Tengo que lavar los trastes

Sometimes there are things that we just have to do.  Well, if you ever need to tell someone what that something you have to do is in Spanish, then you'll need the expression tener que.

Tener by itself means "to have".

Tengo 21 años
I'm 21

Tengo dos coches
I have two cars

Add the word que after it and now it means to have to.

Tengo que lavar los trastes
I have to wash the dishes

Tengo que recoger mi madre del aeropuerto
I have to pick my mom up from the airport

You may be thinking "Doesn't que mean what?" Well you're right, it does.  But combine it with the word tener and the meaning changes.  Don't try and figure it out, it's an idiomatic expression and you just have to memorize it.  

Tienes que memorizarlo
You have to memorize it

You'll hear tener que a lot, and if you actually use your Spanish in real life you'll end up using it a lot so commit this one to memory.


Here's a link to a free podcast on tener que.  Be sure to go get your free lesson right away because it won't be free forever.   It's a great podcast and it actually has even more great Spanish you need to know like the Spanish contraction al and the verb quedarse. You'll also learn about the word enamorados (people in love).

In fact, if you want to learn more about enamorados and how to talk about the different stages of romance, then take a look at this blog post:

Soy muy noviera

That's it for today, and be sure to follow or subscribe to this blog by email!  Also be sure to check out my other blogs My Spanish Notes and No Seas Pelangoche.

¡Chao!

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Tuve un buen tiempo

I love to help people with their Spanish.  Every week I'm exposed to many beginners and people just starting their journey down the road to Spanish fluency.  With that said, I hear a lot of the same errors over and over again.  So this the first of a new series of posts called Spanish Blunders to help you identify and correct (and hopefully prevent) your mistakes.

I also do a lot of socializing with up and coming Spanish speakers, and it's not uncommon for me to get messages like this after a social event:

Tuve un buen tiempo
I had a good time

Bless their hearts, I'm so glad my friends are enjoying themselves.  Unfortunately, that's not how you say I had a good time.

In their defense this is a very common mistake, so today I'm going to talk about the right way to say this.

The correct expression in Spanish to talk about having a good time is Pasarla bien.

The verb is pasar and one of it's meanings is to pass, as in to pass time.  Now let's look at a few examples of how to tell someone you had a good time.

La pasé bien anoche
I had a good time last night

¿La pasaste bien?
Did you have a good time?

 ¿La pasaron bien?
Did you all have a good time?

 La pasamos super bien en el cine
We had a really good time at the movies

Que la pases bien
Have a good time

Que bien lo paso contigo
I'm having a good time with you

No la pasé bien
I didn't have a good time

Notice in some examples I used la and in others lo.  So what I really should have said earlier is you can Pasarlo bien or Pasarla bien.  What's the difference?  In all honesty, I would just chalk this up to a regional difference.  Based on my experience I would say Pasarla bien is used in Latin America and Pasarlo bien in Spain.  The truth is you can use which ever version you like, because at the end of the day, nobody cares.

You'll see how fun it is when snows, they said.  You'll have an amazing time, they said.

Pobrecito, looks like he's not having much fun at all.

Lastly, I'm going to point you to a book that will help you fix a lot of the common mistakes people make.

I have a copy of Correct Your Spanish Blunders myself.  It's certainly helped me out a lot.  While there are a lot of Spanish books out there, very few of them give you the return on your investment like this one will.  If you're serious about learning Spanish, you need to have this book in your collection.

That's it!  Be sure look to the top right-hand side of the page to follow or become an email subscriber to this blog to get more great lessons to help you learn Spanish.  And be sure to follow us on Facebook:

Be sure to Like Helping You Learn Spanish on Facebook!

¡Chao!

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Making conversations easier with Google Translate

Cross-posted from the Google Translate Blog

Have you ever been in that frustrating situation where you meet someone -- yet can’t communicate because you don’t speak each other’s language? Well, hopefully communication can become a whole lot easier with the launch of the new Google Translate app for Android. The app now features faster and simpler speech translation, additional language support, and a sleek new look.

Converse without boundaries

Let’s say you're taking your first vacation abroad and decide to head to Spain. The only problem? You don't speak Spanish. Now -- equipped with just your Android device -- you can have a fully translated back-and-forth conversation from Spanish to English with very little work. All you need to do is open up your Translate app and press the microphone icon. We’ve also added gesture support, so with a simple turn of the screen, you can switch back and forth between languages. This makes ordering food in that authentic Tapas restaurant a whole lot easier!

More translate options for more languages

With today’s updated Translate app, we also offer more language support for our handwriting feature, allowing you to directly write words in Hebrew, Javanese, and Esperanto on your device screen and have them translated on the fly. You can also use our camera translation feature to take a photo of written text with your Android device and highlight which words you’d like to be translated, now including additional language support for Malay and Ukranian.

We hope Google Translate can continue to help break down more language barriers in easier ways, all on your mobile device. We'll be rolling the update out via the Google Play Store today and tomorrow. We hope you give it a whirl!

Posted by Matthew Gaba, Product Manager

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Save your flights and find them on all devices

When I'm planning a trip, I use Google Flight Search to find the option that's best for me. For those times when I'm not ready to book immediately, Flight Search now offers a "Saved Flights" feature that allows me to save useful flight information and retrieve it when I'm ready to book.

When I’m signed in to my Google account on my mobile phone or tablet, and find a flight option I'm interested in I click the star button to add it to my saved flights list.

I can then access my saved flights on any device at any time by clicking the star icon on the Flight Search home page.

Saved results reflect price changes that may have occurred since I added the flights to my list, giving me all the information I need to make a smart booking decision.

We hope this helps make your trip planning a little easier to manage.

Posted by Jirka Semecky, Software Engineer

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Make more of your day with the updated Google Search app for iOS

Like many of you, I feel like I’m always short on time — between work, shuttling my son around, meeting up with friends, and dealing with everyday chores. With more and more information to manage, we could all use a little extra help to get more out of our day. With the updated Google Search app for iPhones and iPads, we hope we can save you a bit more time each day — so you can spend it on more interesting things.

Here are a few new things you can do with the updated app:

• When there’s important stuff that you need to know right now, Google will now automatically send you a notification. For example, while I was busy getting my son ready this morning, a notification appeared on my lock screen telling me that I should leave for his dentist appointment right away because of a traffic jam. 

• You can now easily set reminders for yourself, and Google will even notify you when you're near the location for that particular task. So if you say "OK Google, remind me to mail the checks when I get home," you'll get a notification as soon as your house pulls into view. 

• Reminders can also be handy for keeping up with your favorite entertainment. Search for movies, albums, actors or artists, and click on "Remind me" — Google Now will let you know when a new movie is about to debut or your favorite band has a new album.

• You no longer need to comb through email to find an upcoming flight’s boarding pass or the tickets to your next movie or concert. The updated app will simply show you a Google Now card with your tickets when you arrive at the theatre or airport.

• Finally, even talking to Google got easier: when the app is open on your iPhone (4s and up) and iPad (2 and up), just say “OK Google” to ask any question out loud and get instant answers spoken back.

The updated Google Search app is available internationally, but reminders and “OK Google” hands free voice search work only in English for now. Everyone can enjoy the overall feature updates starting today.

You can download the updated Google Search app with Google Now from the App Store now — open it, sign in, and you’re ready to go. Don’t forget to drag it to your tray so it’s always handy.

Posted by Ian Wilkinson, Software Engineer

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Expressing accidental actions in Spanish

While I don't consider myself a teacher by any stretch of the imagination, today I'm going to try and simplify a concept that can be a sticking point for many learners of Spanish, expressing accidental actions.

Let's pretend you accidentally broke a glass and need to fess up to it in Spanish.  You may be tempted to think of translating "I broke the glass" as:

Rompí el vaso

And you'd be correct, but it begs the question "Did you break it on purpose or by accident?".

In fact, "I broke the glass" in English leaves you with the same doubt.  To resolve that doubt in English we simply add "by accident".

I broke the glass by accident

So how do we resolve this question in Spanish?  We combine a reflexive verb with an indirect object.

If you're like me, after reading that you immediately thought "What?  Can you say that in English?".  I hear you. Grammar explanations can be confusing, so I'm going to explain it to you in plain English.

Let's keep it simple and refer to this as "accidental actions".   While some people might consider this a somewhat advanced level of grammar , it's actually pretty easy to tell someone you did something by accident, just by using this simple pattern:

Se + (me, te, le, nos, les) +  third-person singular preterite verb conjugation

I'm sure you noticed this: "third-person singular preterite verb conjugation".

Well that's a mouthful isn't it?  All it means is you want the usted preterite conjugation of the verb.  If you're looking at a verb chart just look for the preterite (pretérito in Spanish) of "Usted (Ud), él, ella". In fact, take a look at the conjugation chart for romper.   To simplify things a little for this post we'll just call it the usted preterite conjugation.  

Here's our simplified pattern:

Se + (me, te, le, nos, les) +  usted preterite conjugation 

Let's go back to the broken glass example.  Notice that in the pattern you have a choice of  me, te, le, nos, and les. Since you're saying "I broke the glass by accident" you want to use "me".  I'll explain the other choices shortly.  You'll also need the usted past tense of the verb romper (to break), which is rompío.

Se me rompió el vaso
I broke the glass by accident

Simple, right?  Here's another example:

Se me perdió la llave
I lost the key by accident

Pretty straight-forward right?  What if we want to say "you broke the glass by accident" or you lost the key by accident"?

Let's take another look at our pattern.

Se + (me, te, le, nos, les) +  usted preterite conjugation 

OK, it's time to talk about those little me, te, le, nos and les words I mentioned earlier.  You use those indicate who performed the accidental action.

Me - I lost it:
Se me perdió la llave
I lost the key by accident

Te - You lost it:
Se te perdió la llave
You lost the key by accident

Le - He/she lost it:
Se le perdió la llave
He/she lost the key by accident

Nos - We lost it:
Se nos perdió la llave
We lost the key by accident

Les - They lost it:
Se les perdió la llave
They lost the key by accident

And there you have it.  Notice the conjugation of perder (perdió) never changed.   Pan comido, right?

That pattern works for anything you might do by accident.  You just need to memorize the pattern and learn how to conjugate verbs to the third person singular preterite tense (remember this mouthful from above?) which you've already learned or are in the process of learning anyway, so there's no extra work involved for you.

Let's look at another example:

Se les perdieron las llaves
They lost the keys by accident

Hold on, let's back up.  Did you notice that?

The verb perder was conjugated in the preterite past tense, but in the ellos, ellas, ustedes form.  In grammar speak it would be the:

Third-person plural preterite conjugation

 The past tense verb conjugation must match the number of "things" that were accidentally affected.  That means we need one more pattern that's just a little different than the first one.

Se + (me, te, le, nos, les) + third-person plural preterite verb conjugation

All this means is we have to conjugate to the ellos, ellas, ustedes form of the verb in the preterite tense.  Just take a look at the chart I pointed you to earlier.

Now let's review our broken glass example again:

Se me rompió el vaso
I broke the glass by accident

Only one glass was broken in that example.  So what if I broke more than one glass?  Then it changes to:

Se me rompieron los vasos
I broke the glasses by accident

Let's look at one more example:

Se les quedaron las llaves en casa
They left the keys at home by accident

Make sense?  If you're still confused don't worry about it, it just takes a little practice.   To start using this "accidental actions" construction all you need to do is memorize the two simple patterns and learn a few verb conjugations.

Don't obsess over understanding the grammar at first, the important thing is to start using the construction and pay special attention to it when you see or hear it.  Eventually the understanding of the grammar will "click" and everything will make sense.

Here's another bit of advice.  Don't feel like you have to learn everything at once.  Feel free to start with focusing on the things you do by accident first, then once you get a feel for that start focusing in on being able to talk about what others do on accident.

Here are a few websites you can look at for more examples of how to talk about accidental actions in Spanish:

Se with unintentional events

Spanish Reflexive Pronoun Se with Unplanned Occurrences

Obviously a key part of talking about accidental actions in Spanish is verb conjugations.  Conjugating verbs may seem intimidating, but it's really not that hard.  In fact, here's a great website with some very helpful conjugation charts.  This is a great site when you want to quickly look up the conjugations of a verb.  There's even a blank template so you can practice.

Fred F Jehle - Spanish Verb Forms

If you want to practice conjugating verbs then I have another recommendation, The Spaleon Verb Conjugation Trainer.  Although I don't use it anymore, it's still a kick-ass site.  You can select the verbs and the tense you want to practice, and they even have pre-selected sets of verbs (Basic, Regular, Irregular, Traveling and Learning) to make your practice easier.

I didn't use any other online verb conjugation trainers, but if Spaleon doesn't work for you just do a search in Google on verb conjugation trainers and you'll find plenty of other options.

Both of the sites I mentioned above are great, but there's no doubt in my mind that the the Verbarrator is the most effective verb conjugation tool available. You have to see it for yourself, it's a great tool.  I did a review of it and you can read the Verbarrator review here.  OK, it's not so much a review as it is a close up look at the product.  Think of it as a product tour.

With the three options I mentioned above for verb conjugations you have more than enough to become a super whiz at conjugating Spanish verbs.  But if you want more help with mastering how to talk about accidental actions in Spanish, read on.

A more interactive tool to help you nail down how to talk about accidental actions in Spanish is Learning Spanish Like Crazy Level 3.  It does a good job of covering this topic.  The course comes with over 30 lessons with each lesson being at least 25 minutes.  It devotes 2 and a half lessons (almost an hour) towards helping you learn how to use se to talk about accidental actions.  That's how I learned, so I know it works.

That's it for today.  I hope I was able to help you get a handle on talking about accidental actions in Spanish.

¡Hasta la  próxima!

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Fifteen years on—and we’re just getting started

Google Search is turning 15. Remember what it was like to search in 1998? You’d sit down and boot up your bulky computer, dial up on your squawky modem, type in some keywords, and get 10 blue links to websites that had those words. It seemed like magic (and it was way way faster than card catalogs and microfiche!).

The world has changed so much since then: billions of people have come online, the web has grown exponentially, and now you can ask any question on the powerful little device in your pocket. You can explore the world with the Knowledge Graph, ask questions aloud with voice search, and get info before you even need to ask with Google Now.

But 15 years on, we’re just getting started. We want to help you make more of each day. Here are a few of the latest features you can try out:

Comparisons and filters in the Knowledge Graph

We keep expanding features of the Knowledge Graph so it can answer more questions—even those that don’t have a simple answer. Let’s say you want to get your daughter excited about a visit to the Met. You can pull up your phone and say to Google: “Tell me about Impressionist artists.” You’ll see who the artists are, and you can dive in to learn more about each of them and explore their most famous works. If you want to switch to Abstract artists, you can do that really easily with our new filter tool:

Or let’s say you want to compare two things: How much saturated fat is in butter versus olive oil? Now you can simply tell Google: “Compare butter with olive oil.” Our new comparison tool gives you new insights by letting you compose your own answer:

You can try this for some other things you might be curious about, such as dog breeds (“compare pekingese vs. chihuahua”) or celestial objects (“compare earth vs. neptune”)—and we’ll keep adding more.

Get things done with Google across your devices

Having a “conversation” with Google should also be more natural. Ideally, you wouldn’t need to pull out your phone or tap buttons to use Google. We’re not quite there yet, but you can already do a lot with just your voice. In the next couple of weeks, you’ll be able to download a new version of the Google Search app on iPhone and iPad. With this update, you can get notifications across your devices. So if you tell your Nexus 7, “OK Google. Remind me to buy olive oil at Safeway,” when you walk into the store with your iPhone, you’ll get a reminder. We’ll also show you Google Now notifications so you’re not late to your cooking class.

A simpler, more unified design on mobile devices

You’ll also notice a new look and feel for Google Search and ads on your phones and tablets. It’s cleaner and simpler, optimized for touch, with results clustered on cards so you can focus on the answers you’re looking for.

We’ll keep improving Google Search so it does a little bit more of the hard work for you. This means giving you the best possible answers, making it easy to have a conversation and helping out before you even have to ask. Hopefully, we’ll save you a few minutes of hassle each day. So keep asking Google tougher questions—it keeps us on our toes! After all, we’re just getting started.

Posted by Amit Singhal, SVP, Google Search

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A fresh look for Google Translate on iOS, with more languages and new features

Cross-posted from the Google Translate Blog.

When you’re trekking around a new place or trying to communicate with someone who speaks a different language, Google Translate helps break down the language barrier. Today we updated and optimized the Google Translate app for iOS 7, where you’ll see a fresh new look, handwriting support, and 70+ languages.

If you’re on vacation in Kyoto, and want to learn more about an exotic flower arrangement, use text-input to type in your question and translate from English to Japanese with ease. You can also hear your translation spoken back to you in Japanese.

If a shopkeeper in Paris wants to talk with a visitor from Spain, they can tap the microphone, speak naturally, and quickly translate from French to Spanish with a few simple taps.

If you are an expat living in China and want to know what’s on the menu, use the Handwrite feature to discover a tasty new treat. Tap the Handwrite icon, and input natural handwriting in nearly 50 languages.

Google Translate is useful in many situations, especially while you’re on the go. We hope you enjoy the new design and features.

Posted by Masakazu Seno, Software Engineer, Google Translate

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Updating the Google bar: many products, multiple devices

If you're anything like me, you move among devices and Google products on a regular basis. You might check Gmail on your phone, for instance, then organize your Calendar via laptop, then browse Google+ photos from your tablet.

Regardless of your routine, getting around Google should be seamless, and once you're inside an app, you don't want any distractions. So we're introducing an updated Google bar that streamlines your experience across products and devices:

Your Google products are now accessible under a new app launcher, located at the top right of the screen. Just click on the familiar 'Apps' grid, also present on Android devices and Chromebooks:

As part of this design, we’ve also refined the color palette and letter shapes of the Google logo. We'll be rolling out this update across most Google products over the next few weeks, so keep an eye out and let us know your thoughts.

Posted by Eddie Kessler, Tech Lead / Manager

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Broadening Google Patents

Cross-posted with the US Public Policy Blog, the European Public Policy Blog, and the Google Research Blog.

Last year, we launched two improvements to Google Patents: the Prior Art Finder and European Patent Office (EPO) patents. Today we’re happy to announce the addition of documents from four new patent agencies: China, Germany, Canada, and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Many of these documents may provide prior art for future patent applications, and we hope their increased discoverability will improve the quality of patents in the U.S. and worldwide.

So if you want to learn about a Chinese dual-drive bicycle, a German valve for inflating bicycle tires, attach a Canadian trailer to your bike, or read the WIPO application for pedalling with one leg, those and millions of other inventions are now available on Google Patents.

Thanks to Google Translate, all patents are available in both their original languages and in English, and you can search across the world’s patents using terms in any of those languages. When there are multiple submission languages, you can move between them with a single click on the tabs at the top of the page, as shown in the screenshot below:

Happy patent searching!

Posted by Jon Orwant, Engineering Manager

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Improving your conversational Spanish

In my last post, I want to learn Spanish, now what?, I explained what autodidacta is, as well as my idea of a foundation course and how I used them as a part of my learning process to teach myself Spanish.  If you haven't read that post or don't know what autodidacta is, click here.

At about the 2 year point in my learning Spanish journey, I had two short trips to Mexico under my belt. The first trip served to rekindle the desire I had to learn Spanish, and inadvertently started me down the path of autodidacta. The second trip taught me that while my foundation courses were really helping, they weren't enough.

 Learning Spanish Like Crazy Level 1, Synergy Spanish and Rocket Spanish were getting me off to a great start.  I was able to get around town, order food and handle everyday touristy type tasks with relative ease.  However it quickly became apparent that social conversations (among other things) were another story.

I realized I had two problems I needed to resolve.  The first problem was finding someone to talk to.  The second problem was learning conversational/colloquial Spanish.

I eventually reached a point where I knew that if I wanted to be able to speak this language, I had to find someone to talk to.  Desperation was setting in.  I remember thinking aunque me muera (even if it kills me), I was going to learn this language.  

The feeling of desperation and the desire to master this language forced me to get out there and find or create opportunities to speak Spanish.  Here's what I came up with:

(1) I ate at a lot of Mexican restaurants.

I should have turned into a burrito by now, but Mexican restaurants are great places to practice your Spanish.   If you visit the same restaurant multiple times and gain the confidence of the wait staff, you'll have a small army of people more than happy to help you with your Spanish.

The best part is you can study all of the Spanish you need in before you go.  Do your homework and learn how to order your food before you even get to the restaurant.  Jot down some notes and off you go.  You'll even be able to prepare yourself for the responses you can expect to hear back.

I have to admit, I learned quite a bit of Spanish in Mexican (or Cuban, etc) restaurants.  Looking back on my experiences, it's amazing how much Spanish you can learn just by trying to order a burrito.

(2) Several of the companies I've worked for had a Hispanic janitorial and/or cafeteria staff.

I used to look forward to lunch time because I got to chit-chat with a few Spanish speakers, even if it were only for 2-3 minutes a day.  I even looked forward to working a little late to talk with the janitorial staff.

Sometimes I had to be a bit persistent because they were shy or had some sort of reservation about speaking to me in Spanish, but with perseverance I eventually gained their confidence and conversation.

(3)  I started speaking Spanish with co-workers.

Admittedly, I didn't have many Spanish speaking co-workers, but I worked up the courage to start speaking to them.  It actually worked out great.  I remember going to lunch with a Colombian co-worker and my knowledge of Spanish was sky-rocketing on a daily basis.  Not to mention he was taking me to a lot of great hidden spots to both eat and use my Spanish even more.

(4)  I discovered a website called MeetUp.com.

Go to the site and do a search for Spanish language groups in your area.  If you live in a respectable size city, there's likely at least one group of Spanish lovers like you who meet on a regular basis to practice.   At the time there weren't that many groups in my area, but I got lucky and found one that turned out to be great.  We met weekly and did nothing but talk for 1-2 hours every meeting.  At first it wasn't easy, but I was learning a lot and getting the conversational practice I so desperately needed.

After I had attend the group for a while, I eventually discovered something even bigger than the group conversations...the power of friendships.  I started making Spanish speaking friends, and that's when my Spanish really took off.  I started getting invited to social gatherings and meeting even more Spanish speakers.  I've even been to a few parties where I was almost the only English speaker there.  Talk about trial by fire!

(5)  Find a place where Spanish speakers hang out and join them.

I managed to find a nice restaurant/bar where Spanish speakers came to dance, play domino's and just hang out.  I made some new friends and had some pretty good times.

And there you have it.  I went from a guy who thought he had no one to talk to, to a guy who learned how to turn over stones and find opportunities where it looked like none existed.  I hope I gave you some useful ideas on how you can find someone to speak to, even when it seems like there's no one around.

So now we can talk about the other problem I had, increasing my knowledge of conversational/colloquial Spanish.

When I traveled and even at home, I was always hearing Spanish that I wasn't learning from my study materials, and I wanted to be able to converse without sounding like a 5 year old.  Actually, 5 year old's probably don't stutter and grasp for words as much as I did back then.  So I turned to the one place I knew could help me.   Amazon.com.

There are many books and products out there, but very few of them offer the bang for your buck that you deserve if you're going to spend your hard-earned cash.  Here are my suggestions on what products are truly deserving of not just your money, but your time and effort.

Let's get started.

I wouldn't hesitate to call  Breaking Out of Beginners Spanish the best book on the market for improving your Spanish.  If you could only buy one book, this is it.  You'll increase your vocabulary and gain a deeper understanding of the language.  He discusses things like "YO-ISMO" (the overuse of the pronoun "yo"), tricksters (words commonly misused by English speakers) and he examines 64 verbs and tells you what they mean and how they're really used in conversation as well as a ton of other things.

He also takes a practical look at the subjunctive that anybody can understand.  I don't care what your level of Spanish is, if you're serious about learning and/or improving your conversational Spanish, this book needs to be in your collection.


Spanish Among Amigos will take your conversational abilities to a new level.  It's packed with tons of everyday vocabulary, speech and idioms that will have you sounding like a native in no time.  The material is presented through realistic dialogues that take place between 3 friends.   The book does use Spanish from Spain, but the author does a great job of pointing out regional differences and offering neutral alternatives.

The second edition features audio recordings of the dialogues.  That wasn't available when I bought it, so it's even better now.

The last book I'm going to suggest is Cassell's Colloquial Spanish, A handbook of idiomatic usage.  In the format of a dictionary, this book gives you the most common colloquial usages of the word and corresponding examples, along side the dictionary definition.

It's more of a reference book than something you read from cover-to-cover, but you'll find yourself quickly amazed at the wealth of information this book has to offer.  This book will go a long way in helping you understand the difference between classroom Spanish and colloquial Spanish.

While books are great, audio is even better.  Here's a great CD that Amazon offers that will also grow your conversational abilities.  Like everything I recommend, I own a copy and I found it to be worth every nickel.

Learn Conversational Spanish Now (Spanish Edition) 

This is a collection of 60 conversational dialogues that come with written transcripts so you can read along while listen to the conversations if you like.  A surprising feature about this CD is it offers a slower version of the dialogues in addition to the dialogues at regular speed.  The conversations are realistic and are true reflections of what you'll hear in real life.

It's time to wrap this post up.  I hope I've managed to help you in some form or fashion and keep working on that Spanish.

And remember, when the learning gets tough, ¡no te rindas! (don't give up!)

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New ways to explore what's trending on Google

Whether you're looking for trending celebrities, a monthly recap of what's hot, or power tools to make your own discoveries about what's piquing the world's curiosity - today you'll find new features in Google Trends to make it easier to explore hot topics in Google Search.

Trending Top Charts.
In May we added a new feature to Google Trends called "Top Charts," where you can explore real-world people, places and things ranked by overall search interest in the United States (with more countries coming soon). These "Most Searched" lists span dozens of areas from athletes to cities to cocktails. We've heard great feedback from people who want "Trending" lists -- not just what's most searched overall, but what's spiking compared with usual search volumes. Starting today, you can explore these new Trending Top Charts for a number lists across entertainment, sports, politics and more.

For example, while it may come as no surprise that the United States is the most searched country among people in the U.S., it's more interesting that Syria and Russia were the two top trending countries last month. To see the new "Trending" charts, click the arrow icon at the top of any supported Top Chart.

Past 30 Days view of Hot Searches.
Top Charts is a great way to see a monthly recap of the hottest people, places and things in a given category (politicians, cities, cars, etc), but what if you want to see a recap of what was hot overall? Now you'll find a new view of hot topics from the past thirty days. Click the new calendar icon at the top of the Hot Searches page for any of our thirteen supported countries. Hover on a topic for some quick information and a link to see more search trends from the day.

Updates to the Explore page.
For power users, the best part of Google Trends is the ability to look up search data for any topic, and slice and compare the data by region, time series, category, and more. Today we're rolling out some updates to make this a better experience. We've shifted refinements for countries, categories, and Google products (like Web Search, YouTube, etc) to the top navigation, making it a more consistent Google experience. We've also made it easier to discover power tools to compare countries and time ranges.

Posted by Itai Bar-Sinai, Software Engineer

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Give us your feedback on Search policies

If you use Google all the time and have ideas about how we could provide a better Search experience for our users, we want your help. Send us your best Search policy suggestions by filling out this form. Your ideas could have a direct impact on Google.

As part of the recently-launched How Search Works website, we published our Search policy principles and a list of detailed Search content policies for the first time. Our goal was to show users how we think about controversial content in Search while still promoting fast access to the world's information.

But we’re always looking to do better, and we’re curious to know what our users think. That’s why we’d love to see your ideas for improving our Search policies and processes. Should we alert users if we suspect that there's not much information on the web about their query? How should Google surface information that might affect a website's ranking? How should we deal with businesses that we believe may be hacked? Should we do something completely different to support our users? Anything related to how we serve content in search results or interact with users is fair game.

Now’s your chance to make an impact and have fun doing it, so put on your thinking hats. You can submit entries using this form. We’ll review all of the submissions and contact some of the best contributors to discuss their ideas.

Happy searching!

P.S. If you need some ideas to get you started, check out this presentation from SMX West about Google’s search policies called "Walk a Mile in Google's Shoes: Dealing with Tough Calls in Search."

Patrick Thomas, Search Policy Specialist

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I want to learn Spanish. Now what?

So you've decided to take the plunge and learn Spanish.   That's fantastic, but you may find yourself asking the question many people ask.  Where do I start?  What's a wanna-be Spanish speaker supposed to do?

Every week I meet Spanish students and speakers that ask me "How did you learn Spanish?".  Nearly everyone finds the answer quite surprising.

Soy un autodidacta del español
I taught myself how to speak Spanish

Autodidacta means self-taught.  Most people are surprised to hear that I never stepped foot inside of a traditional classroom.  Nor did I live in a Spanish speaking country.  In fact, I've never even done an immersion course.  So how did I learn Spanish?

I primarily learned how to speak Spanish by using audio courses and podcasts.   In fact, audio courses were the foundation of my learning.  My "classroom" was the driver's seat of my car, my textbooks were CD's and  the podcasts I downloaded religiously to my MP3 player.

Why use audio courses instead of taking classes?  Clearly that's a personal choice.  Here are a few of my reasons:

(1) They're portable.  Put them on your phone or MP3 player and you can take them everywhere.
(2) You can't get the amount of instruction in one class that you can from an audio course.
(3) Compared to classes, they're amazingly inexpensive.
(4) You have 24 hour instruction available, anytime of the day or night.
(5) If you want to go through the material a second time, you don't have to pay again, you just start over.
(6) You can even find free audio courses if you know where to look

There are advantages to being in a classroom and having a teacher, but I decided to put all my eggs in the autodidacta basket and it paid off big time.    

Let's talk a little more about audio courses.  

It should come as no surprise that a trip to your local bookstore or a Google search will turn up an obscene number of products all promising to help you learn Spanish with their magical CD's.  The question now becomes which one(s) should I buy?

To answer that question we need to know what to look for in an audio course.  You can find plenty of quality products but that doesn't mean they're going to get you any closer to your goal of becoming a genuine Spanish speaker.  Sure, you may learn a few things, but that will be about it.  You need what I'm going to call a foundation course.

Let's talk about this idea of a foundation course.  A foundation course should teach you:

(1) How to conjugate verbs naturally, through using the language, not memorization
(2) Lots of practical vocabulary, the high percentage words you use in everyday speech
(3) How to think and form your own sentences in context
(4) How to speak Spanish naturally, the way a native speaker would
(5) Use the listen and repeat method. This really drives the material home.
(6) Not cost you an ojo de la cara
     (literally an eye of the face, or an arm and a leg as we know it)

There are many courses available and more being released everyday, but I'm only going to talk about the ones I used, because they meet all of the above criteria, especially #6.  And more importantly
because they worked for me.

I have to admit, when I first started learning Spanish I didn't know what I was doing or what I was looking for, much less what I actually needed in a Spanish course.  In fact, most people don't, especially if it's your first foreign language.

I started with an audio course called Learn in Your Car Spanish:  The Complete Language Course.   I learned quite a bit, mostly the basics, numbers, days of the week, etc., a few verb conjugations and some phrases that I just flat out memorized.  It was relatively cheap and it got me started.  However, even with it's 4 star rating, one trip to Mexico later I quickly realized it hadn't even come close to teaching me how to speak Spanish.

Several months later, along with more wasted money on numerous Spanish books, I somehow came across Learning Spanish Like Crazy.

In all honesty, when I first bought this course I listened to it for maybe 30 minutes, put it down and walked away from it for the next 2-3 months, maybe longer.  That was the (first) biggest mistake of my Spanish speaking career. After another trip to Mexico I decided to pick it up again, probably out of desperation.

I was thinking "well, I paid for this damn thing so I may as well use it".  It wasn't long before I realized I was sitting on a gold mine.   Let me tell you a little about the course and what I like about it.

To start off with, it's a $99 download (at least it was the last time I checked) and it consists of 30 lessons.  That's a bargain, trust me.  Over the course of those 30 lessons, (each one is 30 minutes or longer) they cover a lot of ground.  They take you from "Hola cómo estás" all the way to the subjunctive tense.

Learning Spanish Like Crazy will drill the verb conjugations into your head like no other course will.  On top of that you'll learn a ton of vocabulary.  Each lesson introduces new verbs and vocabulary that you continue to review and build upon throughout the course.  These aren't old fashioned memorization drills, these lessons use native speakers that teach you each and every verb conjugation via spoken Spanish, in context, using the listen and repeat approach.

I found the lessons engaging and if you put forth your share of the work, this course will have you speaking Spanish in no time.  I'm convinced buying this course and then level 2 and level 3 that later followed it was the best money I ever spent.  Anyway, don't take my word for it, Everybody is different and what works for me may not work for you.  Go to the website and check out the free lessons.

As great of a course Learning Spanish Like Crazy is, it's not the only option out there.  There's another course I recommend as a foundation course just as much as Learning Spanish Like Crazy and that course is Synergy Spanish.

Synergy Spanish is all about teaching you what you need to know in the simplest manner possible to get you communicating with Spanish speakers as quickly as possible.  Developed by Marcus SantaMaria, Synergy Spanish is in my opinion, one of the best courses out there.  I'd rank it in the top 3 without hesitation.  Marcus explains everything step-by-step and making it nearly impossible not to learn Spanish.

As far as I'm concerned, the man is a genius.  I used this course in conjunction with Learning Spanish Like Crazy and the two are a great compliment to each other.  Take a look at Synergy Spanish, Marcus offers several free lessons you can try.  I'm sorry there isn't pretty image I can show you, but hey, no course is perfect.  And last time I checked, the cost was around $60-70 and it's also downloadable.

Another course that I qualify as a foundation course is called FSI Spanish.

FSI stands for Foreign Service Institute.  They developed numerous language courses (it's an impressive list) that were and probably still are used to teach government employees.  FSI Spanish is a very good course.  In all honesty, I've only completed a few lessons, but that's only because I found out about it about long after I completed the other courses and I already was several years into my Spanish studies with the courses I mentioned above already underneath my belt.  You can download FSI Spanish here.

Did I mention FSI Spanish is free?  Yep,  FREE. There are many places that will attempt to charge you for it (including Amazon.com), but it's in the public domain so don't pay a nickel a for it.  Click on the links or the image above and download it for free.

The course consists of over 50 lessons and is more than worth taking a look at.  It covers all of the Spanish verb tenses, teaches a ton of vocabulary and is packed with lots of great drills to help you get a solid grasp on the language.  I recommend it, especially in conjunction with one or both the courses I mentioned above.  I know several people who have used all three.

There are also two other courses called Platiquemos and Pimsluer that are also modeled after FSI Spanish.

 


Personally I don't recommend either of these.  It's not that I don't like them (I actually own Platiquemos) , they're great courses.  I just don't think you should spend your hard earned cash on them because they're both so similar to FSI Spanish, which is free.  But honestly, take a look at both of them and read the reviews on Amazon.  Choose the courses that you think will work for you.

There's another course I really like, and that's Rocket Spanish.  In my humble opinion, Rocket Spanish rides the line between a foundation course and a conversational course.  It gives you a gentle introduction to Spanish and does a good job of simplifying complex topics.  I own this one too,  it's great stuff.  You may find it more suitable to your learning style.  Click here and take a look at what Rocket Spanish has to offer.

Well, I'm done.  Evaluate the courses above and choose what you feel is the best option for you.  I ended up buying several courses myself and found that they all complemented each other because each course offers it's own strengths and presents the material differently.

Got a suggestion for a good course that meets the 6 criteria above?  Leave a comment or even better lets talk about it on the Helping You Learn Spanish Facebook page.

If you don't think any of those are good options for you, then take a good look around Amazon.com to find something that's more your style, but yet fulfills the 6 criteria we identified as being necessary components of a good audio course.

That's enough rambling for one post.  Shortly I'll be writing about the best way to improve your conversational Spanish.

¡Hasta la próxima!

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Discover great in-depth articles on Google

To understand a broad topic, sometimes you need more than a quick answer. Our research indicates perhaps 10% of people’s daily information needs fit this category -- topics like stem cell research, happiness, and love, to name just a few. That's why over the next few days we’ll be rolling out a new feature to help you find relevant in-depth articles in the main Google Search results.

Now sometimes when you're searching for a broad topic (on google.com in English to start), you'll find a new block of results like the following:

If you care about censorship, you'll find a thought-provoking article by Salman Rushdie in The New Yorker, a piece by our very own Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen in the Guardian, and another great article about Iran. If you're in the mood for something lighter, search for [lego], you'll find great in-depth articles about many different facets of the topic from gender to engineering to art. For some more examples, check out new search results for population growth, capital punishment and e-waste.

I'm happy to see people continue to invest in thoughtful in-depth content that will remain relevant for months or even years after publication. This is exactly what you'll find in the new feature. In addition to well-known publishers, you'll also find some great articles from lesser-known publications and blogs. If you're a publisher or webmaster, check out our help center article and post on the Webmaster Central blog to learn more.

Posted by Pandu Nayak, Member of Technical Staff

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Hace mucho tiempo en una galaxia muy, muy, lejana

I run a Spanish Meet Up group in Atlanta and every week the same question comes up, "How long have you been studying Spanish?"  And my answer is always the same:

Llevo casi 10 años aprendiendo español
I've been learning Spanish for almost 10 years

Some of you may be surprised to see that you can answer that question with the verb llevar, but that's a lesson for another day.

There's nothing wrong with that response.  In fact, you will probably impress your Spanish speaking friends with it.  So what are we here to talk about you ask?  The fact that you can say the same thing with the verb hacer.

Enough chit-chat, let's get on with it.

Before I get to how to answer the question, let me explain to you how to ask the question.  For that you'll need the phrase "hace cuánto tiempo".  

¿Hace cuánto tiempo que estudias español?
How long have you been studying Spanish?

That isn't a literal translation, so don't get caught up by that.  Now that we've got that out of the way, let's find out how to answer the question.  It's actually pretty simple.  The same verb you used to ask the question is the same verb you use to answer it.

Hace 10 años que estudio español
I've been studying for 10 years

That wasn't hard was it?  Let's look at another example:

¿Hace cuánto tiempo que no fumas?
How long has it been since you stopped smoking?

You see, hace (from the verb hacer) is your verb of choice for talking about how long ago you've been doing something or how long ago something happened.  Here are a few more examples:

¿Hace cuánto tiempo te mudaste a los Estados Unidos?
How long ago did you move to the United States?

Me mudé a los Estados Unidos hace 5 años
I moved to the United States 5 years ago

Hace mucho que no sé nada del él
I haven't heard from him in a long time

Hace mucho tiempo que no voy al cine
I haven't gone to the movies in a long time

Here are a few other ways you could have answered that last question.  You may not find these in your Spanish book, but trust me they're very common responses.

Hace mucho tiempo
A long time ago

uuuy, hace mucho
hmmm, a long time ago

Notice in that last example I omitted the word "tiempo", but it's understood.

Here's one more example:

We've known for a long time that women bring us happiness.

Lastly let's translate the title of this post:

Hace mucho tiempo en una galaxia muy, muy, lejana
A long time ago in a galaxy very, very far away

If you don't know what movie this line belongs to, well, I just don't know what to say.

Ya esta!  Así de facíl.  Any questions?  I know, I didn't translate that.  Consider it your tarea (homework).

Be sure to subscribe to this blog via email (at the very top of the right hand side of the page) and follow me on FaceBook to get additional tips on the Spanish language and even more free resources!

https://www.facebook.com/HelpingYouLearnSpanish

Oh!  I mentioned I run a Spanish Meet Up group in Atlanta.  Feel free to pay us a visit if you find yourself in our neck of the woods.  Just ask for the Spanish group, everybody there knows us.

Marlees Spanish Class

¡Hasta la próxima!

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How to say would have in Spanish

My previous two post covered how to say could have and should have in Spanish.  Here are the links for those posts:

How to say Should Have in Spanish

How to say Could Have in Spanish

Today we'll finish off this series by looking at how to say Would Have in Spanish.

HOW TO SAY WOULD HAVE IN SPANISH

To say would have in Spanish, you need the verb haber.  Haber is an auxilary or helping verb, but don't worry about that for now.  All you need to do for the moment is learn the patterns I'm going to give you.  Eventually you'll have to know how to conjugate the verb haber in the conditional perfect tense, but today I'm going to do that for you, just like in the previous posts.

You also need to be able to form past participles.  If you read my other posts, you've already seen how to do that.  But for those of you who missed those posts, creating a past participle is easy.  All that means is you need the "-ido" or "-ado" version of the verb.  With the exception of a few irregular verbs, "-ido" and "-ado" are the only things you need to form the past participle of a verb.  Here's a very nice page that's explains how to do that in plain English.

Forming Past Participles

Just like before, I'm going to give you the basic pattern:

Haber + verb (past participle)

Let's go ahead and expand this pattern to include all the conjugations of haber in the conditional perfect tense.

I would have
Habría + verb (-ido, -ado)

You would have
Habrías + verb  (-ido, -ado)

He/she would have
Habría + verb  (-ido, -ado)

They would have
Habrían + verb  (-ido, -ado)

We should have
Habríamos + verb  (-ido, -ado)

If you read my previous posts on how to say could have and should have in Spanish, you already know we're going to work with the same examples as before.

Habría dormido más tiempo
I would have slept longer

She/He would have danced all night
 Ella Habría bailado toda la noche

We would have gone to the beach
Nos habríamos haber ido a la playa

They would have called
Habrían llamado

This is the part where I mention a few other resources where you can find help.  If you read the other posts you've already seen these.  If not, read on.  I think you'll find these suggestions to be quite useful.

Most likely you're going to need a little more help and practice to truly master how to say would have in Spanish.  One great source of practice is the book Spanish Verb Tenses.

Chapter 23 offers a great explanation of the conditional perfect tense and plenty of exercises for you to sharpen your skills with.

Click here or on the image to take a look at the book on Amazon.  You can get a peek inside the book as well.  I actually own this book and it's really helpful for learning how to conjugate any verb  tense, not just the conditional perfect.

There's also a Kindle version.

Another option to help you with those pesky verb conjugations that I wish had been around when I started is the Verbarrator.

It's an amazing tool that teaches you verb conjugations with practical examples that you can see and hear spoken by native speakers.  It will also add new vocabulary to your Spanish toolkit at the same time. I bought a copy and I'm not going to lie to you, if you take your Spanish seriously it's money well spent.  Anyway, click here or on the image to check it out.


So now you have a couple of options to help you with nailing down those conditional perfect verb tense conjugations, but mastering how to say would have in Spanish to the point where you can say it on demand with zero effort is another thing, and for that you'll need Learning Spanish Like Crazy Level 3.  Among other things it devotes two full lessons to saying would have in Spanish.  You can click here to check it out.

I hope you found today's topic useful.

¡Hasta la próxima!
Until next time!

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