Gerald's Spanish Language Blog

As those familiar with the plays of Shakespeare or the King James Version of the Bible know, the English verb "prove" at one time often meant "to test," not just ... Read More

Argentina is about to join the ranks of countries that allow the full Spanish alphabet character set — including the ñ, accented vowels and the ü — in its Internet ... Read More

One of the problems with trying to understand slang in a foreign language is that you may not be able to use a dictionary to find out what it means. ... Read More

Every once in a while as you study Spanish you'll come across a sentence construction that doesn't make a lot of sense — and that may be difficult to figure ... Read More

If you need help deciphering a menu while traveling where Spanish is spoken, our new list of vegetable names is here to help. You'll find the names of all the ... Read More

Learning Spanish vocabulary can be a tedious task, and many people benefit from using mnemonic devices — little tricks that aid the memory. One person who wrote to me recently, ... Read More

For those of us living in the United States, it isn't all that common to hear someone speaking Spanish with a German accent. But Pope Benedict XVI's Spanish pronunciation is, ... Read More

Idioms — those phrases whose meanings can't be determined easily by the meanings of the individual words — can be maddening to learn at times. But they also are a ... Read More

How do you answer if someone asks you, "¿Cómo estás?" or "How are you?"? The standard answer is probably "Bien" ("Fine") or "Muy bien" ("Very good"). Of course, both of ... Read More

If you really wand to be able to use a foreign language well, you need at some point to start thinking in the language — easier said than done! One ... Read More

If you should be in a Spanish-speaking country today and play a joke on your friends and follow that up with a shout of "¡Tontos de abril!" chances are you'll ... Read More

Saying what you want to say in Spanish isn't always easy. Here's a question that one of the users in our forum had recently: "I have no idea how to ... Read More