Secretos de Madrid - Madrid´s little secrets

I think I haven't mentioned yet I am a Spaniard from Madrid.

I have been always working in Tourism and today I would like to share with you something about my city.

In Madrid there are lot of places to visit such as: museums (El Prado, Reina Sofia, Thyssen), Royal Palace (my favourite) and a very long etc. But there are some places that they might be still unknown for a lot of people, even the nationals!!

Did you know the subway in Madrid circulates on the left? Yes, the subway (called Metro) circulates on the left side, but we drive cars on the right.

There are different theories about this fact:

1. In the time Metro was launched (1919) the carriages' coachman had to control the reins with the left hand and use the whip on the right, so to avoid hitting pedestrians, the carriages used to circulate on the left handside. In 1924, the roads' circulation in Madrid changed to the right hanside, but not in the Metro due to the high cost involved.

2. There is another theory based in the idea that the design and machinery were coming from the English underground. Then, Metro adopted the same regulations as the English underground.

But did you know we had a ghost station?

When Metro was launched in 1919, by the King Alfonso XIII, there was only one line called "Línea 1" with only 8 stops and 3,48km. Currently, this "Línea 1" only has 7 stops. How is this possible? Some people say there is a "ghost station". This station was closed in the 60s because the lenght of the trains increased and this stop could not be enlarged due to the proximity to other stations and its particular shape, so they decided to close this stop called Chamberí.

Nowadays, we can visit this station that became a museum, after being close to public for more than 40 years. In 2008 and after 2 years of refurbishment. This is station has been given the name of Platform 0 (Andén 0).

So if you go to Madrid, do not miss this spot!

Do not miss it!!! = ¡No te lo pierdas!

Please find below the video with some useful vocabulary related to transport.

Thanks for your time and keep motivation high!!

If you have any particular interest in any other topic of Spanish culture, please bring it to my attention. I will be happy to publish it.

¿De dónde eres? - Where are you from?

¡Hola!

I hope you are ready to continue learning.

Today we will add some more information to introduce ourselves!

Are you ready? ¿Estáis listos?

When we meet people usually we ask them where they are from or someone will ask us.

How do we ask? We will use below expression:

¿De dónde eres?

and we will reply

Soy española

There are some tips you will need before watching the video below:

In Spanish we have genders. We do not use the same word to describe a girl or a boy.

For example: I am a girl from Spain, so I will say: Soy española.

But if I am a boy from Spain, I will say: Soy español.

Some nationalities are the same for a girl or for a boy, so we will say:

Soy canadiense.  (I am Canadian)

I am sorry to say, you usually need to learn the nationalities. With the time you will get use to, and you could even work out by yourself some nationalities.

Please watch the video below for pronunciation. You will need to write down the nationalities. I am not going to do it now for you, because if I give you everything done, you won´t learn.

https://youtu.be/pu1SaHq_1EI

Obviously I could not record all the nationalities in the world. Please ask in your comments for any nationality you would like to know, I will be happy to reply to all your questions.

Now we are able to do a longer introduction of ourselves:

Ana:¡Hola! Me llamo Ana. ¿Cómo te llamas?

Carlos:Me llamo Carlos. ¿De dónde eres?

Ana: Soy argentina. ¿y tú?

Carlos:Soy inglés.

In the next lesson we will learn more questions and we will be able to tell more things about ourselves.

Gracias y nos vemos pronto.

¿Por qué español? - Why Spanish?

¡Hola a todos!

I hope you are all fine. I would like to add a section to the blog to post about the Spanish culture.

I would like to ask you, why would you like to learn Spanish?

Every single person might have a different motivation and you should think about your motivation when you feel like giving up. For adults it can be difficult keep the motivation. We all have jobs and families and other hobbies that might be more appealing than learning Spanish.

I will list some reasons why you might be interested to learn Spanish, but feel free to add yours in comments.

• You are planning to go on holidays to a Spanish speaking country.
• You need Spanish for your job.
• Your partner is Spanish.
• You would like to live/study in a Spanish speaking country.
• You always loved Penélope Cruz accent.

Whatever your motivation is, you should remind to yourself when you are thinking to give up.

Now, I would like to show some facts about Spanish in the world:

• It is spoken by 500 million people in the world.
• It is the second language spoken by natives and the second language studied in the world.
• It is the third language most used in the internet.

It looks like lot of folks out there speak Spanish!!! Do you?

¡Gracias amigos!

Preséntate - Introduce yourself

Usually when you go to a language course or any kind of course you first introduce yourself!!

So it is what we are going to learn today..

Please click the link to hear the conversation

https://www.dropbox.com/s/b5ijep706211nr3/Produce.avi?dl=0

You can find below transcript of the conversation and translation

Ana: Hola, me llamo Ana. ¿Cómo te llamas? (Hi, my name is Ana. What's your name?)

Carla: Me llamo Carla (My name is Carla)

Maybe this is a very short conversation but I would like you to practise the pronounciation and maybe write it down with your name or if possible practise with a friend.

For the moment we will not get into the grammar. First, we will learn some expressions and then we would be able to create our own sentences.

In the next post we will learn nationalities! So we could build a longer conversation based on what we learnt. Would you like to know how your nationality sounds like in Spanish?

Please leave any comments and suggestions, it would help to build a better blog for everyone.

Gracias y ¡hasta la próxima!

You already know Spanish

Thank you for start reading my blog. You might be thinking, why is it all in English? Well, I would like to have a wide range of readers. I will start from a basic Spanish. If you already know Spanish and need tips about any special topic please do not hesitate to leave your comment and I will try to publish the answers for you.

Today I would like to give a tip when you start learning a new language: stay always positive.

I would like you to think what do you already know in Spanish or about Spanish!!

If you are travelling to a Spanish speaking  country for a short period of time you would like to know how to interact with people!! 

Do you know how to greet in Spanish? I am sure you do.

You knew, right?? I would like you to try to write down all words you might know in Spanish, this will surprise you! 

I am sure you already noticed something. Punctuation!! in Spanish for questions and exclamations we enclose the sentence by using: ¿? ¡!

Let's continue!

In my experience people usually know below words or expressions

Si

Gracias

¿Qué tal?

Bien

Cerveza

Paella

Chorizo

Amigo

I am sure you know at least one word in the list. I will invite you to write the words you know in comments! This is a very positive exercise for beginners and will motivate you to start. This is a common practise when you learn any language.