Don’t worry, I’ll still be tweeting Spanish verbs over @ReVerbSpanish, but now you can add @SpanishWordz to the mix.

Why the spelling “Spanish Wordz”?

Because “Spanish Words”, “Spanish Word”, “Palabras”, and “Spanish Vocab” were all already taken on Twitter.

The plan is to tweet Spanish words that hopefully you aren’t too familiar with. I know what you must be thinking….ANOTHER Spanish Word of the Day stream on Twitter?! Yes, I know there are already plenty of these “Spanish Word Of the Day” tweets on Twitter. But most of them are focused on very basic Spanish words. Perro= dog. Lunes = Monday. Comer = to eat.

That’s great for beginners or people who need a refresher, but what about those of us who already have the basics down pat and want to keep progressing?

It’s time to stretch yourself, especially if you’ve been studying Spanish awhile and are at an intermediate or advanced level. Get out of the habit of using the same basic Spanish words over and over again.

For example, you may use the word “amigo,” even in situations where it may not be the best choice. In English, we have words like colleague, coworker, acquaintance, roommate, neighbor, buddy. Why not learn the Spanish equivalents and deposit them into your Spanish memory bank?

Even if your accent speaking Spanish isn’t perfect, using more sophisticated words in Spanish will go a long way to making you sound more fluent.

There won’t be any overall theme or specific reason why certain words get posted on particular days. They will just be words that strike me as interesting and unusual. Often they will be words that I’ve noticed in the news that I think might help folks expand their Spanish vocab past the usual common Spanish 101 words. If you’re studying Spanish in college or in high school taking Advanced Placement Spanish, some of these vocab words may come in handy.

I will post at least one Spanish word daily. On some days I may post more than one. But there will always be at least one new word posted everyday. I’m commited to doing this every day for the next 365 days. After that, who knows?

Follow me on Twitter:

Spanish Vocabulary @SpanishWordz

Spanish Verbs @ReVerbSpanish

Bilingual tweets @VoicesEnEspanol

Kids stuff @CodysCuentos

To tell you the truth, there is a lot I want to share with you about Spanish verbs but some of it really doesn’t warrant a 400+ word blog entry.

That’s where Twitter comes in. Twitter is a web site where people can post very short messages on all sorts of topics. It’s like a blog but with entries that are extremely brief.  There is a 140-character limit per entry, and that includes punctuation marks and spaces!

Twitter is a great platform for ReVerb Spanish because you can get more helpful tips about different Spanish verbs without having to wade through lengthy explanations. In fact, it’s an efficient way for me to address some verbs that are interesting but maybe don’t have enough meat to devote an entire podcast to them.

Wondering what kinds of things I’m putting on Twitter? Here’s a sampling of a few verbs that were the focus in some recent “tweets.” (You’ll have to visit the ReVerb Spanish Twitter page to get the answers to these riddles.)

Armarse un lío vs. Hacerse un lío: They both mean trouble but in different ways.

Estar a cargo de vs. Hacerse cargo de: Who’s the boss between those two phrases?

Alumbrar vs. Deslumbrar: Shine some light on two similar verbs

Callarse la boca vs Cerrarle la boca: It’s the difference between keeping one’s mouth shut or causing someone to shut theirs!

As you can see, it’s a little bit of everything. But the focus is solely on explaining to you the nuances of Spanish verbs and verb phrases that are not only useful for you to know but also a lot of fun to use!

I post items over there more frequently than I do on this blog, so if you ever miss me (si me echas de menos) and wonder what I’ve been up to, you can find me twittering away at Twitter.com/ReVerbSpanish.  If you feel like it, sign up for your own Twitter account and we can also communicate with one another that way.

¡Hasta luego!

This podcast is the audio verb drill for the imperfect past tense of SER. Purchase the complete set of audio verb drills for SER on this page. The price is $7.99.

As always, I’m open to receiving your suggestions and feedback. You can contact me directly through this blog’s contact page.

Have you ever used a Spanish-English dictionary to look up a word only to discover later on that the meaning you found wasn’t quite accurate for the situation? In fact, it’s quite common for Spanish-English dictionaries to lead many language learners astray with definitions that are imprecise or misleading.

The classic example are the verbs SER and ESTAR. Both mean “to be” in Spanish but with a difference. Using these two verbs interchangeably can change the meaning of a sentence even though the standard dictionary says that both verbs are the Spanish equivalent of “to be” in English.

While SER and ESTAR are obvious examples, there are several other Spanish verbs which create similar problems, albeit on a smaller scale, for Spanish learners. For example, the verbs hacerse, ponerse, quedarse and volverse all mean “to become” in Spanish but they cannot be used interchangeably in Spanish. That’s because each one of these verbs has an additional layer of meaning that doesn’t always get explained properly in a typical dictionary.

So, that’s what the ReVerb Spanish blog and podcast are going to focus on – the nuances, the variations in meaning for verbs that appear to synonyms.

Neither the blog nor the podcast will teach you Spanish grammar. That’s not the point of this program. Instead it will be a supplement to your Spanish language studies.

In addition to the blog entries, there are also audio Spanish verb drills available. Listening to these audio exercises are a good way to practice your Spanish verb conjugations. If you’ve ever second guessed yourself or gotten tongue tied when trying to remember the correct form of some basic verbs, listening to these audio drills might help.  I’m only making a few basic verbs available initially. But if I get feedback indicating that there is strong demand for more audio verb drills, I will add more audio verb drills to the current collection.

Would you like to make a suggestion or give feedback? Send me a message.  Tell me what you think so that I can improve this site. ¡Gracias!