• Listening practice for beginners • Occupations
    Apr 26 2022

    ¡Hola! Welcome to Spanish from Zero, a podcast for people who are just starting the amazing journey that is learning Español. Today we’re gonna practice talking about occupations. 


    Here’s how it usually goes:

    • ¿Qué haces? (What do you do?)

    • Yo soy… (I am…)


    Note that in Spanish we tend to not use articles (a, an) when describing someone’s job title:

    Yo soy profesora. (Literally: I am teacher)



    The other thing we have to keep in mind whenever we’re describing someone is their gender. These are the most common word endings when it comes to occupations:


    • Gender neutral endings:

    ISTA:el artista / la artista, etc.

    NTE: el estudiante / la estudiante, etc.


    • Feminine vs. Masculine endings:

    O / A: el secretario / la secretaria, etc.

    OR / ORA: el profesor / la profesora, etc.


    Okay! Now that the explanation is out of the way, let’s practice a little bit. I’ll say a couple of sentences and you need to figure out if I could be describing a man, a woman, or either one:


    Es arquitecta 🏗️

    Es programador 💻

    Es analista 📉

    Es presidente 🏳️

    Es veterinaria 🐾

    Es electicista 🔌

    Es asistente 📋

    Es dentista 🦷

    Es fotógrafo 📷

    Es mecánico 🔧

    Es doctora 🩺


    How was it? You can check out the answers here if you want to know how you did: https://bit.ly/spanish-from-zero-05

    Let me know if you have any questions, and subscribe to get the new episodes as soon as they come out. ¡Gracias por escuchar! :)


    Get in touch: https://linktr.ee/mar.olivares

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    6 mins
  • Listening practice for beginners • Asking for clarification
    Mar 24 2022

    ¡Hola!  Welcome to Spanish from Zero, a podcast for people who are just starting the amazing journey that is learning Español.


    Today’s practice is focused on two really useful questions that are gonna help you get unstuck when you don’t know a word.


    • If you want to use a word but you don’t know it in Spanish, you can ask:

    ¿Cómo se dice ___ en español?

    For example: How do you say “class” in Spanish?


    • If you encounter a word in Spanish but you don’t what it means, you can ask:

    ¿Qué es ___?

    For example: What’s “clase”?



    Ready to practice? In this episode I ask 12 of these questions for you to answer, but you’ll see that they’re all really easy:

    ¿Qué es Hola? 

    ¿Cómo se dice Thank you en español?

    ¿Qué es Lo siento?

    ¿Cómo se dice Hi en español? 

    ¿Qué es Gracias?

    ¿Cómo se dice Sorry en español?

    ¿Qué es Por favor?

    ¿Cómo se dice I don’t know en español?

    ¿Qué es De nada?

    ¿Cómo se dice Please en español?

    ¿Qué es No sé?

    ¿Cómo se dice You’re welcome en español?


    And finally, let me leave you with this question: 

    ¿Cómo se dice clase en inglés?



    How was it? You can check out the answers here: https://bit.ly/spanish-from-zero-04

    Let me know if you have any questions, and subscribe to get the new episodes as soon as they come out. ¡Gracias por escuchar! :)


    Get in touch: https://linktr.ee/mar.olivares

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    6 mins
  • Listening practice for beginners • Tener (to have)
    Mar 17 2022

    ¡Hola! Welcome to Spanish from Zero, a podcast for people who are just starting the amazing journey that is learning Spanish. Today’s practice is focused on the verb Tener (to have), although I’m only gonna use it with Yo (yo tengo) and Tú (tú tienes), so it’s really simple! 


    I’m just gonna talk a little bit so you can practice some listening, and I’ll also ask some questions so you can try answering them out loud, saying what you can. If the audio is too hard, here are some hints that can help you figure out what I’m saying: 


    ¿Tienes un 🚘? 

    ¿Tienes un 📱? 

    ¿Tienes un 🎸 🎹 🎺 🎻? 

    ¿Tienes una 📷? 

    ¿Tienes 🐱 🐶 🐇🐾? 

    ¿Tienes 🌻? 

    ¿Tienes una 📺? 

    ¿Tienes 🐤? 


    How was it? You can check out the full transcription here: https://bit.ly/spanish-from-zero-03

    Let me know if you have any questions, and subscribe to get the new episodes as soon as they come out. ¡Gracias por escuchar! :)


    Get in touch: https://linktr.ee/mar.olivares

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    5 mins
  • Spanish listening practice • Ser (to be)
    Mar 14 2022

    ¡Hola! Welcome to Spanish from Zero, a podcast for people who are just starting the amazing journey that is learning Spanish. Today’s practice is focused on the verb Ser (to be). That is: I am, you are, she is, etc.



    The exercise is really simple. I’m gonna say a couple of sentences, but the subject is gonna be missing. And by subject, I mean the person. So for example, if I say “am from Colombia”, the subject missing from that sentence is I. Your job is to figure that piece of the puzzle that’s missing.

    Now, I know this sounds unnatural in English, but it's really common in Spanish! That’s why these exercises are useful, because a lot of the times when we’re listening to people talk in Spanish, we have to fill in the blanks. So this is a super important skill to practice!



    Ready? Here are the sentences: 

    Soy de Argentina.
    Es de Perú.
    Eres de Guatemala.
    Son de Colombia.
    Somos de Chile.
    Es doctor.
    Soy dentista.
    Somos amigos.
    Son hermanos.
    Eres profesor.



    How was it? You can check out the answers and see how you did here: https://bit.ly/spanish-from-zero-02

    Let me know if you have any questions, and subscribe to get the new episodes as soon as they come out. ¡Gracias por escuchar! :)


    Get in touch: https://linktr.ee/mar.olivares

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    3 mins
  • Spanish listening practice • Llamarse (to be called)
    Mar 7 2022

    ¡Hola! Welcome to Spanish from Zero, a podcast for people who are just starting the amazing journey that is learning Spanish.


    Today’s practice is focused on the verb Llamarse (to be called). Basically the verb that we use to talk about people’s names. The exercise is really short and simple! Your job is to find the mistakes in these sentences (only one of them is correct):


    Yo llamo Rafael

    Nosotros nos llamos Pedro y Juan

    Ella se llaman Claudia

    Tú te llamas Lucas

    Ellos se llama Ana y Sebastián


    How was it? You can check out the answers here: https://bit.ly/spanish-from-zero-01

    Let me know if you have any questions, and subscribe to get the new episodes as soon as they come out. ¡Gracias por escuchar! :)


    Get in touch: https://linktr.ee/mar.olivares

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    3 mins