Guest Post & Giveaway: ¡Vamos a hablar Español! 3 Secrets to Learning Spanish

Are you interested in learning Spanish? Would you like your kid to be bilingual or multi-lingual? Today I have a special guest post written by Chris Kober, an Oxford graduate and a professional Spanish teacher. He will be revealing to us 3 secrets to learning Spanish and sponsoring a giveaway of a premium membership to his popular site Spanish Word A Day, along with his ebooks!

Dear friends,

I was absolutely delighted when icefairy asked me to share my secrets about learning Spanish with her blog readers. You see, I admit that nothing in life worth having comes without effort... It's true! Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts to learning Spanish. BUT, you can greatly improve your learning in the long term by using the effective methods I have developed for my own Spanish Word-a-Day program.

My experience has taught me that if you want to learn Spanish, the method you chose to learn it is as important as your own determination to learn it. Most importantly, it has to include the following three ingredients for success:

1) It has to be quick – while it should be part of your daily life, it should not take more than a few minutes of your time! We all have busy lives!

2) Memorable - Context, context, and context! The Spanish you learn has to be REALLY useful! Too often the standard textbook materials do not qualify as REALLY interesting.

3) Fun – believe it or not, there is no bigger motivator than FUN ;) From the moment I started teaching, I have always ensured that there is a FUN element to engage the attention of my students, like “What’s today’s Spanish joke?”, “Did you see the picture of Chris in Spain?”, or “Guess what ‘Dude’ means in Spanish slang!”.

Thanks to these ingredients, Spanish Word-a-Day has become one of the most effective tools to learn Spanish. For the last five years, I have helped thousands of Spanish learners from all around the world to improve their Spanish. The result: More than 26,000 people have joined and the number is growing every day.

Let me share with you some really tasty Spanish, the kind of Spanish I want my students to learn:

If you're invited for a lovely dinner and want to express how much you are enjoying the food, then you can always use the standard phrase everybody learns from the books: ‘¡Qué delicioso!’ But wouldn’t it be really impressive, if you could surprise your hosts with a phrase that most natives use, but foreigners hardly ever learn during courses? Here is a phrase you can use to show your real appreciation:

La paella está como Dios manda - ¡Qué deliciosa! / The paella is just how it should be - it's delicious! [Literally: The paella is how God commands it - it's delicious!]

And how about being able to say that you have a hangover? Would you have known that you will wake up the next day with a ‘resaca’ – a hangover (in Spain), or ‘la cruda’ (in Mexico)? In Venezuela you will have ‘el ratón en tu cabeza’, which literally means ‘the mouse in your head’. That’s where Spanish Word-a-Day brings in the real personal touch. Because wherever you are in the world, you can say:

Tengo una resaca brutal - I have a major hangover [Literally: I have a brutal hangover.], and you will be understood for drinking bloody Marys for breakfast! :-)
For years now, I have used the Spanish Word-a-Day to teach the kind of Spanish that is always useful, at every level of proficiency. It doesn’t matter whether you are a beginner, intermediate or advanced.

How should you use Spanish Word-a-Day?
The Spanish Word-a-Day program gives you all the tools you need to learn Spanish. You will find that your level of commitment determines the amount of time that you spend on it. You can choose to receive the basic Spanish Word-a-Day as an email. This is a great start for those who just want to give it a try. As you continue learning Spanish you will find that the more you surround yourself with Spanish phrases on a daily basis, the faster you will learn. Recently Spanish Word-a-Day has also started a Facebook page and a Twitter channel. If you are ready to learn more and to take your Spanish to a higher level, you can join the premium service to enjoy the many great extra features like additional audio, business Spanish, Mexican and Spanish slang, translated jokes and much more!

I hope these insights will help you like so many others to get a deep insight into the Spanish Language. If you have questions or suggestions, please send me an email. I am always happy to hear from you!

Happy learning!
Saludos from Spain,
Chris
Spanish Teacher and creator of the Spanish Word-a-Day Program

www.Spanish-Word-a-Day.com


Mini-Bio
“This site was created by Chris Kober, a native and passionate Spanish speaker. After graduating from the University of Oxford he moved back to Spain. His love for the country and its culture is unparalleled and now he is giving everyone in the world the chance to take part in this fun Spanish adventure!”

The Giveaway

Chris has generously offered to give one of my lucky readers a prize package including a one-year free premium membership to Spanish Word A Day program and Spanish learning ebooks!

Required Entry: Visit Spanish Word A Day, and leave a comment sharing you thoughts about the program or service. Feel free to give your honest opinion (Please leave a valid email address in your comment or make sure one is visible in your blogger profile).

Extra Entries (optional): please make sure you do the required entry first! Please leave a separate comment for each extra entry, i.e. 1 comment=1 entry.

• Like Spanish Word A Day on Facebook and leave your name (1 extra entry)
• Follow Spanish Word A Day on Twitter and leave your Twitter handle (1 extra entry) 
• Subscribe to Spanish Word A Day's FREE membership (2 extra entries)
• Blog about this giveaway and link back to Spanish Word A Day and Me. Then leave the link in your comment (1 extra entry for mentioning this giveaway on your blog; 3 extra entries for a separate blog post).

Giveaway ends at 11:59 pm Central Time on 9/10/10

Open to ALL!

Winner will be chosen using random.org and will have 72 hours to respond before a new winner is chosen.

Thanks for entering and good luck!

Disclosure: I didn't receive any form of compensation for hosting this giveaway. The guest post author will be responsible for sending the prize directly to the winner.