Prepositions and Prepositional Pronoun

Here is a lesson about prepositions and prepositional pronouns. It's definitely worth looking at. A way that I can describe this lesson, is that it's for those of you who maybe have a difficult time with the "small things", they are not verbs, but fall into a category of words that tend to be "forgotten" or not as much emphasis is put on them.

Using "acabar+de + infinitive" to say what has just happened

When you want to say "I just ____" for example, "I just ate", you can use the verb "acabar". The formula is "acabar + de + infinitive". This is another example of the 2 verb rule, since the verb "acabar" needs the second verb to make a complete thought, the rule applies.

Expressing feelings using the verb "estar"

This lecture illustrates another use of the verb "estar", expressing feelings and emotions. This might be my favorite video to date. Not sure why, I had a good time with it. I refer to "adjective agreement" so feel free to watch that one again to help with this one!

Saber vs Conocer, they both mean "to know"

This is a lecture I actually recorded yesterday. It compares and contrasts (mostly contrasts) the verbs "saber" and "conocer" these verbs are similar to "ser" and "estar" as to the fact that in English they both mean the same thing, "to know" in this case, but in Spanish they are 2 different words and cannot be used interchangeably. Enjoy!

Irregular informal (tú) commands

Here is a little lesson on irregular informal commands to supplement the last post! Even though they are irregular which means they don't follow the normal pattern, and the best way to learn irregulars is to just memorize them, some of these do have a bit of a pattern. Some of them, instead of using the "tú" form, you will use the "yo" form.

Informal (tú) commands

Here are a couple of lessons explaining informal commands or telling your friend to do something. Now in Spanish there are 2 types of commands, affirmative commands, or telling someone to do something. The other are negative commands, or telling someone NOT to do something. There are 2 different forms of the verb. In English, we don't really do this, we say "talk" or "don't talk", the form of the verb doesn't really change, we just add the word "don't" in front.

Expressing possession using "de"

I gave a lesson on using possessive adjectives, part of it was this lecture on expressing possession using "de" which should have actually been posted with the possessive adjectives. Sorry, enjoy!!!!

Special Request, Guest Blog Post

OK everyone, today Jan 4, 2013, I have been featured as the guest blogger for homeschool.com for an article I wrote on teaching your children Spanish. If I get enough likes on the facebook page for it, there is a chance that I will be asked to write again in the future. Please show support for my little blog by visiting the homeschool.com facebook page or even to homeschool.com to read my article. Thanks all!
Steve

The Preterite (simple past) Tense

The Preterite tense is also known as the "simple past" tense. It's where one would explain something that happened. In Spanish, there are 2 types of past tenses, one is the preterite, and the other one is the imperfect. I will not show the imperfect tense yet, as to not confuse the learner. When I learned Spanish, I learned them both together which was very confusing at times. In school, I teach one the first semester and the second one the second semester, so I will, at a later time, share the imperfect tense.