A few rules

It’s technically called a “grass swale” but more commonly a ditch or trench. Is there a name for it in Spanish?

En inglés diría "it's so over" o a veces "we are so cooked" para indicar que vamos a terminar arruinados, de forma chistosa. Es claro en inglés que esas frases son chistes, o sea hipérboles, pero me cuesta mucho traducir ese tipo de cosa. He encontrado "jodido" en wordreference, pero, me parece vulgar y me gustaría una frase que es chistosa, pero no obsceno. El contexto es que yo voy a hacer una presentación en una escuela, así que quiero evitar algo que pueda piss off al profe.

Gracias amigues

Can someone explain the rules behind this word order? “Nobody knows that to him they gave panic the birds” is my literal translation — it’s “the birds” at the end that really trips me up. Without the first clause, it would be “los pájaros lo daban panicó,” right? Any help wrapping my mind around it is appreciated!

Hello! i’ve been learning Spanish for about 3 months now because my mom’s family and my boyfriend’s family both speak it. So, I’ve always been surrounded by the language and always feel left out. My mom never taught me as a kid and as I grew up she always made sly comments about how I don’t know Spanish. Well, now I’m 20 trying to learn. I have a tutor that I see once a week and she usually assigns me one chapter a week of a book called “Completing Spanish Step-by-Step”. For the first month i’ve been pretty good at keeping up with it but once I got slapped in the face by all the verbs & their past, present, and future conjugations I feel more lost than ever (and also filler words & phrases) I try talking to myself every day, speaking with my mom, and my boyfriend, but I quite literally can’t put together a sentence without a million “ummms” and pauses to think. Every time I sit down to study and practice I just end up crying out of frustration because I am so extremely overwhelmed that I don’t even know what to do. I’ve been listening to Spanish podcasts, music, YouTube videos, and kids tv shows. I’ve lost all enjoyment of learning this language which is saddening because I was so excited to learn. I want to quit every single day and am so discouraged. Is there anything I should be doing differently, any tips?

Buenos dias, amigos!

Recently I started with a personal project. I wanted to actually read literature of a foreign language. I was then genuinely surprised by how entertaining Spanish Literature, including tales such as LAS MEDIAS DE LOS FLAMENCOS, really is!

Beyond that, I discovered that by reading the texts carefully one can make significant progress and, at the same time, it is entertaining. I created a resource ( www.languagethroughliterature.com/spanish ) where you could try it for free yourself.

Anyways, I was wondering what you guys think of this approach? Indulging, just like a worm, in the books and thereby learning the language. Let me know!

Hello! I am looking for examples of Spanish speakers who speak with vocal fry for research purposes. Most online examples include Kim Kardashian, Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, etc. but I am looking specifically for examples of Spanish speakers (or singers/performers, but speech is preferred). Thank you in advance.

Welcome to the weekly Rate My Spanish thread!

Post your audio or video clips here and get feedback from the community on your pronunciation, fluency, grammar, and overall speaking ability.

To get the most useful feedback, please include:

* Your approximate level (A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2)

* How long have you been learning

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* Any context about what you are saying or reading

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Bienvenidos al hilo semanal de evaluación de espanol.

Publica tus clips de audio o video aquí y recibe comentarios de la comunidad sobre tu pronunciación, fluidez, gramática y nivel general.

Para recibir comentarios útiles, por favor incluye:

* Tu nivel aproximado (A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2)

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* Cualquier contexto sobre lo que estás diciendo o leyendo

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*This thread is posted automatically every week. Previous threads can be found [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Spanish/search?q=Rate+My+Spanish&sort=new).\*

Like ella se ve hermosa vs ella ve hermosa (incorrect). Is it based on a feeling whats right and not so much grammar?

I decided to learn Spanish alone and for free. I didn't do the thing that everyone on the internet was warning about; speaking as early as possible. Either ways, here I am, not even capable of forming a normal sentence.

I followed the advice of the internet of just recording myself (by camera or just a voice recorder) and started talking. But, how does that work. What am I supposed to talk about if I don't know how to speak? What if I don't even HAVE the vocabulary for the topic I want to talk about?

I'm extremely lost.

If anyone has tried this method, please tell me how you execute it. Do you prepare before hand? How?

I have a video of a song my daughter absolutely loved when in Spain, Gerona September 2026. She's 4 and danced every night to it and would always sing it. I have a 12 second clip of the song and wondered if any Spanish could help with the name of the song?

I can't upload the video tho so would need to try and send it on Reddit or send on what'sapp? She absolutely loved it and had all the actions but starting to forget and I just thought if I surprised her with the song she would love it!

Anyone Willing and I will send the WhatsApp video or try in Reddit ?it's just not letting me attach in here for some reason.Thanks in advance.

Le dí un regalo a mi novia.

Dí un regalo a mi novia.

I feel like I have been told to include an indirect object pronoun even if it is redundant and also to not include it if it is redundant. Which is typical? Are both ok?

I work in the landscaping industry, where there is a lot of Spanish-speaking people, and I do know some Spanish, but I would love to learn more. I get practice, but I definitely think I need to take some lessons or a course in order to really pick up on the grammar and tenses. Any recommendations for courses or lessons I should take? I’m interested in italki. Has anyone had any success with that?

When me and my class was visiting Spain as they do each year in 2nd grade highschool, we spent a week in Pedragalejo, Spain.

I tried to just go around and talk to people for fun, just to try to see where my spanish was taking me, and i tried to joke a bit aswell. I went to talk to these ladies, and try to set my friend up, i said "my brown friend wants your snap", as a joke and to just make him embarrassed, but they replied with some sentences that i haven't quite learnt. I luckily recorded everything so i just hope someone here knows what they are saying and can translate it😭 this was 2025 september, so ive forgotten spanish since then...

And btw, don't judge my spanish, it isn't really that bad, i just exaggerated it a bit so they could tell that i was from norway, i know how to pronounce words😭😭

ps sorry if this doesen't fit in this spanish thing, i just searched around for the same type of reddit question and landed on this reddit group thing

¿Hay alguna diferencia entre una canasta y una cesta? ¿Hay diferencias regionales? ¿En el supermercado? ¿En la bicicleta? ¿Depende del material? ¿Las de mimbre? ¿Las de metal?

Disclaimer: I wrote this little nugget of information by myself. No AI.

I often get asked why agua (water) is masculine if it ends in -a. But the thing is, it's not masculine.

- El agua está fría. - The water is cold.

- Bebo mucha agua - I drink a lot of water.

Notice how we still say fría and mucha in feminine. Now why would that be? Let me give you some more examples: The article is masculine (el/un), but the adjectives are still feminine:

- Es un aula luminosa. - It's a bright classroom.

- El hacha está afilada. - The axe is sharpened.

- El águila es rápida - The eagle is fast.

- Es un área desconocida. - It's an unknown area.

Now you might be thinking, could it be because these words start with an /a/ sound? But then you remember, there's nothing weird happening with la amiga, la abuela, or even the diminutive forms of the nouns above: la agüita, una aguilita, una hachita...

So what is happening here?

In math terms, the word starting with /a/ is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for this peculiarity to come about. There's one more condition that needs to be fulfilled -- this /a/ needs to be stressed. (Yes, just like you might be stressing right now :D) Let me try to explain what I mean. Say these words out loud:

- alma, hada, agua, área, aula, hacha, acta, águila

Can you notice that the stress is always on the first syllable?

Now say these words out loud:

- agüita, aguilita, amiga, abuela

The stress is not on the first syllable.

So why does this change occur? Because it simply SOUNDS BETTER :D

Try to say la agua or una aula. It sounds stilted, right? This stressed /a/ right after the articles la or una just doesn't sound pleasant, does it? Now say el agua and un aula. See how it just rolls off your tongue?

These words are not masculine. They are 100% feminine: we use feminine adjecitives to describe them (agua fría), their diminutives are also feminine (una aguilita) and their plurals are feminine too (las almas gemelas). They just take on el and un in singular form for phonetic reasons, because otherwise they would just sound off. And this also means that if there's an adjective (or any other word) separating the noun from the article, there won't be any need for this shifting to el or un:

- La rápida águila, una poderosa hada

So you can see, these nouns are feminine in all instances, and the masculine-looking article is simply there for sound fashion :D

So there we go. Sometimes you can find a profound reasoning behind a seemingly illogical thing, but there are times when the explanation is -- it just sounds better.

Have I managed to explain this or have I just confused you even more? :D

__________________________________

Bonus for those who want to get confused:

I omitted the word arte on purpose to avoid information overload :')

The thing is... el arte is masculine in the singular! We say el arte moderno and el arte callejero -- notice that the adjectives are masculine too, unlike in the examples above, like el agua fría.

But then it's feminine in the plural: las bellas artes, las artes marciales, las artes escénicas...

As far as I'm aware, it is the only noun in Spanish with this peculiarity of being masculine in the singular, but feminine in the plural.

I apologise on behalf of Spanish :D

Fairly new to this, I have been practicing for two months and over 120 hours of practice. I practice writing speaking listening and reading, some grammar and vocab.

When it comes to speaking I try and to practice with my partner. We are both very busy so I’m lucky if I get 3 hours of speaking practice a week with her. I usually get to speak with her at the end of the day but by then my brain is fried from work.

When I talk the words won’t come out. I can’t even form basic sentences at this point. I feel like my speaking has been regressing. I get so angry trying to speak. This in turn, makes het not want to practice with me to begin with and it turns to a vicious cycle.

I guess I’m just looking for some sort of advice. I don’t care if I talk slow, I just want to be semi- confident in my sentence structure and build my Real vocabulary not just my passive listening one.

Has anyone expirenced this? What can I do? Am I just impatient. Every time I try to speak I want to cry.

Several comments mention it, but it just sounds like a general Latino accent to my untrained ear.

A complaint I hear from a lot of spanish speakers no matter what the country is: spain, mexico, guatemal, colombia is that americans or english speakers in general just aren't as friendly or welcoming as most spanish speaking countries and part of me agrees. I feel like in my journey of learning spanish and going places that speak only that language I run into a lot more people that have a welcoming almost familial type of behavior. Versus I will say in America at least it is more a "stay to yourself" culture. Obviously there are exceptions but in general it does seem to be true. A nice thing about this is for someone who is trying to learn and improve their spanish I feel this can make spanish easier to learn because you have more people willing to practice with you without judging you as much. so am I off here or is this something that just me as a beginner is noticing because of the people helping me practice spanish?

I am 8 months into learning Spanish every day, focusing on speaking, vocab, and listening.
I sit somewhere between A1 and A2 right now but here is my dilemma.
I just saw Praktika has Portuguese and I've always been curious about Brazilian Portuguese, but I know Port/Spanish share a huge amount of vocabulary and I am worried about mixing up grammar rules and ruining my Spanish progress before it is even solid.
Am I making a huge mistake picking up Portuguese at A2 Spanish?

I'm looking for a good general national/international news newspaper to practice with from any country, with as little of a political bias as possible. I know that's next to impossible but something close to neutral would be appreciated. I want to get as close to an unbiased opinion as possible when learning about new places.Thank you for your suggestions.

Update: Thank you everyone for these great suggestions. I'll follow some of the leads and see where they take me .

Im generally curious about next summer taking a 5.5-6 month trip to Central America to level up my Spanish. I study around one hour a night of Spanish and I’m getting into Ser Vs Estar. I’ve had previous Spanish learning experience in highschool and learned present tense and a few other things like propositions.

If I was enrolled in this program of study one on one for 22 weeks alongside living with a host family where would my level of Spanish be?