Chiswick Spanish Meetup

Hi there! Welcome to my spanish blog if you are a first-time visitor!

Here are some hints & tips for making our Spanish evening as enjoyable as possible. Look forward to seeing you all there!

You can also browse round the rest of the blog, I have been adding things about Spanish intermittently over the last year or so. Oh and in January's blog you'll see a picture of me at the top of the Sagrada Familia.

Firstly and most importantly - don't panic - just enjoy yourself! It's not a class nor a test. Please just relax and enjoy. Everyone is usually nervous at first - ME in particular...

Two exceedingly useful questions:

1) Cómo se dice "i'm"? - how do you say "I'm going on holiday"?

2) Qué significa "tulipán"? - What does tuplipán mean?

The best 2 questions I learnt - why they don't teach that in the very first lesson of Spanish I don't know - I spent years trying to work them out.

Things you might like to look at:

Introductions - meeting people
Hola! Qué tal?
Estoy bien/cansada/muy ocupada en mi trabajo...
Me llamo Liz, cómo te llamas? (or se llama)
Mucho gusto - nice to meet you
Encantado/a de conocerte/le - nice to meet you
Estoy aquí por el Meetup español

Social questions - in particular review the tú verb conjugations - I still get in a muddle when asking questions.

e.g.
Dónde trabajas
Dónde trabajaste cuando estabas en el norte de Inglaterra

Useful phrases

Tener que + verb - to have to xxx
e.g. Tengo que ir ahora - I have to go now
Tengo que practicar más - I have to practise more

Poder + verb - to be able to (I can, you can etc)
e.g. puedes ver la película en el viernes - You can see the film on Friday
puedo dormir en la classe español porque... - I can sleep in the Spanish class because...

Querer + - I want/would like to
e.g. Quiero vivir en España en futuro

or if you are a bit posh

Quisiera vivir en España en futuro.

Gustar, encantar
me gusta jugar al badminton - I like playing badminton
me encantan los operas de Wagner

REALLY useful verbs

Poder
Decir
Hablar
Tener
Hacer
Llevar
Vivir
Estar
Ser
Saber
Conocer

As for conjugations - you can usually get by (but better to learn all of them of course!) with just the first three i.e. I, you (familiar) and he, she, it. If you use the preterite make sure you put the accent in the right place otherwise it will be confusing - i.e. hablo - I speak, habló - he spoke

Haber if you will use Past Perfect

Dare you use subjunctive???? arrrrgghhh...

Useful things in a bar or restaurant

Quieres beber algo?
Quieres comer algo?
Dónde están los servicios?

I'll add some more stuff when I get the chance.

p.s. if you find mistakes please let me know...thanks!

My del.icio.us Links

http://del.icio.us/lollykins/language?page=1

I've started social bookmarking with del.icio.us - this link will take you to all the language links I've collected so far...

Enjoy!