All Learners Make These Mistakes in Spanish

Lesson Transcript

Want to speak real Spanish from your first lesson?

Hello there, my beautiful friends from SpanishPod101.com. As you may know, my name is Diego…

And I'm Efraín.

And in this video we're going to see the 10 most common mistakes that Spanish learners make, especially beginners.

Yeah.

Pretty interesting, right?

And pretty useful.

Of course. So, enjoy this video.

Okay, so the first most common mistake is the genders. In Spanish we have two genders: masculine and feminine. When you are beginning in your Spanish journey, you are taught that the feminine words end with -a, whereas the masculine end in -o or consonant. But this is not always the case and actually we have many, many exceptions. So the most common ones that I have come across are the following:

Problema. It is not “la problema”. But rather “el problema”.

Mano. It is not “el mano”. It is “la mano”. Nice. Okay.

Clima. Clima. No “la clima”. “El clima”. Next one. Next one.

Idioma. “La idioma”. “El idioma”.

Día. “La día”. No. “El día”.

“La programa”. “El programa”.

And the last one:

“El gente”. No. But rather, “la gente”. Okay guys, so the best way to remember the gender of the words is by making some sentences that will help you determine whether to use masculine or feminine. Okay,

like some helping sentences. For example, “clima”, which is masculine; one way to remember this is

by making a sentence. For example:

Canadá tiene un clima muy frío.

Or for example, you can also say with “programa”, which is also masculine, you can say:

Es un programa muy divertido. Okay.

Es un programa muy divertido.

Or the last one, you can even say “gente”, which is feminine. For example:

Johnny, la gente está muy loca.

(what the….?)

We have the mistake number two: false friends.

What is a false friend? Well, actually they are words that sound similar from English to Spanish and vice versa. But they have different meanings. The first example we have is “asistir”, which sounds like “to assist”, but “asistir” means to “attend”, while “to assist” means “ayudar”.

Yeah, very good. Okay. Or another one that I frequently hear is “embarazada”, which sounds like “embarrassed”, but actually “embarazada” in Spanish means “pregnant”. Whereas “embarrassed”, you can translate it as “avergonzado” or “avergonzada” if you're a woman. Very good. Okay,

the next one. “Actualmente” versus “actually”. That sounds… they sound pretty similar.

Yeah.

But “actualmente” means “currently”, while “actually” means “de hecho”.

Yeah. “De hecho” in Spanish. I like that word, actually. I like that word, actually. Me gusta esa palabra: “de hecho”. And the last one that we have is “largo”, which you may think that it is “large”, but no, it is not. Because “largo” in English is “long”. Whereas, what is “large” then? “Large” in Spanish is “grande”. So there you have some very common false friends.

Actually, de hecho, yo creo que en el futuro debemos hacer un video de false friends.

Oh, sí, claro.

Okay, mistake number three. The double negations in Spanish do exist. Okay, so when you

are a beginner in Spanish, you might feel tempted to translate word by word, but sometimes you end

up with very weird sentences that don't make sense at all.

Of course.

So the double negations is one of these examples. Let's give you some examples. So “algo” in Spanish, “algo”, you can translate it as “something” or “anything”. Algo. So how can you say “I don't have anything”? “I don't have anything”. If you translate word by word, you might say, oh, this is easy because you say, “No tengo algo”. Pretty easy. But in Spanish, this is not correct, because the double negations do exist. The correct way would be “no tengo nada”, which sounds weird in English. “I don't have nothing”. That will be the literal translated version in English. So “I don't have nothing”. That's how we would say it in Spanish. “No tengo nada”.

Another example. I stopped thinking into that. Okay. Let me continue. Another example is:

“There is no one at home”. Okay. If you translate this literally to Spanish, we could say: “Hay nadie en casa”. And in Spanish, it sounds weird.

Hay nadie en casa.

Hay nadie en casa. So it's like, so is there someone? No, “hay nadie”. Hay nadie en casa. So there is someone. ¿Hay alguien en la casa? No, hay nadie. Hay nadie. What? Okay. So the correct translation would be “no hay nadie en casa”. A double negation. And it is actually correct.

Yeah, because you have “no” and “nadie” negations. So that's possible in Spanish. Now, number three,

we can also have, for example, “I don't have any problem”.

Yep.

I don't have any problem. So in this case, you can say, “no tengo ningún problema”.

Okay.

No tengo ningún problema. And there you have double negations. “No” and “ningún”. No tengo ningún problema.

Mistake number four. Four, Diego.

Oh, sorry.

I'm just kidding. Well, the difference between “por” and “para”. Because both of them could be translated as “for”.

What?

Yeah, both of them. And they are pretty confusing sometimes. But fortunately for you, we have made a video. So if you look for “por and para” in SpanishPod101.com, you will find a video of us. Yeah, exactly. Explaining “por” and “para”. We cannot explain that in this video because it would take a lot, a lot, a lot of time.

A lot of time.

And that's not the goal of this video. Just mind you that “por” and “para” is one of the biggest, biggest problems as a Spanish learner. Very good.

Yeah. Okay. Another one that I have come across very frequently is the overuse of the pronouns. Of the pronouns. Yeah. The pronouns are also overused. The subject pronouns. So for example, the object pronouns will be yo, tú, él, ella, usted, ellos and ellas. Okay. So why do I say that they overuse it? In English, you're used to always say the subject. So you [say]:

I eat apples. You eat apples. She eats apples. He eats apples… and everything. We eat apples. So you always include the subject. I, you, he, she, it, we, they.

Okay.

But in Spanish, this is not always the case. So sometimes it is better just to get rid of the, of the subject. Okay? And just put the sentence without it.

Okay. Well, sorry, sorry for interrupting you.

Yeah.

But do we always get rid of the object pronouns?

Yeah. Well, we're going to see some examples. So for example, how will you translate “I am a student?”

Yo soy estudiante.

Yeah. So in that case, “yo soy estudiante”. The thing is that in Spanish, you have the verb that already includes the subject because the conjugation of the verb already includes the subject. Therefore, “yo soy estudiante” and just saying “soy estudiante” is the same. So the most common one would be the latter. That is “soy estudiante”. It is much more common just to say “soy estudiante” instead of “yo soy estudiante”.

And we don't need the object pronouns then.

No, we don't need the object pronouns. You just say “soy estudiante” because the verb includes already

the object pronoun.

Like never.

Yeah. Well, actually there is one case in which you do need to use it. For example, when we have él, ella, or usted, the conjugation is the same for these three subjects. El, ella, and usted. Okay. So for example, if I say “come una manzana” of the verb “comer”. Come una manzana. So in that case, it is not clear if I'm talking about he, about she, or about usted. Okay. So that's the case where you need to say the object pronoun. So you need to say “él come una manzana”. In that case, it is clear that I'm talking about him. Okay. Or “ella come una manzana”. It is obvious that I'm talking about her or “usted come una manzana”. So in that case, it is… you need to use it. Okay?

Okay. Um, and last question, is there any other case where we need to use object pronoun?

Oh, that's a very interesting question. Yes. There is another one. We also use it for making emphasis on the subject. So for example, you can say, um, “juego… juego, basketball los domingos”. Juego basketball los domingos. So if you want to intervene there, if you want to make a point there and you want to put emphasis, you can say, oh, “yo juego… eh, fútbol los domingos”. Okay?

Okay.

So it's like, okay, you do that, but yo, I, I do this. Okay? So, or another one. Um, bueno, pues, um, “yo tengo un perro”.

Ajá.

Y tú… ¿tienes algún animal, alguna mascota?

Oh, yo tengo un gato.

Yeah. So in that case, we're putting emphasis, emphasis. So “yo tengo un perro”. I want to put an emphasis that, yeah, I have a dog and I want to know about, uh, his, his pet, if he has any. Okay?

So that's why. There's another case.

Okay. The next mistake is to say, “me gusto”, instead of “me gusta”. Uh, sometimes people say a lot “me gusto”, but it means “I like myself”. And we don't use it that often in Spanish. So if you want to say that you like something, you use “me gusta”. And if you want to… if… and if you want a literal translation, you could say, you could translate it to, “it appeals to me”.

It appeals to me. So it's more like a direct translation. Yeah. Yeah. Because if you like, if you say, for example, “I like… I like your t-shirt”, it is the same as “your t-shirt is appealing to me” or “it appeals me”. Right? Yeah.

Or, for example, “me gusta esta máscara”. This mask appeals to me.

Exactamente. Muy bien. So remember, use “me gusta” when you want to say that you like an object or something or an activity and just say “me gusto” if you want to express the love you have for yourself. Okay?

Okay.

Me gusto. Very good.

Now let's see the last, the last most common mistake. And that has to do with expressions with “tener”. Why? Because in English you have some expression that you use, uh, with the verb to be. Okay? So for example, uh, you, you can say “to be hungry”, “to be hungry”, but “to be hungry”, actually in Spanish, it is not, uh, “ser hambriento”.

Yeah.

Okay? “Ser hambriento”. So no, you would rather say “tener hambre”.

Of course.

Tener hambre. Or how would you translate, for example, uh, “to be sleepy”?

To be sleepy. “Tener sueño”.

Okay. Okay. How would you translate “to be right”?

Uh, “tener razón”.

Very good.

How would you translate “to be careful”?

Tener cuidado.

Exactly. And the last one, how would you say “to be hot”?

Tener calor.

Okay. So, uh, it is, it is “hot”. Like the weather is hot. So be careful with this one because I have heard many people say “estoy caliente”.

¿Estoy caliente?

Estoy caliente.

Whoa. Yeah. You're hot.

Estoy caliente. But that actually means like you are… how would I translate it? You're horny.

Horny.

Yeah. So then don't use it.

Soy caliente.

Yeah. Just use it in some situations.

Yeah. Very specific ones.

Very specific.

That's it for today, my beautiful friends of SpanishPod 101.com. If you like this video, please give us your thumbs up and share this video with other learners, especially beginners. Okay? Especially, especially.

Yeah. So, um… subscribe to this channel, click on the notifications so you can know when we uploaded a new video and see you in our next video. Hasta luego.

See you guys.

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