Ser and estar (the pair of verbs that both mean ‘to be’ in Spanish) are not the only example. Do you know verbs saber and conocer? They fall into the same category and both verbs mean “to know.” Yet, they are different in a way that does not exist in English.

Saber is used in the context of knowing information, ideas or how to do something.
Conocer is used in the context of knowing a person or a place, or to be familiar with something (software, for example).

For example:

e.g., “Yo sé como cocinar.” I know how to cook.
e.g., “¿Conoces bien la ciudad?” Do you know the city well?

A few more examples:
¿Sabes tú leer música? – Do you know how to read music?
Yo sé escribir en español. – I know how to write in Spanish.
Ellos saben jugar a las cartas. – They know how to play cards.
¡No sé! – I don’t know!
Ellos conocen el sitio donde van a tener el concierto. – They know the site where they’re going to have the concert.
Conozco este modelo, como casi lo compré anteriormente. – I know this model, as I almost bought it previously.
No conozco al abuelo de Estefanía. – I don’t know Stephanie’s grandfather.

Want to learn Spanish verbs? Check out our courses:
Introductory Spanish Verbs
Advanced Spanish Verbs

A few weeks ago, I started to teach you Indirect Object Pronouns. Here’s the link to that first post: Indirect Object Pronouns in Spanish Part I.

As I explained in the last post, the information I am sharing here is from the scripts from our Digital Learning Center (DLC) course. If you purchase the DLC course, you will learn all kinds of info about Spanish grammar. You can find it on our Catalog page.

That said, here we go:

…Now let’s learn how to say the Spanish indirect object pronouns and how to use them in sentences in Spanish.

Are you ready?

If you’ve gone through the Direct Objects lesson, you may have noticed that the only difference between direct object and indirect object pronouns in that we use “le” and “les” instead of “lo”, “la” “los” and “las” (bottom row).

Now let’s see how they work in Spanish – As we go through these examples, notice how, unlike English, the Indirect Objects in Spanish come before the verb.

“She gives the money to me” changes to

Me da el dinero

“We send letters to him” changes to

Le mandamos las cartas

“She asks a favor of him” changes to

Le pide un favor

“They tell secrets to her” changes to

Le dicen secretos

“He writes emails to us” changes to

Nos escribe emails

“I throw the ball to them” changes to

Les tiro la pelota

“I deliver the packages to you – informal” changes to

Te entrego los paquetes

Hopefully now you have the basic idea of how indirect objects work. If this idea still seems pretty new to you, you may want to review it again.

Next we’ll move on to a new concept and learn how to put Direct Object and Indirect Object Pronouns together in the same sentence.

Now, if you’ve seen the Direct Object lesson, you learned how to use Direct Object Pronouns (if not, I recommend watching it). We’ll review them for a minute now.

They are:

In this lesson, we’ll only focus on objects or items so we’ll only need the bottom row of Direct Objects. In other words, we don’t need to use the top ones then putting together direct and indirect object pronouns.

As a quick review, we’ll take another look at the Indirect Object Pronouns.

First of all, when you put a “Direct Object Pronoun” and an “Indirect Object Pronoun” together, the “Indirect Object Pronoun”, representing a person, always comes first. And the “Direct Object Pronoun”, representing an item or object, comes second.

Well Amigos, that does it for today.

I hope you’re all having fun getting ready for Navidad (Christmas).

¡Felices Fiestas! (Happy Holidays!)

Sub for Santa Spanish

At this time of year, with all we’ve been blessed with – like the Visual Link Spanish blog, Facebook Fiesta Friday, a warm home to sleep in and food to eat, I hope we can remember those less fortunate than us and get involved with a Sub for Santa helping those in need.

As a part of giving back to you this Christmas/Holiday season, we are giving everyone a free Level I audio course on MP3 (before we created our software, we used to sell the audio course for $100 – and now, we’re giving it to you FREE as part of our 12 days of Christmas + 1)! Be sure and tell all your friends about it. But BEWARE! the day after Christmas it will be gone, so if you don’t download all the audios by then, you will have lost your opportunity. Honestly, we hope that thousands of courses are downloaded so the holiday cheer can be spread all around the world. Facebook it and Tweet it out. Next, be sure to visit us tomorrow on Facebook to practice your Spanish and tell us about a Sub for Santa experience you’ve had.

Here is the vocabulary from the video:

This Saturday, be sure to come back to the blog for a post that answers a question about “Why Spanish speakers don’t use ‘yo, tú, él, ella, etc.’ when they speak”.

Also, you can still get Visual Link with a huge discount and on-time for Christmas! Come to our website Monday for a FREE 2-day Express shipping sale with 55% off everything in our catalog. This offer will expire on Tuesday – be sure to check Facebook on Monday for the coupon code and more info.

Visual Link Spanish Online Catalog

Future Facebook Fiesta Friday Topics:

December 23, 2011 – Christmas Spanish Lesson

December 30, 2011 – New Year’s Resolutions

January 6, 2012 – Reaching Your Goals (an exciting lesson by Jake on how to keep our New Year’s resolutions – I’m excited!)

Here is a partial script from an interactive lesson in our Spanish Digital Learning Center (DLC).

In order to learn “Indirect Object pronouns”, first we need to briefly review what a “Direct Object” is. Direct Objects are the “First goal or action of a verb”. The best way to learn what that means is to look at a few examples.

The first one is: “She gives the money”. Here the verb is “gives” and “the money” is the “Direct Object”. It receives the action of the verb – it’s “what” She gives. In Spanish, this would be said “Ella da el dinero”. The “ella” is optional.

See if you can pick out the “Direct Objects” in the next few examples. Just a hint, the “Direct Object” will turn blue a second after the sentence is said (Note: this only happens in the interactive lesson). Try to pick it out before it turns blue.

We send letters:  Now in Spanish – Mandamos las cartas

She asks for a favor: Now in Spanish – Pide un favor

They tell secrets: Now in Spanish – Dicen secretos

I throw the ball: Now in Spanish – Tiro la pelota

I deliver the packages: Now in Spanish – Entrego los paquetes

Were you able to guess the direct objects? Remember, they receive the action of the verb.

Now you’ve had a brief review of Direct Objects, let’s add Indirect Objects to these sentences. An “Indirect Object” is the secondary goal or action of the verb.

An example of this is:

She gives the money to me – In this sentence, “the money” is the first action of the verb; it’s what “she gives”. And, “to me” is the secondary action of the verb. “She’s giving the money…to me”.

Now we’ll look at a few more. The next one is:

We send letters to him – In this sentence, “letters” is the first action or goal of the verb, or the “direct object”  – it’s what “we send”, and “to him” is the second action of the verb or the “indirect object” – in other words, “we’re sending letters – to him”.

She asks for a favor of him – “Favor” is the “direct object” and “of him” is the “indirect object”

They tell secrets to her – “secrets” is the “direct object” and “to her” is the “indirect object”

Now we’ll look at 3 more examples. See if you can pick out the “direct” and “indirect objects”. After about 1 second, the Direct Object will turn blue and after another second the Indirect Object will turn red (this only happens in the actual interactive lessons). Are you ready?

He writes emails to us

I throw the ball to them

I deliver the packages to you

Were you able to guess the direct objects and indirect objects?

This concludes Part I of indirect object pronouns in Spanish. Stay tuned next Wednesday for Part II!

If you want learn with more in-depth free lessons now (that teach you how to build sentences), try our free Spanish lessons online.

For more on the course this script comes from, click on our Spanish Digital Learning Center.

¡Hasta luego Amigos!

Spanish for Your Cruise

One of the best ways to practice your Spanish is with native speakers, and one of the most economical ways to do a vacation to a Spanish-speaking country is a cruise. Cruises are my favorite way to travel. They’re fun, there’s great food (as much as you can eat) and you don’t have to make many decisions on a cruise. So, if you are travelling with others, you rarely get in disagreements about what to do or where to go. On a cruise, there are usually 2-4 days of shore excursions (depending on the length of cruise you take). Now, depending on how you want to do your shore excursion, there are different options. You can either pay for a pre-planned tour excursion sold by the cruise ship, or you can go create your own adventure. However, take note, if you plan your own adventure, if you don’t get back to the cruise ship on time, you may miss the boat (literally). The boat does wait for shore excursions that are late – if they were planned by the cruise line. Anyway, as I mentioned, talking with the natives is a fantastic way to practice Spanish. Especially if you’ve already had the chance to learn Spanish online with Visual Link Spanish. Below is some great vocabulary to use on your tour excursions.

After learning the vocabulary, come practice with us on the Visual Link Spanish Facebook Page. Remember, practice really does make perfect.

Here is the vocabulary from the video:

I sure hope you have the opportunity to go on a cruise soon to practice your Spanish. When you do, please come to our blog and comment. We’d love to hear how it went and if you could understand the Spanish you heard from the natives.

Future Facebook Fiesta Friday Topics:

November 18, 2011 – Thanksgiving Spanish Lesson

November 25, 2011 – Black Friday Spanish Lesson

December 2, 2011 – Winter Spanish Lesson

Have You Ever Wanted to Speak Spanish to Your Best Friend?

If your best friend is a Spanish speaker, these phrases will be super useful. If your best friend is not a Spanish speaker, maybe you can give them the desire to be a Spanish speaker by saying these words to them :-). Then you can send them here to our website where they can learn to speak Spanish free! Either way, you can come and practice with us on our Facebook page on Fridays. Actually, you can come any day of the week and there are people there, however, Jake and I make it a point to come to “Facebook Fiesta Friday” every week when we’re available. Every so often, we choose a person a particiapant (in our conversations) and give them free Spanish software worth at least a few tanks of gas (in a compact car).

Here is the vocabulary from the video (come use these phrases on Facebook!):

So, come share with us on Facebook. Let us know if you have one best friend (“Tengo un mejor amigo”), multiple good friends (“Tengo varios amigos”), or both (los dos). In the sad case that you don’t have friends, you can say “No tengo amigos” – however, remember that all of us on Facebook are your friends!!

Future Facebook Fiesta Friday Topics:

October 14, 2011 – Getting to Know a Spanish Speaker

October 21, 2011 – Workplace Spanish

October 28, 2011 – Halloween Special (Be sure to dress up in your favorite disfraz!)

Spanish for Mount Everest Video Lesson

Let’s face it, the last time you climbed Mount Everest, you probably looked at something and wondered, “How do I say that in Spanish?” This week is probably our most useful video yet as you learn important phrases that can be used when climbing Mount Everest. Watch the video and you’ll learn what a “Sherpa” is, how to tell people (in Spanish) if you have problems breathing, and other vital emergency phrases – all combined with a neat little grammar lesson on masculine, feminine, singular and plural. Let’s face it, nobody goes to the extremes that we do to help you learn such useful Spanish.

Of course, the best part is that you can join us on Facebook Fiesta Friday to practice your Mount Everest vocabulary. The questions of the week are: “Do you like mountain climbing?” and “What mountain would you climb if you could?” (see the Spanish equivalents below).

Here is the key vocabulary from the video – ¡Disfruten! (Enjoy!):

Make sure you visit Visual Link Spanish on Facebook and tell us about your experience climbing Mount Everest. Did you meet a special Sherpa? Did you get frost bite? Did you have a near-death experience? Come share amigos!

Future Facebook Fiesta Friday Topics:

September 2, 2011 – Back to School – What do you want to learn?

September 9, 2011 – Personal Hygiene

September 16, 2011 – TBA