In the final episode of this season, Ben has a question regarding the verb soñar, meaning “to dream”. In English we dream “of” or dream “about” things, but in Spanish you normally dream “with” things! JP and Nayheli will explain all in the episode. We’ll also learn a little about “collocations” – where two words go together, like soñar con, asistir a, and other examples. Finally, Shazad has sent us a voicemail in which he asks about when you should use qué and when you should use cuál, and this is something learners often find difficult! As usual, JP and Nayheli will provide the answer with the help of some useful examples.

Don’t forget that if you have a question for Q&A Spanish, find out how to get in touch at the Q&A Spanish page. Remember that we welcome all questions, even if you’re just starting out with Spanish!

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This week JP and Nahyeli deal with Steve’s tricky question regarding leísmo, a feature of the Spanish spoken in Spain where the indirect object pronoun le replaces the direct object pronoun lo when talking about a masculine person. If this sounds a bit complicated, let JP explain everything in the recording! The second question comes from Richard and concerns the difference between hace, desde, desde hace and desde que! With the help of some excellent examples from Nahyeli, hopefully Richard’s question has been fully answered!

Don’t forget that if you have a question for Q&A Spanish, find out how to get in touch at the Q&A Spanish page. Remember that we welcome all questions, even if you’re just starting out with Spanish!

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Welcome to this festive edition of Radio Lingua News. In this update we’ll be telling you about the fantastic milestone we reached this week, and explaining how you can save 25% on our premium memberships until the end of the year.

100 million downloads

Early on Friday morning we clocked up our 100 millionth download. Over the past five years learners from around the world have downloaded our free language lessons and we’re delighted to have reached this amazing milestone. We’d like to thank all our listeners for continuing to enjoy our language lessons, and a special thank you to all our members who help to support all of our developments.

Winter sale now on

To celebrate this milestone we’ve launched our winter sale, so you can now get 25% off our memberships and premium versions of the courses. In most cases these premium versions include lesson guides in pdf or ebook format and extra audio or video content. All the courses available on our website can be purchased at this special reduced rate by using the coupon code winter2011 at checkout. The sale will continue until midnight on New Year’s Eve – or Hogmanay as we say in Scotland, so you still have almost two weeks to take advantage of these special prices, and get a head start on your language learning for 2012.

Update on current shows

The reaction to our new show for Spanish learners, Q&A Spanish, has been fantastic. We’re delighted that lots of you are now emailing us with your questions, or leaving voicemails so that we can include your questions in the show. JP and Nahyeli are enjoying answering your questions – even the difficult ones! If you’re learning Spanish and you’ve not yet listened to Q&A Spanish, you can find out more about the show, download the episodes, and find out how to contact us to ask your question at qandaspanish.com. We’re also really pleased with On Location French, our new video blog produced by Sophie in Paris. Sophie records her regular videos with a small camera and microphone all on her own in Paris and although we had some teething problems with sound, things are settling down now. She’s been including some really interesting phrases – and this week’s expression is a fantastic construction to add to your vocabulary! You can access On Location French on iTunes, Blip.TV or of course at onlocationfrench.com. Turning to our other courses, although we’ve had a delay with our new One Minute Languages series, we’re getting back on track and there will be new episodes out this week of our Dutch, Flemish and Arabic courses. As far as Coffee Break French is concerned, we’re now into the final eight lessons of Season 3 and in these episodes we’ll be going back through the texts used in this season and picking out some of the most important grammar points, then helping learners practise these constructions with a series of translation and dictation exercises. There will be lots of extra members-only content, so with our winter sale currently on, perhaps now is the time to take advantage of our special pricing.

Happy holidays!

Finally, we’d like to wish you all a very happy holiday season and hope that you get the chance to relax, spend time with your friends and family, enjoying everything that the festive season brings, and get the chance to work on your language – or put it into practice if you happen to be travelling! Don’t forget that you can join us in our Festive Phrases video series each day of December until the 25th to learn a festive greeting in a different language. Use the link on the home page of the Radio Lingua site to open each day of our linguistic Advent Calendar. Until the next time, happy holidays from everyone here at Radio Lingua!

In this latest episode of Q&A Spanish, JP and Nahyeli deal with two interesting questions. The first question comes from Anna and deals with the difference between ir and venir, specifically in the situation when you want to say “I’m coming”. The second question in this week’s show comes from Beth who wants to know how to say “if I were you”. JP and Nahyeli discuss the expression yo que tú and the more formal si yo fuera tú.

Don’t forget that if you have a question for Q&A Spanish, find out how to get in touch at the Q&A Spanish page. Remember that we welcome all questions, even if you’re just starting out with Spanish!

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We have a couple of great questions in this week’s episode of Q&A Spanish. Listener R Prince has asked us about how to translate “half” in Spanish. This depends on the situation, so let Nahyeli and JP help you understand exactly when to use la mitad or medio/a. Our other question involves a very interesting expression in Spanish which seems to challenge the logic of most English speakers… Linda wants to know exactly how the phrase ella llega hasta las seis works – and how it seems positive but is actually negative! All will be revealed in this week’s show!

Don’t forget that if you have a question for Q&A Spanish, find out how to get in touch at the Q&A Spanish page. Remember that we welcome all questions, even if you’re just starting out with Spanish!

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Do you get mixed up with aquí, acá, ahí, allí and allá? Thanks to Thomas’ question, this episode will help you sort out all of these little words and you’ll know exactly where to find things! Our other question this week comes from The Aviator who is asking about when to use este, ese and aquel.

Don’t forget that if you have a question for Q&A Spanish, find out how to get in touch at the Q&A Spanish page. Remember that we welcome all questions, even if you’re just starting out with Spanish!

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We’re running a bit late with Q&A Spanish this week – ¡lo sentimos mucho! This week JP and Nahyeli are dealing with an interesting passive construction: Amy has contacted us with a question about the expression se me perdieron las llaves. Learn to use the se pasivo and you’ll be able to avoid having to own up to losing things! This week’s other question comes from Dave and he wants to know about the word listo: when does it mean “ready” and when does it mean “clever”?

Don’t forget that if you have a question for Q&A Spanish, find out how to get in touch at the Q&A Spanish page. Remember that we welcome all questions, even if you’re just starting out with Spanish!

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In this week’s Q&A Spanish JP and Nahyeli deal with a couple of interesting questions about pronunciation and verbs. For learners starting out on their Spanish journey it’s difficult to work out how verbs work, especially because Spanish doesn’t tend to use the subject pronouns – the words for “I”, “you”, “he”, “she”, etc. The pronunciation question focuses on how the -ll- sound is pronounced in Argentina.

If you have a question for Q&A Spanish, find out how to get in touch at the Q&A Spanish page. Remember that we welcome all questions, even if you’re just starting out with Spanish!

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It’s time for another episode of Q&A Spanish from JP and Nahyeli. In this week’s show they’re focusing on pronunciation with rolling Rs! Vicki wants to know when to roll her R sounds. It’s easy enough to recognise the difference between e.g. pero and perro, but do you know whether the R of rojo should be trilled? Listen to today’s episode to find out! Rodney has a cultural question concerning the translation of “free refills” in Spanish. The answer to this question will vary around the Spanish-speaking world, and it gives us a great opportunity to look at interesting aspects of the language.

Do you have a question for Q&A Spanish? Find out how to get in touch at the Q&A Spanish page.

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JP and Nahyeli are back with another episode of Q&A Spanish. This week they’re tackling a question from Rachel who wants to know when to use hay instead of es and when to use hubo instead of fue. They explain this with lots of useful examples. The second question comes from Chris who wants to know if there’s a phonetic alphabet in Spanish for spelling names. Nahyeli and JP reveal all in episode 2 of Q&A Spanish.

Do you have a question for Q&A Spanish? Find out how to get in touch at the Q&A Spanish page.

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In this first episode of Q&A Spanish, JP and Nahyeli discuss the difference between the two expressions atrás and detrás de. They also talk about how best to address people in different parts of the Spanish-speaking world: when to use señora, señorita, señor, señorito and jóven.

Do you have a question for Q&A Spanish? Find out how to get in touch at the Q&A Spanish page.

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If you’re struggling with your Spanish and need some help, our new weekly Q&A show is just what the doctor ordered! Join teacher and language expert extraordinaire JP Villanueva and native Spanish speaker Nahyeli as they answer listeners’ questions. If you need some help yourself there are lots of ways to get in touch with us. Find out all about Q&A Spanish at the show’s main page.

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