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Today we’re going to offer some tips for selecting and getting the most out of books in your new language. Reading a full-length book in a new language can help increase your vocabulary and provide insight into how the language is actually used by native speakers. In addition, reading a book is something you can…

In Spanish, there are two types of verbs that undergo spelling changes during conjugation. We’ve already covered one type: stem-changing verbs. Today we’re going to look at the present tense forms of spell-changing verbs.   This type of verb undergoes a spelling change in order to preserve the pronunciation found in the infinitive. As with…

In celebration of Independence Day we want to do something a little bit different. The United States is a nation of immigrants. We are a collection of individuals descended from different counties, cultures, and languages. American English reflects that rich international heritage. Here are ten American English words that are derived from other languages.  …

Like English future tense verbs, the French future tense is used to describe upcoming events or situations. The French simple future tense tends to be one of the easiest tenses for native English speakers to understand. First, there is only one set of endings for all verbs. Second, all of the conjugations found in this…

In Spanish, there are two types of verbs that undergo spelling changes during conjugation. The first, spelling change verbs, undergo consonant changes in certain conjugations. The second, stem-changing verbs, are characterized by changes in vowels.   Stem-changing verbs have a vowel spelling change in the stem of all forms except nosotros and vosotros. The endings…

In an earlier lesson, we covered the Spanish preterite, the simple past verb tense. Today we’re going to look at another form of past tense: the imperfect tense. While the preterite expresses a fact or action that took place at one moment in the past and ended in the past, the imperfect tense describes a…

The simple future tense of a Spanish verb describes an event that will occur one time at a particular point in the future. The process of conjugating simple future tense regular verbs is a bit simpler than the ones for present and past tenses. The conjugations for regular -ar, -er, and –ir verbs have the…

In this lesson we’re going to look at how to conjugate the preterite of regular Spanish verbs. The Preterite is the simple past form of a Spanish verb. Like the English simple past tense, the preterite expresses a fact or action that took place at one moment in the past and ended in the past.…

This lesson provides an overview of Portuguese personal pronouns, as well as some notes on their usage. As in English, Portuguese pronouns replace nouns and thus help avoid repetition. Portuguese has six types of pronouns: personal, possessive, demonstrative, relative, interrogative, and indefinite. The personal pronouns themselves fall into five categories depending on their usage: subject,…

  Spanish and Portuguese are very closely related. Being fluent in or familiar with one of these languages can make learning the other considerably easier. However, Spanish and Portuguese have some important differences as well. Here are some things to watch out for if you are a Spanish speaker planning to learn Portuguese or vice-versa.…