Learning Something New – Spanish

Learning something new is such an honor and a challenge. As a student of life and a lover of languages, I have worked to learn Spanish and have taken classes and used apps. As a previous resident of Puerto Rico and Spain with a foundation of exposure in California, I was fortunate to encounter these two tools in my quest to honor this beautiful language.

Madrigals Magic Key Guide To Spanish Book: This book is wonderful! Even if you only purchase it because Andy Warhol created the drawings for it! The other reason to purchase it is because this is actually a magic key guide. It taught me the past and present tenses in 2 sentences for regular verbs.

If hablar is the verb “to speak” in the present tense we would use:

– hablo (I speak)

– usted habla (you speak)

In the past tense you simply switch the two endings:

– yo habla (I spoke)

– usted hablo (you spoke)

That’s it! Amazing. This book provides multiple tools to conjugate with confidence on your toes.

Cartia De Angel: This telenovela (soap opera) is wonderful on so many levels. It is a story about a girl who lost her mom in a sky diving accident and has been at a private school for 2 years while her father recovered. I watch these grainy uploads on Youtube because I cannot buy the DVD’s. There is wonderful music to let you know when comedy, evil, and touching moments are happening. Bring Kleenex as this tugs on your heart strings in a big way! Spoiler alert LOVE WINS!!!

The main character was able to memorize many lines of the script and dealt with really challenging themes at such a young age. If you are interested, search on Youtube – Cartia De Angel Capitulo 1 is the starting place to learn while watching Dulce Maria bring her dream of a family together.

If you want another telenovela option, Dos Mujeres Un Camino is great. Eric Estrada from Chips was the main character.