For many English speakers learning Spanish, the phrase pasado mañana is one of those expressions that makes them stop and think: “Wait a second, why does it mean the day after tomorrow if pasado usually means past?” It looks like it should refer to something that already happened, but in Spanish it actually points to […] More
If you study Spanish long enough, sooner or later you will hear the words Fulano, Mengano and Zutano. These names don’t really belong to anybody, but they are used to talk about a person without saying the real name, or when the name is not important. For example, someone can say “Fulano me dijo que…” […] More
Almost 20 years ago we posted about -azo / -aza on SpanishNY. This is the updated version. In Spanish, this ending can mean bigger/awesome, or it can mean a hit/blow with something. There isn’t a perfect one-word match in English, so the best way is to learn it by examples. “Bigger / awesome” uses Spanish […] More
When English speakers learn Spanish, they are usually told that amanecer means sunrise. That is correct sometimes, but the truth is that in Spanish the word amanecer goes far beyond that. It is not only a noun, it is also a verb, and Spanish speakers use it in ways that simply do not exist in […] More
Learning Spanish can be a wonderful and challenging task. One of the most common difficulties for students is knowing when to use the verbs Ser and Estar. Both translate to “to be” in English, but they have very different uses in Spanish. Don’t worry, by the end of this post, you’ll have a clearer idea! […] More
Let’s say that you are taking an exam about Para and Por tomorrow and you need something quick to remember the most important points, you don’t want to just blindly guess the answers. The use of “por” and “para” in Spanish is a bit tricky, but there are some general rules that, in many cases, […] More
