Welcome to Vol. 11 of the Spanish Online Newsletter! Spanish lessons with mp3s, as well as links to Spanish speaking cities and more. Traveling to exotic places is one of the best reasons to learn Spanish! If you'd like to show support for our free newsletter, please consider buying one of our fun Spanish learning CDs (a basic guideline: if you spend several hours a week on our website - don't you think you'd enjoy having these lessons on audio CDs or interactive CD-rom?) ¡Qué disfruten!

Lesson of the Week: Past Tense Verbs - the preterite

From the Ay Cosita Linda Grammar Chapter

Here are the basic patterns for conjugating regular past tense
verbs: (for a refresher on present tense verbs, click here).

Spanish past tense verbs chart

One thing you need to remember about the regular past tense (also known as the preterite)—it is for activities that are COMPLETELY FINISHED. You are referring to 1 specific occurrence, not something that you were doing in the past, and not something you used to do. I DID it. I WENT snowboarding. I ATE pie. I SLEPT. For ongoing actions in the past, you use another tense called the imperfect, which we will study later. Practice saying these 3rd person samples below out loud:

cantar	cantó	sang
pagar	pagó	paid
comprender	comprendió	understood
volver	volvió	returned
ocurrir	ocurrió	happened
salir	salió	left

Click to hear an mp3

Worksheet/Activity: Past Tense Verbs

Quiz: Past Tense Verbs

buy the complete tutorial on CDs and book from Musical Spanish

Spanish Practice Idea:

Try reading a Spanish tabloid magazine with big pictures, either online or from a newspaper store. These magazines offer a great way to practice your reading skills, as the storylines are usually simple and the pictures help you to understand. Don't worry about vocabulary you don't know - try to read through the stories without looking words up in the dictionary. You'll be surprised by how much you understand!

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Travel Spot of the Week

Salta, Argentina

One of the oldest colonial cities in Argentina, located in the NW Andean region still populated by some of the only indigenous people found in Argentina. If you can avoid altitude sickness, the "tren de los nubes" or train of the clouds is supposed to provide breathtaking views. The region also gave rise to the vibrant folk music sung by artists such as Grammy winner Mercedes Sosa and 2000 nominees Los Nocheros. I was surprised at a music festival in Miami a few years ago to find that of all the incredible music shows I attended - the Argentine folkloric show was by far the most enchanting.

Spanish Learning Tool of the Week

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includes 8 Audio CD's and a 200 pg workbook

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