Spanish in Ten

It’s time to practice your Spanish reading and increase your vocabulary by practicing reading Spanish news articles. This week’s article round up is all about pop culture.  1.  OnlyFans: ¿quién responde por tu dinero y tu imagen? By Vice Labs Vice is known for covering edgy topics. This time they’re covering the many problems that OnlyFan’s creators face with the financial system. Follow two young male creators on their site, and learn about the many hurdles they have faced getting paid on the site. By reading this Spanish news article you’ll practice vocabulary in the following topics: sex work, side hustle culture, financial systems, modern social media apps, and marketing terminology. Bet those are some subjects that your high school Spanish class left you underprepared in. 2. Chiquis hace fuertes declaraciones: "Se ha vuelto un circo lo de mi familia, me da vergüenza" Janney Marín Rivera, or Chiquis Rivera, is quoted comparing her family to a circus.   Chiquita is no ...

  ​“How do I become fluent in Spanish?” It’s a good question, but if you’ve never learned a new language you may not understand the different skills that you’ll need to practice. Memorizing hundreds of vocabulary words is a start, but if you can’t recognize those words in a spoken conversation or in a book or article, they don’t help much.  When it comes to learning a new language, there are four main skills to keep in mind: Listening skills Oral (speaking) skills Writing skills Reading skills These skills are the difference between knowing a word for a vocabulary test, and flirting with a stranger on the streets of Madrid. By practicing all of these skills, you train your brain to understand the new language in a usable way. Instead of simply knowing the translation to vocabulary words. This is one of the reasons that I suggest learning phrases for new languages, instead of words. It really doesn't matter what a word means, usually, but instead what's meant by the phrase. For...

Learning a new language does not need to be an expensive experience, as long as the student is willing to put in the time and effort there are almost always affordable, if not free, ways to learn a new language. Local Library Libraries have not just books and reference materials for free, (so long as you bring them back on time), but a lot of libraries are beginning to offer free online language learning resources. They also offer community classes, for free or low cost. Ask your librarian if they offer any services like this. Free Websites There are many free websites and blogs available now to learn languages, busuu.com and livemocha.com are two of my favorites. They are free to join and offer many free lessons , vocabulary flash cards, and the ability to contact pen pals from around the world. A downside to these websites is that although they offer most major languages completely (Spanish, Russian, French, German, Portuguese, etc.), lesser known languages or ones that ...

We all know that the fastest way to improve your language skills is to practice, practice, practice. A great option is to read a story that you're already familiar with, but in Spanish. This gives you a chance to use educated guesses and context clues to understand complex vocabulary and grammar patterns that you may not be familiar with. Feel free watch the video below to hear the audio, or read the story below. Keep in mind that since the text is translated, I couldn't find an audio and a text version that used the exact same translation throughout. So there are differences between  the video and the text below. Without further ado, here is the Tell-Tale Heart translated in to Spanish, El corazón delator.