Visual Link Spanish(TM) Newsletter - Volume 6 Issue 4

Current # of Subscribers: 151,102

This issue:
1. Testimonial
2. Weekly Spanish Lesson - “Survival Expressions”
3. Words of the Week
4. Ask Dave Section - “Use of que as in que tengan and mas que”
5. Culture Lesson - “Visita personal”
6. Responses to Past Newsletters

========================
Complete Course on Sale
========================

Stop wasting hundreds of dollars on Spanish courses that don’t work.
Learn faster and better — Guaranteed!

- Click for Sale Info! -

-http://www.learnspanishtoday.com/complete_newsletter.htm

This offer includes the complete Visual Link Spanish(TM) Course with
free shipping and a free dictionary! Remember your 30-Day Money-Back
Guarantee - you’ll learn Spanish Guaranteed or your money back!

* With 30-60 minutes a day, five times a week, you will become
conversational in 30 days or less guaranteed - or your money back.

=======================================
Visual Link Spanish(TM) Testimonial –
=======================================

¡Muchas Gracias! Dave,

I am thoroughly enjoying your course. I can’t wait to get to the next
lesson! I’m hoping to be conversant in Spanish by the end of the
year.

I had a classmate ask me how I was so more at ease with learning
Spanish then she was and I told her that your course was giving me an
edge. I believe that I will pass on some of the more advanced school
courses and rely on your course.

Mike

=============================================
Weekly Spanish Lesson—Survival Expressions
=============================================

For this week’s lesson, click below to learn 12 basic Spanish
Survival expressions with audio. You’ll hear María from Mexico model
each.

To check it out, click here:
http://www.learnspanishtoday.com/learn/survival_expressions.htm

==================
Words of the Week
==================

Taken from our complete CD-ROM course —–

Monday / He likes / (A él) Le gusta
Tuesday / I can (am able) / (Yo) Puedo
Wednesday / to watch / mirar
Thursday / to see (watch) / ver
Friday / the T.V. / la televisión
Saturday / the T.V. (nickname) / la tele
Sunday / my favorite team / mi equipo favorito

Click Here to login and access your free membership and lessons.
http://www.learnspanishtoday.com/login.phtml

=====================================
The Official “Ask Dave” Section —–
=====================================

Question

If you have time could you explain this to me-In the sentence ¡Que
tengan un buen día! (I hope you all have a good day!) - What does the
“Que” mean? I’m just used to using it as what.

Thank you,

TC

Answer

Hola TC,

The Spanish word “que” can mean “what”, “that” or sometimes even
“how” or “than”. In the sentence you refer to, it means “that”. It’s
almost like saying “I hope that you have a good day” only the words
“I hope” is implied and not actually written in the sentence.

Here are some more uses of “que” as the word “that”:

(I hope) that you have a good trip / ¡Qué tengas un buen viaje!
I think that she… / Yo pienso que ella…
I believe that it’s going to be…/ Yo creo que va a ser…

Here are some uses of “que” as the word “how” - used in expressions
(usually the word “how” is “cómo”):

How sad! / ¡Qué triste!
How exciting! / ¡Qué emocionante!
How boring! / ¡Qué aburrido!

Here are some uses of “que” as the word “than”

He is taller than me. / Él es más alto que yo.
She is smarter than me. / Ella es más inteligente que yo.
They are older than her. / Ellos son más viejos que ella.

For uses of the word “Qué” as “What”, please see our complete Visual
Link Spanish™ course. In-depth examples are found in sections 1, 6, 8
and 10 of the course.

Hopefully that answers your question.

¡Hasta luego!

Dave

==============================
Culture —– Visita personal
==============================

visita personal - personal visit
boletín - newsletter
diferencias culturales - cultural differences
mencioné - I mentioned
una persona - a person
amigos - friends
mujer - woman
hombre - man
besito - kiss
abrazo - hug
cortés - courteous
gente - people
muy amable(s) - very friendly (plural)
misionero - missionary
casas - homes
niño - child
mami (maw-mee) - child’s word for “mother”
papi (paw-pee) - child’s word for “father”
padres - parents
porque - becuase (”por que” - with a space - is “why”)
puerta - door
técnica - technique
-mente - -ly (this is a suffix or word ending; “mente” at the end of
a word means “ly” in English)

For this week’s boletín, I want to talk about some of the diferencias
culturales when visiting someone in Latin America.

As I mencioné in previous boletines, if you are visiting una persona
you are relatives or good amigos with, and you are a mujer greeting
another mujer or hombre, you would customarily give them a besito on
the cheek. When hombres greet hombres, they will customarily give
each other a handshake and often an abrazo. The Latin culture is a
very polite and cortés culture and the gente are usually muy amables.

I had the opportunity to visit Latin America as a misionero for two
years and visited literally thousands of gente in their casas in
different countries. One of the things that really fascinated me is
when we would knock on a puerta to visit a familia, generally a small
niño would answer the door. We would then ask, “¿Se encuentra tu
mami?” or “¿Se encuentra tu papi?” (Is your mom or dad home?). In
every region I went to, the niño would always say “No está” (He or
she isn’t here). What got me, was that they would say this even if
their “padres” WERE home.

At first, this really frustrated me porque in the U.S., for the most
part, when someone comes to the puerta, if the padres are home and
available, the child will say that they are home and get them. (Of
course there are exceptions.)

I finally learned a técnica that was rather fun and worked well.
Here’s what I did. When a niño would answer the puerta, I would ask,
“¿Se encuentra tu papi?” and the niño would say “No está”. Then I
would quickly say “¡Tráelo rápido!” (Hurry and get him!). The niño,
sin pensar (without thinking) would automaticamente run and get his
dad (or mom). After I learned this new técnica, getting in to visit
people changed from a drudgery to almost like a juego divertido (fun
game). I loved visiting the Latin people!

Moral of the historia: The Spanish culture is fun and interesting. It
is great to get to know the culture and adapt yourself personalmente
to it.

Sneak peek at next week: Other funny things people say at the door.

¡Hasta luego! (”Until later”)

David S. Clark — President / Director
Visual Link Spanish(TM)
Fun, Interactive Spanish Courses
http://www.learnspanishtoday.com
dave_c@learnspanishtoday.com

=============================
Responses to Past Newsletters
=============================

Response #1

Hi Dave,

The more I read of your lessons the more I think where I live -
Chitre, Panama, and in fact perhaps the entire interior of Panama -
is in some kind of latin space warp because almost nothing you say
holds true here. Here futbol is not the game of choice. Beisbol is,
with a nice, professional baseball stadium under lights. I haven’t
seen soccer played anywhere in the 10 months I’ve lived here but for
2.5 months from March to mid-May baseball is played regularly against
other teams from all over Panama, with the last couple weeks
amounting to what we know as the world series in the US. My province,
Herrera, has been the national champions for three years running, a
fact that is proclaimed on license plates (Herrera Tricampeones!),
window decals, ball hats and any other places it can be printed.
Entrance to the stadium is only $2 and there is a crowd every night.
All food and drink vendors are outside the stadium with nothing being
allowed inside.

Dave

Response #2

Dave … in English speaking countries other than the US - we also
call soccer football, in some countries American football (what you
call football) - which is one of my favorite games, is called
’superbowl’

Ben

©2007 U.S. Institute of Languages
1893 East Skyline Drive Ste. 105
Ogden, UT 84403
1-866-977-2647

If you no longer wish to receive communication from us:
http://visuallinklanguages.net/app/r.asp?ID=1020733575&ARID=0&D=

To update your contact information:
http://visuallinklanguages.net/app/r.asp?c=1&ID=1020733575&D=