Learn Spanish Blog

If you’re not prepared, greetings can be some of the most awkward situations in a different culture. Maybe you’ve noticed, that some cultures wave, some shake hands, others kiss once, some kiss several times, and others even give “high fives.” With Spanish speakers, the way people greet each other depends on the region. In this newsletter, I’ll give you some tips so you can be ready for different situations.

1. Friends and Relatives – Usually, when you greet friends and relatives in the Latin culture, here is what you do. When a male greets a female or when a female greets a female, they will softly touch both arms while moving their bodies to about 6 inches apart, then they cock their heads, put their cheeks together, and make a small kissing sound. Their lips don’t make any contact. This will only take about 1 or 2 seconds. For men greeting men, in most areas, it is completely customary to give each other a hug. This may seem unnatural for many people outside of the Latin culture, so you may want to practice hugging a few times before you gain any good friends or relatives that live in Latin areas.
2. Casual Parties – For a small group at someone’s house, you will usually follow the guideline for “Friends and Relatives.” In this situation you should let the host take the lead. You can follow their body language and be ready for a small hug and kiss on the cheek as explained above. In some countries and regions people may kiss two times — once on each cheek. If you are prepared to follow the lead of the Latin person, you will do great! Before some of you get too excited about all the kissing, these are the kind of hugs and kisses that are so common in the Latin culture that they have absolutely no romantic meaning.
3. Business – When you are in a business situation, you usually shake hands when greeting someone unless they are a long-time acquaintance or relative. In this case, follow the guidelines for “Friends and Relatives”, but again, be sure to follow their lead.

While I was living in Latin America, I became friends with a local man and we would have conversations about the difference between Greetings in Latin culture and Greetings in English speaking culture. He thought it was funny and so unnatural to see two Americans that were close friends greet each other. He described it like this, “It is funny to see two American friends approach each other and then just sort of stop a few feet away and say ‘Hi’, or wave their hands and say ‘hi’, or even give each other a ‘high five.'” He said, “It seems much more natural to have some contact with each other either through a hug or a kiss on the cheek.”

After hearing his point of view, the idea made more sense to me too, and I completely understood how he felt. I love the Latin culture and hope that you are gaining a love for it too!!

Be sure and take a look at our Level I Visual Link Spanish™ course (on sale right now!) for a complete range of greetings and also learn to put together thousands of other sentences giving you a full range of conversational tools for Spanish.

If you would like to learn more about Spanish culture or speaking Spanish, please visit our website www.spanishprograms.com

To learn more Spanish Words, please visit our website www.spanishprograms.com

As I had promised from last week’s newsletter, today I’m going to talk about the term “Gringo”.   Some Americans (and people from other countries as well) sometimes get offended when a Spanish speaker calls them “Gringo”. This is usually because they do not really understand what the term “Gringo” actually means.

According to some of my upper division Spanish professors back when I was in college, there was a war many years ago in Mexico which involved the United States. The American soldiers were dressed in their military-green uniforms and the Mexicans no longer wanted them in Mexico. In an effort to get the soldiers to leave, some of the Mexicans who knew English began to yell at some of the Americans. They would say “Green, Go!!” to the soldiers in the “green” uniforms. The phrase caught on quickly and within a matter of time any foreigner, but especially those with lighter hair, became known as a “Gringo”.

Another theory believed by some experts, is derived from examining the meaning of the word “gringo” itself. According to the dictionary, “gringo” means “foreigner” or “gibberish”.  It is believed that the origin of “gringo” actually comes from the word “griego”, which is the Spanish word for “Greek”, and is used as a slang word to describe any foreigner.

If you are in a Spanish-speaking country and they happen to call you a “Gringo”, do not get upset or offended, they are just saying that you are a foreigner. While I was living in Latin America, I cannot tell you how many times people called me “Gringo”.  I soon became accustomed to hearing it and now consider it a privilege to be a “Gringo”.  Even though I might not sound like a “Gringo” when I speak, with dark blond hair, I definitely look like a “Gringo”!

With the complete Visual Link Spanish™ course you can also begin to learn Spanish well enough to avoid sounding like a “Gringo” when you speak – especially if you practice with the pronunciation CD-ROM. However, if you look like a foreigner, you will probably still be called a “Gringo”.

To learn more about Spanish culture, please visit our website www.spanishprograms.com

 To learn more Spanish words, please visit our website www.spanishprograms.com

For this week’s blog,  I’m going to talk about another phrase that Americans, and English speakers in general (for all you readers outside of the U.S.) usually say incorrectly. If you use this phrase, you will most definitely sound like a “Gringo” or “foreigner” (we’ll talk about the exact definition of “Gringo” next week).

I’m talking about the phrase “Not much”.  Many native English speakers will say “Nada mucho” for “Not much”, and this is simply wrong!!! The problem is that now I have told you the phrase you will have a tendency to remember and say it; Don’t! It is incorrect! — you will need to remember the correct phrase “No mucho” [no moo-choh].  Now let’s repeat it a few times to help you remember it “No mucho” . . . “No mucho”.  Now say it out loud — “No mucho”. Now yell it for emphasis “¡¡NO MUCHO!!”.  If people look at you funny for saying it out loud and yelling it, just tell them you’re learning Spanish and your teacher (me – Dave Clark) told you to do it.

To give you an idea of just how funny this incorrect phrase sounds to native Spanish speakers, I’m going to tell you about a TV commercial which aired in the Dominican Republic about 10 years ago. It was a shampoo commercial where an American was shampooing his hair and some Dominicans asked him “What’s happening” or “¿Qué pasa?” [Kay paw-saw]. The American, with a very “Gringo” accent said “Nada mucho” and all the Dominicans laughed because not only did he say the phrase with a “Gringo” accent, but because it was also incorrect.  I did not quite see how the commercial sold shampoo, but I guess it must have worked.

The reason I can vividly remember what happened in the commercial is because when I was strolling around the streets of the Dominican Republic, at least once or twice a day groups of teenage Dominican boys, the kind that think they’re really “cool”, would come up to me and say “¿Qué pasa?” . . . “¿Nada mucho?”  Then they would all die laughing hysterically.  At first, it would really drive me crazy, but then I would start a conversation with them in Spanish. They were amazed that I could speak fluently and correctly and it would quiet them down somewhat, but the next day it would just happen all over again.

Let’s try to give ourselves a good name and reputation as English speakers learning Spanish and instead of saying “Nada mucho”,  say “No mucho”. Why don’t you say it one last time to help you remember . . .”No mucho”.

The Level I Visual Link Spanish™ course teaches you the correct way to speak Spanish so it won’t be obvious that you are a “Gringo”. Through the course, you will be taught to pronounce like a native speaker, and also learn to build sentences and converse using correct speech.  Most courses and Spanish books simply teach words but never teach you how to put them together into sentences.

To learn more Spanish language tips, please visit our website www.spanishprograms.com

If you would like to learn more Spanish words, please visit our website www.spanishprograms.com

Before we dive into this week’s culture topic, we get many requests from newsletter subscribers wondering if we know of a good course to learn Spanish. Just so you know, our course has been taught at many major corporations, at the university level and to people like you in over 66 countries around the world. If you would like to demo our course, please click here to sign up for a free membership.

OK, now let’s get started.  As seen in the Spanish words of the week, the Spanish word “galletas” means both “cookies” and “crackers”.  It is my belief that this is because of the amount of sugar put in their cookies.

Let me explain what I mean exactly — I personally have a massive sweet tooth. I usually eat at the very least one and sometimes two desserts after dinner.  Because of this habit, “Tengo que hacer mucho ejercicio” (I have to do a lot of exercise) to keep the pounds off. When I lived in different parts of Latin America for almost two years, I would have such intense cravings for good homemade cookies or cakes that I would sometimes have friends or relatives send them to me from the U.S. because Latin American cookies are really so different.

The first time I had a taste of a cookie south of the U.S. border, I was genuinely shocked. At first I thought someone had forgotten to add the sugar. They also tasted a little bland like the salt had also maybe been left out. With a desire to be polite, I did not say anything but simply made my face look like I was really enjoying the cookie. I felt bad for the cook who must have been so embarrassed after leaving out most of the sugar and salt.

The next time I ate cookies at someone’s house the exact same thing occurred again. This is about the time when my craving for sweets began to grow and grow. Soon I was desperate for some sweet cookies! I immediately went to a pastry shop (which had some truly exquisite bread, by the way) and ordered several different kinds of delicious-looking cookies hoping that at least one of them would be sweet. Much to my disappointment, they tasted mostly all the same.

It was then that I realized why the word for cookies and crackers is nearly the same — they both have the same LOW amount of sugar!

What I have not decided is if Americans put too much sugar in our cookies or if Latin Americans do not put in enough sugar in theirs?  If any of you international subscribers have an unbiased opinion on this “important” matter, please write in and let us know.

In the meantime, the next time you are on a trip to Latin America, if you have a real sweet tooth for cookies like I do, here is what I suggest you try:

1. Do your best to avoid cookies altogether and maybe eat candy, pie or ice-cream.
2. Maybe bring some packages of Kool Aid. (Maybe Kool Aid will pay us for advertising their name in our newsletter!!)
3. Have your friends or relatives send you some cookies in advance. (We’ll talk about how to send things to Latin America by mail in a later issue.)

Get a hotel room that is equipped with a kitchenette. (This way you can make your own delicious cookies.)

To learn more about Spanish culture or Spanish words, please visit our website www.spanishprograms.com

To learn more Spanish words, please visit our website www.spanishprograms.com

This week’s Spanish Culture lesson we are going to discuss the importance of conversing with native speakers.  To accurately learn to speak Spanish well, a program like ours is one of the best tools available to get you started, but the most important thing you can do to improve your Spanish skills and really become fluent is to speak with native Spanish speakers.

Many of you are very anxious about striking up a conversation with a native speaker. They are worried that maybe they will perhaps say something wrong or that they won’t be understood. They are also worried about saying things incorrectly or maybe even getting embarrassed.

Something you need to know about the Spanish culture is that native Spanish speakers are really some of the friendliest people in the world. It makes them feel good to see others trying to learn to speak their language and they are always very eager to help you.

To really learn Spanish, you need to have the bravery to go up to a native Spanish speaker sometime in the near future and start-up a conversation with them. Once you get over the fear of the initial conversation, I think you will be amazed at how easy and relaxed it is to talk to them.

Essential Phrases

Here are a a small number of phrases that I recommend to help get you started.  First you could start by saying “Hola, Qué tal” [Oh-law, Kay tall] which means “Hi, how are you?”  Next, you could say “Me llamo Dave” [May yaw-moe Dave], or in English “My name is Dave”. Of course, you don’t want to say your name is “Dave” unless your name really is “Dave”. Finally, to spark some conversation, you could say “De dónde es usted” [Day doan-day es oo-stead] which means “Where are you from”.

Here are a few more supplemental phrases you can try out:

Here is my assignment to all of you newsletter readers. Are you ready? Practice the phrases above and set a goal of when you are going to approach a native speaker. Once you have done it and had a conversation in Spanish, send me an e-mail and let me know how it went. I’m eager to hear from you!

To learn more about Spanish culture and speaking Spanish, please visit our website www.spanishprograms.com

To learn more Spanish vocabulary words, please visit our website www.spanishprograms.com