It is only natural when you meet someone new to inquire about that person’s origins or to speak about your own. In order to speak correctly about coming from, living in, or traveling to a country, city, state, or province, you need to learn these prepositions:

Here’s a great article about how to learn foreign languages with the least pain and the most gain. The author discusses the apprehension a lot of native English speakers experience while learning a foreign language, and why many are turned off from it altogether. He believes that native English speakers actually find it much more [...]

When traveling in a foreign country, if you want to converse with a person whom you don’t know at all, a formal approach is mandatory. It is considered quite a mistake to address someone informally if a strong friendship or relationship has not been established. Be sure to start and end your conversations correctly by [...]

A pronoun is a word that is used to replace a noun (that is, a person, place, thing, idea, or quality). A subject pronoun replaces a subject noun (the noun performing the action of the verb). Pronouns are extremely useful because they allow for fluidity by eliminating the need to constantly repeat the noun when [...]

The Daily Texan has an article up about Elaine Horwitz’s research into how foreign language anxiety can lead to hesitancy to practice the language, missed classes and lower grades. Her findings mimic some of my own Spanish language learning experiences. I studied Spanish from 5th grade through 10th grade, and never became fluent. It wasn’t [...]

Like English, all Spanish nouns have a number: singular (one), as in la familia, or plural (more than one), as in las familias. Unlike English, however, all Spanish nouns also have a gender: masculine or feminine. In some instances, the gender of the noun is blatantly obvious: un hombre (a man) is masculine, whereas una [...]

False friends are words that are spelled exactly or almost the same in both languages but have very different meanings in Spanish and English. These words might even be different parts of speech. Do not allow yourself to become overconfident and think that every Spanish word that resembles an English one is automatically a cognate. [...]

Each vowel in Spanish is represented by one phonetic sound, and accent marks are used only to determine the amount of stress needed. After each of the following vowel explanations you will have the opportunity to practice repeating sentences that reinforce the sounds presented. Take advantage and practice your accent until you feel comfortable that [...]

Anxiety can affect a lot of people trying to learn a foreign language. Confidence problems, a reluctance to speak, and even insomnia can make it a lot harder to succeed. These problems seem especially more apparent for college students taking language classes. Elaine Horwitz, a professor of foreign language education at the University of Texas [...]

Let’s learn how to stress Spanish syllables and how different accents affect the sounds of the Spanish letters. Although your level of competence in pronouncing Spanish properly has very little bearing on your ability to be understood, you can follow some simple steps that should enable you to express yourself in a more acceptable manner. [...]