Since it's quite unlike anything we have in English, the trilled rr of Spanish can be one of the most difficult sounds of Spanish to learn. To get you a better idea of the sound to aim for, we've added records of some rr words pronounced by native speakers in our lesson on pronouncing the rr sound. You can also check our for advice on learning the rr sound from Spanish students and other visitors to this site.

Like many everyday verbs, venir has quite a few meanings. They include "to arrive," to include," "to serve" and "to continue." Fortunately, most of the time, it can be translated as "to come." Also, like many other everyday verbs, venir comes with an irregular conjugation, but once you learn it you'll also know the conjugation for the entire venir family of verbs.

Learning prefixes can be a fun way to increase your vocabulary, but the meanings they give to words aren't always predictable. You might correctly guess, for example, that since mal- usually means "undesirable" and vivir means "to live," that malvivir means to leave in an undesirable way.

But can you guess what sobrevivir means, or pervivir? If not, be sure to check out our new lesson on verbs derived from vivir.

The Spanish verb gastar carries with it the idea of something being consumed or used up — so if you're talking about money you might translate is as "to spend," and if you're talking about gasoline you might even use the verb "to burn." Gastar is a good example of a word whose best translation depends on the context.