Welcome to Vol. 3 of the Spanish Online Newsletter! Weekly Spanish lessons with audio, travel phrases & teaching ideas. This week's new article is about teaching through music. Don't forget to visit the website from time to time, as we add more interactive features frequently. I hope you enjoy this week's lesson - if so please support our efforts by recommending our website to a friend or consider buying the product that these excerpts are taken from. ¡Muchas Gracias!

Lesson 1 of the Week: Masculine/Feminine

One big change from English is that Spanish gives a gender to many words. Although neutral words also exist, most words are either masculine or feminine, especially nouns (words for things) and articles (little words that mean a, an, or the). The general rule is that words ending in A are feminine, and words ending in O are masculine.

graphic chart courtesy of Musical Spanish Book

Look at these examples. Click here to listen to an mp3 of these words

la persona
el carro
una persona
un carro

(lah pehr-SOH-nah)
(ehl KAH-rro)
(OO-nah pehr-SOH-nah)
(oon KAH-rro)

the person
the car
a person
a car

Quiz: Masculine & Feminine

Lessons 2 of the Week: Plural

In Spanish the word for “the” changes with the noun. Plural is formed by adding “s ” to the end of words ending in a vowel.

Listen to an mp3

la tienda	the store	el carro	the car
las tiendas	the stores	los carros	the cars
una tienda	a store	un carro	a car
unas tiendas	some stores	unos carros	some cars

But what about words that end in a consonant? That is easy. You add “ES ”to the end. Look at the examples below:

el capitán	los capitanes	(los kah-pee-TAH-nays)	the captains
el país	los países	(los pye-EE-says)	the countries
la ciudad	las ciudades	(lahs see-oo-DAH-days)	the cities
la nación	las naciones	(lahs nah-SYO-nays)	the nations

Quiz: Plural

Travel Phrases of the Week: Getting to know somebody

me llamo
¿cómo se llama Ud.?
soy de
vivo en
¿de donde es Ud.?
¿cómo está Ud.?
¿cómo le va ?
estoy bien
¿que pasa ?
¡nos vemos !
hasta luego
hasta pronto

my name is
what’s your name?
I am from
I live in
where are you from?
how are you?
how is it going?
I am fine
what's happenin’?
be seein’ you!
see you later
see you soon

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Travel Spot of the Week

visit Bariloche and practice your Spanish!

Bariloche, Argentina

Located in the beautiful lake region that Argentina and Chile share, Bariloche offers skiing, hiking, and stunning views of glaciar lakes. They also make a ton of chocolate in this little "wannabe Swiss" town, and free samples galore make a trip to Bariloche a fattening but fun experience.

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