sntoma (the symptom), el pijama (pyjamas), el fantasma (the ghost). But there are a few ma nouns that remain feminine.