Common Mistakes

I’ve been teaching English to Spanish speakers for over 20 years now, and I’ve noticed some of the same issues come up over and over again. That said, we must attack these pesky problems and correct them once and for all, so we can communicate with clarity and get our point across with ease. Never say “people is”, “I Espeak Espanish”, or “it depends of” ever again. WRONG! We’ll tackle some of the most common mistakes on this week’s episode of FYI!

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I've been teaching English to Spanish speakers for over 20 years now and I've noticed some of the same issues come up over and over again that said we must attack these pesky problems and correct them once and for all so we can communicate with Clarity and get our point across with ease never say people is I speak a Spanish or it depends of ever again we'll tackle some of the most common mistakes on this week's episode of f why I welcome to for your info English you got it you got it[Applause][Music][Applause] foreign[Music] and welcome to another exciting edition of FYI for your English and we tackle a different topic every single week and if you haven't heard a topic that you'd like to hear about please let me know I'm all ears you can go to my website Alberto alonso.com and you can find links to all my social media and feel free to reach out today we're going to take a look at the most common mistakes I have heard throughout my 20 years in this business and remember this before getting into the teaching business I grew up in a bilingual home so I've heard all of these mistakes before I heard them from you where let's see if you guys know where from drumroll foreign[Music] my father says I speak a Spanish my father omits the endings of certain words and I always used to imitate him and that's what I always tell you guys learning a language is about imitating if you like to do Impressions like I do then you'll love trying different accents my daughter loves it already and she's not even four years old let's take a look at the intro I started out by saying I've been teaching English to Spanish speakers for over 20 years now that's 20 years of experience under my belt and I've noticed some of the same issues let's pronounce this word because this s this double s sounds like shh issues and they come up over and over again that said we must attack these pesky problems and pesky is another way to say annoying and I know I have faith I believe brothers and sisters that we can correct them once and for all and not only communicate with Clarity and get our point across with ease but also to feel comfortable speaking English to actually enjoy it like my wife did when she joined us on the social media episode and if you haven't listened to that episode you are missing out she kicked butt great job Diana and last week my daughter Lara was on the episode hey maybe I'm exploiting my family a little too much I don't think they think that because they are always ready they're always game siempreciapunta and then I said some of my favorite mistakes favorite in air quotes never say people is I speak a Spanish people is please if you're one of these people get a tattoo on your forehead that says people are and all you have to do is just think of a couple songs people are people so what can it be you and I can get along so easily or perhaps you're a doors fan people are strange when you're a stranger faces look ugly when you're alone or what about that E before the s i s speak a Spanish with Bruce Springsteen oh my God I think I just added four extra syllables there or the ever so popular it depends of but don't worry folks the most important thing when tackling a problem is to be a aware of it and if we're aware of it we can attack it and we can practice it until we break that habit because really it's about taking these bad habits literally translating or trying to move your mouth the same way you do when you speak Spanish when obviously it's not the same and we're gonna look at a lot of those similarities and differences and I've categorized all the mistakes and I'm sure I left many out so please feel free to let me know any ones I may have left out because I have a feeling we could revisit this subject so let's start off with some of the biggest pronunciation problems that I've come across throughout the years the one you just heard that is Spanish just remember this we put sounds together especially if it's the same sound so let's take a look at the boss Bruce Springsteen Bruce ends with the S sound I know I know it's a c e but it ends with the S sound and Springsteen starts with an S2 so what if we just put them together Bruce Springsteen speaks Spanish and look at that speaks ends with an S and Spanish starts with an S so let's do that let's start connecting letters that are the same it's an easy way to start improving your pronunciation right now I speak Spanish Bruce Springsteen speaks Spanish try it I know it's tough but make a list of words that start with s where you would want to put an e in there and then say them aloud and put them in sentences because remember we don't just say words randomly we say them in context in a sentence another one high school a lot of times my students put that e in there you're putting in extra syllables but if you think high and school what if we just put them together Heist if you put it as Heist cool instead of high school high school again don't separate the words where there are spaces separate them where we do where you take Natural breaths one that I've heard mistaken a million times and even with higher level students and this is basic if you have the Von manual the student manual this is page one this versus these do you pronounce those the same I hope you don't singular say it with me say it aloud it's so important especially when we're looking at pronunciation this this kiss piss Miss always look for rhyming words that can help you too these cheese please knees bees this versus these again anytime you have words like that like ship versus sheep there's another one it's not just the vowel sound that's different it's also the length of the vowel sound listen ship sheep ship sheep one is like a cap and one is a you extend it a little bit not too much just a little bit English has 15 vowel sounds remember we don't say vocal vocal is somebody who's very opinionated vowel a e i o u and I know in Spanish it's and that's it and the ah is always ah and the E is always e and and so on and so forth but it ain't that way in English folks so let's take a look at these 15 sounds and what I want you to do is make a list of words that have that same sound and practice them and then put them in context so you've got the long vowels like the long a cake cake bake take make I mean look at how common those verbs are you have to know how to make that sound Shake Lake it's called the long a then you've got the long e keep sheep weep which means to cry deep and so on and so forth then you've got your long eye bike Mike psych like and again I'm just giving you a couple words I want you to come up with even more then you've got your long o Home Bone Rome Dome your long u and this one's really difficult for my students because a lot of times people say community but no the long u sounds like a u community community cute mute refute and so on and so forth so those are your long vowel sounds then you've got your short vowels your short a cat bat rat sat then your short e bed red said wed LED your short eye this one's difficult for you guys so pay attention sit bit it's not seat beat it's sit bit quit lit then you're short o top pop ah this is like when you go to the dentist ah but short not ah ah pop top shop flop then you've got the short you Sun gun One Bun done yes we're done with the short vowels and then we've got others or miscellaneous we've got the U of put uh uh can you make that sound uh put you've got the u sound ooh that one's easy soon Moon the ah think of that as ah dog Bernardo extended it's short so I want you to not just pay attention to the sound but how long we hold it for dog OG then you've got the oi I think of that one as the punk rock sound oi oi join loin and that's it folks you've got all your vowel sounds there I think we all know which ones are the ones that need more working on another one is endings of words like responsible respectable edible incredible unbelievable what do they all have in common a bowl unto a bull be responsible no responsible responsible also you've got the ous ending jealous famous it's not OS it's us us if you can do it once you can do it a million times I'm jealous because he's famous it's tedious but now he's Furious can you come up with your own examples then you've got your regular verb endings and this is kind of related to the not finishing your words and what do I mean by that well Spanish almost never has consonant clusters at the end of a word so what happens Spanish speakers drop sounds especially at the end kunyao right but in English that's so important think about this I pick my friends that's the present tense yesterday I picked my friends you hear that that's the difference I watch TV every day yesterday I watched TV every day I agree yesterday I agreed and those of you who are my students on patreon you know we have worked really hard on these regular verb endings but once you get it you get it you'll never say I watched it or I watched it you'll say I watched it I watched it We join it to the it did you watch it yes I watched it see there's no pause between the watched and the it it goes together at least when you say it so be careful just because of the way our language sounds you guys drop consonants if you drop them in English it sounds like you don't know how to conjugate your verbs and that you're always speaking in the present tense another thing and this is not so much about pronunciation but more about Cadence Spanish is a syllable timed language and what does that mean it means you stress every syllable every single part of that sentence sounded important English on the other hand is a stress-timed language that means we don't give the same emphasis to all the sounds that we make generally we shorten unstressed syllables to fit the Rhythm and if you'll notice less important words like the and uh don't auxiliary verbs things like that we tend to go over them quickly and we generally put emphasis on the important words the words that carry information like nouns adjectives and main verbs so just knowing that you won't read a passage in Spanish the same way you would read the same text translated into English I love this stuff and I think it's fascinating we're always linking things together in English and you can link two consonants if one word ends with a consonant sound and the next word starts with the same sound we already looked at that and we also link words ending with a consonant sound to words beginning with a vowel sound and we link words ending with a vowel sound to words beginning with a vowel sound again translation we're always linking things together for example nobody says what do you they say what do you or whatcha what are you gonna do what you're gonna do nobody says what are you going to do it sounds robotic so what are you gonna do what you gonna do well I don't know but I'm gonna get out of here Atta yeah out of outer I'm gonna get out of here why because I wanna because I want to well it's not that I wanna it's that I've gotta I have to I've got to I've gotta and have to is have to but do you have to go so two is Tu you get what I'm saying and this is when you say gotcha te Pio got you so be conscious of those sounds one of the most interesting things about learning a language in my opinion is the sounds it's like learning a different genre of music let's take a look at some common mistakes that come from prepositions how would you say who are you married to yeah I know in Spanish you say with that's why I'm telling you so these are places where we don't agree on the preposition you say married with we say married too and the same thing with dream in Spanish you say I dreamed with you Sonia Contigo but in English I dreamed of you or I dreamed about but not to dream with and prepositions can be very very pesky they're short little words but man that's exactly how I know if somebody's got a really high level they've mastered their prepositions usage and this one too I've heard people say they were discussing about politics no they were discussing politics tranquilamente and they were arguing about so that's weird with one of them we use about to argue about something or to argue over something and this is why I said before it's so important to learn words in their natural habitat not just words randomly let's see if you know the prepositions associated with months and dates and all that jazz so I'm going to ask you a question and you answer it when were you born I want you to tell me the year first I was born in 1977. now tell me the month I was born in November good so far it's in in what about the day of the week I know you probably don't remember but Obama though I was born on a Saturday and what about if we use your whole birthday so if I say when were you born I was born on November 19 1977. just think of on with days and in with months and years and remember we capitalize days of the week and months in English when we write them oh and the most popular preposition these days is at aroba which is a great one because if you want to tell somebody and you can give them an email address a phone number you can reach me at blah blah blah so don't underestimate the power of at and now we're going to take a look at some countable and uncountable nouns and I know you have countable and uncountable nouns in Spanish but I'm talking about ones where we don't agree in fact I'm gonna put you guys to the test how would you say Tengo una notizia did you say I have a news no no it's uncountable in English it always gets the S because I've heard people also say I have a new newest Nuevo so news always gets an S and it's uncountable yeah it's a special one so have you heard the news you can use the definite article the because you're speaking about specific news but if you say oi una noticia I heard some news if you want to make it countable you can say a piece of news but that's not very natural it would be much more common to say I heard some news alright here's another one consejos did you say he gave me some advices no no it's he gave me some advice so another one you can't say an advice and you can't say advices it's some advice whether you're telling them one thing or 50 things and if you want to make it countable you can say a piece of advice just be careful because the verb is to advise I just wanted to advise you and what about this one is I made or I did well we're going to take a look at make and do in the bonus episode we're also going to take a look at some literal translations that get my students every time we'll look at double negatives false friends adjectives ending in e d and ing used to and the World's Most Wanted mistakes that's right we'll take a look at the top 10. all that and so much more in the bonus episode of today's FYI remember if you want access to the bonus episode all you have to do is join my community on patreon we are having tons of fun over there and what a great group of people that we've gotten together and they get access to bonus episodes every week PDFs with all the vocabulary and expressions and even classes with me those are my Interstellar students and I'm gonna send them a shout out right now what's up Carmen Lena Issa Paco David and Edgar also my super duper students Javier Paco Roberto Jose Maria Mila and Alex if you guys want to join the party slash English class you can go over to patreon.com Alberto Alonso and even if you don't want to join the class if you'd like to donate to the show because remember this show is produced by them I don't get paid to do this show so the only way you guys can continue to have FYI is thanks to my patrons so thank you thank you thank you as many of you know a lot of time and effort goes into these podcasts every week but when I get your feedback and when I see you guys learning from them and excited it's well worth it but if you'd like to support the show you can do so for as little as three Euros a month and as a thank you you get tons of bonus stuff as well plus you're part of a curious Community more info at patreon.com Alberto Alonso and we never answered that was it make or do your homework I think the translation I gave you was something I never want to hear from you patrons I didn't do my homework so it's do but just be careful because in English it's not homeworks It's homework homework assignments but it's not necessary I have some homework I have a little homework I have a lot of homework tonight but first how would you say that I'm gonna put on my pajamas that's right pajamas we say pajamas you say pajama and I say pajamas pajama pajamas let's call the whole thing off and the last one that comes to mind with this countable uncountable stuff is series I've heard students tell me Alberto I saw an interesting Siri and you know what happens there my voice assistant comes on just remember this it's my Apple Voice Assistant but you add an S and it doesn't matter if you're talking about one we're talking about 20. it's always series Sopranos is my favorite series by the way we have an episode on The Sopranos and I haven't seen any good series lately I hope you guys are enjoying this episode and I hope you're thinking about joining us in the bonus episode of today's f y ah[Applause] foreign[Music]