Left – Izquierda
Right – Derecha
Up/Above – Arriba
Down – Abajo
Below – Debajo
Near – Cerca
Ahead/Forward – Adelante

La casa es debajo del panaderia. (The house is below the bakery.)

Vamos izquierda a la vaca cafe. (You go left at the brown cow.)

Torco a la derecha despues de restaurante China. (I turn left after the Chinese restaurant.)

El pajaro es abajo mi casa. (The bird is above my house.)

Hay un raton cerca de tu pie. (There is a rat near your foot.)

Abajo este calle. (Down that street.)

“Quisera un burrito de frijoles, arroz, lechuga y tomate. Y zanahorias tambien, por favor. Para llevar. Gracias”

“I would like a burrito of bean, rice, lettuce and tomato. And hot carrots too, please. To go. Thank you!”

I’ve always been somewhat shy to bust out Spanish (at least in CA), because I’ve always felt like people whose 1st language is Spanish are a part of this secret club that I don’t belong to. I’m joining your club damn it! Like it or not! Actually, I’ve found that when I speak Spanish, it surprises people at 1st and then they are really nice to me and are happy to help me learn, which is really cool.

I’ve been doing work service for San Diego county lately and there is almost always a communication gap between the men that speak only Spanish and the officers who speak only English, so I’ve been trying to help them communicate and it’s actually getting much easier for me. And then I bug the people that speak English and Spanish with questions all day:

“Como se dice spider en Espanol” (How do you say spider in Spanish?)

I found out that “spider” is araña in Spanish and araña is also commonly used for soft leaf rakes. Learn something new everyday, eh?

Cascada is “waterfall” in Spanish. It’s actually a small waterfall, a large waterfall is a “catarata”.

Example of how to use “cascada”:

En mi cumplea̱o, Stefan, Josh y yo fui a la catarata РOn my birthday, Stefan, Josh and I went to the waterfall.

Conjugations of “aprender” are:

Aprendo – I learn
Aprendes – You learn
Aprende – He/she learns
Aprendemos – We learn
Aprenden – They learn

Examples of how to use “aprender”:

Yo necesito aprender Espanol – I need to learn Spanish

Stefan y yo aprendemos Espanol juntos – Stefan and I (we) learn Spanish together.

Yesterdays word was Construir meaning; To construct
Yo Constuio una casa bonita en Rincon Puerto Rico: I am building a beautiful house in Rincon Puerto Rico

Stefan and I have both taken college Spanish courses, so l’m sure that we’ll be able to pick up Spanish pretty quickly, but I know it’s going to take some effort on my part to become fluent (which is my goal). I made some flashcards today of the 100 most common Spanish verbs and I’ve found this website to be very helpful. They even have internet terms in Spanish and English, which I’ll probably work on next.