ReVerb Spanish

Conocer vs. Saber

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Both of these verbs mean “to know” in Spanish. However they are not exact synonyms. That means they are not verbs that can be used interchangeably. Since knowledge is power, which one of these verbs is king? Let’s find out.

Conocer is intangible knowledge in the sense of to be familiar with someone or something. Use this verb with people, places and things.
Example: ¿Usted conoce Madrid? Do you know Madridl? ¿Conoces a Felipe? Do you know Phillip? Are you acquainted with Phillip? ¿Conoce usted ese café? Do you know that café? Are you familiar with that cafe?

Saber, meanwhile, means to know a fact, to have specific knowledge about something.

Examples:

¿Sabes a qué hora empieza la película? Do you know what time the movie starts? ¿Sabes el título de la película? ¿Sabe María mi nombre? Do you know the title of the movie? Does Mary know my name?

You can get additional mileage out of saber by adding an infinitive to it. An infinitive is an unconjugated verb. Here is the formula for saying “to know how” to do something in Spanish. Saber + infinitve = to know how (in English)

Here are some examples:

¿Sabe cocinar tu compañero de piso? (Does your roommate know how to cook?

Sí, él sabe cocinar. (Yes, he knows how to cook.)

Notice that this construction in Spanish doesn’t require the adverb “cómo” (how).

So, to summarize, conocer and saber both mean “to know” but with distinct usages.
Use CONOCER when referring to people, places or things that you know or are familiar with. Use SABER when referring to facts, information, specific know-how.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 8:26 — 7.8MB)

How to use the ReVerb Spanish Audio Verb Drills

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Here is how to get the most out of the ReVerb Spanish audio verb drills:
1. First listen to the audio of Marie Soleil reading the verb conjugations and repeat the conjugations out loud. While you are doing this, do not read or look at the conjugations written down. The idea is to get your mind accustomed to hearing the sound of the conjugated verb and then saying it aloud without first having to see it written.

2. Once you’ve listened to the audio drill at least once or twice, then look at the written form of the conjugated verb so that you can see and memorize the spelling. Do the audio drill again, this time reading and repeating the conjugated verb. A good online Spanish verb conjugator is available at Word Reference.com. Just type in the verb you need in the search box and once you land on that verb’s  page, click on “CONJUGATOR” to see a full table of conjugations for that specific verb.

Remember, you have to practice using these verbs for them to stick in your memory. Each audio verb drill is five minutes or less, so it doesn’t take much time for you to sneak in a little Spanish verb practice every single day. ¡Suerte! and Happy Re-Verberating!

Podcast: Download (Duration: 6:37 — 6.1MB)

What are Spanish Audio Verb Drills?

The ReVerb Spanish Audio Verb Drills are a simple way for you to practice conjugating common Spanish verbs. For many people, remembering the correct form of the verb in the moment (is it “yo fui” or “yo fue”?) can be difficult because they don’t know the conjugations by heart.

Here is the basic format of the ReVerb Spanish audio verb drills:
Parts 1 & 2: Listen and repeat the verb conjugations given in the standard order (yo soy, tú eres, él es, ella es, usted es, nosotros somos, vosotros sois, ellos son, ellas son, ustedes son.)

Part 3: Verb conjugations are given out of order. For example, with the present tense of the verb SER, you may hear a sequence such as vosotros sois, yo soy, ustedes son, etc. Listen and repeat.

Part 4: Here’s where you test yourself. We give you the pronoun and you have to give the correct form of the verb for that pronoun. For example, you’ll hear the pronoun “YO“ and then you are supposed to say the correct form of the verb for that Spanish pronoun. After a brief pause for each pronoun, you will hear the correct response so that you can check your answer.

Part 5: Spanish audio verb drills for the Spanish subjunctive will include additional audio practice exercises of short phrases and sentences.

A full selection of Spanish audio verb drills will be available after May 7, 2009. Subscribe to this blog’s RSS feed or Email list to get updated on when they are available.

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!

Welcome to ReVerb Spanish!

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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!

Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:06 — 2.9MB)