Speed Spanish III

This lesson is a first introduction into what's usually referred to as the preterite tense. During this lesson and the ones that follow, you'll learn when and how to use the preterite and the imperfect when describing events that happened in the past, and you'll learn an assortment of time phrases that will help you reinforce your use of the past tense. When you're finished, you'll appreciate how the Spanish language carves up events and situations that have occurred in the past.

Throughout the course, you'll review what you learned in previous lessons, and in this lesson you'll practice a number of recipes that'll look familiar to you. Working with these recipes, you'll learn what it takes to transition smoothly from one recipe to another. When you've completed this lesson, your speaking and writing skills will be more polished than ever before because you'll know how to use transitional phrases.

The verb ser has peculiar verb forms, and in this lesson you'll learn those different forms framed up against its partner verb, estar. After practicing this lesson's helpful drills, you'll know when to use ser and when to use estar. Once you've done this, your next step is to learn the Fun Phrases associated with ser and estar. You'll also practice Recipes 1 through 4 and learn some extended verb forms. After this lesson, you'll know all there is to know about Recipes 1 through 4!

During the previous lessons, you've been learning and reviewing vocabulary while improving your pronunciation skills at the same time. This lesson is no different, but the focus will be on distinguishing the preterite from the imperfect tenses. When you're finished with it, you'll know the full range of Recipes 1 through 6, preterite and all.

This lesson will show you a few new verbs while you're reviewing Recipes 1 through 6. After that, you'll move on to an in-depth review of Recipe 7, which will give you options on how to package past events. Accompanying this lesson are practice drills designed to improve your ability to respond spontaneously in Spanish. You're now midway through the course, so you'll want to practice what you're learning here with native speakers of Spanish.

In this lesson, you'll go over the complete range of Recipe 7 and go through a few related exercises. You'll learn a number of commonly used short and crisp phrases that are associated with Recipe 7. You'll also learn how to apply Recipe 7 to hacer/dar/decir, verbs, which you need to know only because you'll be using them all the time. Besides learning more about Recipe 7, you'll also review Recipes 1 through 6. When you've completed this lesson, you'll feel comfortable using so-called irregular Spanish verbs, because you'll know the underlying pattern of these verbs.

Spanish has a flexible word order (with some constraints), and in this lesson you'll learn how and when you can change the word order around. You'll review Recipe 8, which you learned in Speed Spanish II, and you'll be introduced to Recipe 9, which is called the Se Habla Español recipe. Later, you'll review reflexives and then learn some new ones and run them through a number of recipes. Because this lesson is chock-full of material, you'll be busy with fun!

Remember in the first Speed Spanish course when you learned all about the particles, lo/la/me. Later in Speed Spanish II, you expanded on them. Now you've made it all the way to Speed Spanish III, and it's time that you learn the full range of particle usages. You'll learn how to incorporate these new particles into your conversations and, as always, you'll practice the recipes. Then, you'll learn a host of new verbs that you can use in your everyday Spanish conversations.

In this lesson, you'll review the recipe that produces would verb phrases and then learn its capacity to express probability. Besides learning more about Recipe 10, you'll learn a new recipe that will help you to express the future. This is Recipe 11. Because this lesson is building toward the subjunctive recipes, you'll also learn a number of phrases that can trigger the subjunctive. As you'll do in every lesson, you'll go over some new vocabulary words. You'll pay special attention to ser and ir in this lesson, too. When you're finished, you'll have completed Recipes 10 and 11.

The focus of this lesson, like all the others, is the recipes. You'll build on what you've learned in previous lessons by practicing Recipes 12 through 14. Laying the foundation for the subjunctive in the previous lesson, this lesson does the same and more so that you'll be prepared for the subjunctives recipes later on. After you finish it, you'll have learned Recipes 1 through 14.

If you've ever heard the phrase, Viva Las Vegas, you've made the first step toward learning the subjunctive. In this lesson, framed up against the memories of Señor Macías, Platero, and David Smith, you'll learn the present and past subjunctives. After you finish this, the final lesson, you'll have learned a total of 17 recipes that should help you speak fluent Spanish! You now have the tools you need to read, write, and say whatever you want. It's up to you now to seek out Spanish speakers. May your recipes be with you!