Quite a few people asked if I would be able of help them with dealing with Spanish spoken quickly.
The answer is yes, large sections of the audio newsletter will be dedicated to training your ear for Spanish. You’ll learn to understand everyday Spanish, the way people naturally speak and express themselves, and you’ll learn to handle the pace at which they speak.

You can expect to get a significant tune up for your ear every month and improve you ability to deal with the rapid pace of spoken Spanish.

That’s why; I’ve named this blog Spanish Ear Training so we can get focused on helping you develop your ear for Spanish.

Many people also asked, will I be teaching the subjunctive, por vs para, reflexive verbs etc. The answer is yes, I will, but not in way you’re used to.
After all… the way that many of you have been taught these structures, is the reason why you’re so confused by it all.

Frankly, I think the importance of these parts of Spanish are very often overemphasized. Especially, when they are isolated and taught as a formula to memorize. That works in an exam, but out on the street… good thing it’s not self defense… or you’d be dead.

Instead, I’ll explain these parts of the language as they come up in real Spanish conversations, contexts and situations. I’ll show you what’s behind these structures, so you’ll understand on a much deeper level. Then your Spanish becomes more intuitive.

In fact, any Spanish that will really serve you, has to be intuitive… it all passes by too fast to be thinking about the 28 rules that govern “por vs para” and so on.

Let’s get real

Who can possible be juggling 28 rules for por vs para, while simultaneously trying to listen to Spanish spoken at 4 words per second?

What you really want is to be able to keep up, and to do that you can only focus on one thing.

You either focus on listening or you focus on rules.

It’s been my experience that once your ear develops enough for you to participate in conversation your skill on all parts of Spanish develops very quickly. Then one day, you realize you don’t have to think so hard about it – and you don’t have to concentrate so hard to understand either.

And the rules — they just seem to fall into place all by themselves, just like they did when you learned English. It becomes more intuitive everyday.

That’s the end goal here, and that’s what we’ll really be trying to help you develop with this newsletter.
Expect to meet Spanish in real contexts and from real life Spanish sources.

If explaining why the subjunctive, por vs para or reflexive verbs were used in the real context leads you to better intuition, then sure… I’ll be glad to explain it.

However in at least 3/4 of the audio newsletter you won’t be passively listening to explanations. Instead, you’ll be actively involved in expanding you ear and also extending your speaking ability to be able to talk on a wide range of topics.

That way, you’ll have a much deeper, more intuitive, more natural understanding of what’s really happening in the Spanish you hear. You’ll be much better able to keep up, tune in and get involded in real world conversations.

The third thing people told me was that they had a problem finding people to practice Spanish with, they live in places without a Spanish speaking population.

And here is an group that helps people make exchange visits to other countries.

http://www.friendshipforce.org

Please leave your comments on this blog, I’d be delighted to hear your thoughts.