My Favorite Spanish Drill (Listening + Analysis)

Hey everybody Kiru Paul here. Welcome to the channel. In today's video, I'm going to be talking about learning strategies. You know, when you first start learning a language, you want to do it in the most effective way because you don't want to waste your time. And there's so many different schools of thought out there. Some folks are like, okay, you just need to drill on, you know, drill on the grammar, which that one's not very popular anymore. And now, you know, what's very popular is this comprehensible input. If I just expose myself to the language and like watch Spanish language television or movies, for thousands of hours without any other kind of explanation, I'm just going to pick up this language. I'm going to figure out the little patterns and be able to pop it in my Spanish and understand more and more. And then eventually I'll just speak the language. Now, in case you couldn't tell from my tone on that, I'm not a huge fan of just comprehensible input. Obviously you have to have input in the language, but I think it's really a multifaceted approach to learning Spanish. Now, the main way I think you should do it is to focus on patterns in the language. You can learn these little patterns to create your own sentences. You know, even sentences you've never seen or heard before, because Spanish is a very logical language. That's a big core when you start. And I teach in patterns. I have a video explaining patterns. I'll put a link to in the description. That's not what this one's about. I'm going to talk about the input part. In particular, one component that I think is very helpful to help people reach that next level in Spanish and move much faster than say, just plain old comprehensible input. Just watching shows. Okay. I knew that word. Okay. I think I know what's going on. Now, obviously you have to have exposure to the language to learn Spanish. And, you know, nowadays with so many resources, that's so easy to do. I'm going to be talking about one type of exposure that's going to kind of blend, you know, just mindless watching with really stunning patterns. And I call it input and analysis. You watch a video about something. Okay. Without subtitles, just a regular speed, kind of the comprehensible input kind of concept. But immediately afterwards, there is a detailed analysis of that video line by line, word by word. Now I'm not just going to spend the rest of the video explaining the concept. I'm actually going to show it to you so you can see exactly how it works. And if you like this type of drill, I invite you to join my private learning group, the Curu Spanish Crew. I have a lot of these over there. I create more on a regular basis because I just think it's such an effective learning tool. So it's going to work like this. You're going to watch a very short video. It's less than three minutes and it is at the B1 level. That's low intermediate. And even if you're not there, don't be like, Oh, I'm not going to watch Paul. It's exactly why I should watch. That is the minimum level you should be taking content in at, because that's what the world is operating at, at that minimum level. So when you're like, Oh, it's an A1 video or A2, don't waste your time. Go at least B1, but do some type of analysis after. Okay. I'm going to show you how this works. So settle in, get yourself a cup of coffee, pick up what you can. Don't use subtitles. Don't slow it down and stick around for the breakdown. All right. At the end, let's kick this thing off. My husband called emergency immediately. The paramedics got to the house very quickly. They asked me several questions and took my blood pressure. When they saw the numbers, they were all very worried. My blood pressure was at 220 over 140. Then they took me by ambulance to the hospital. There they did many studies and analysis for two days. The doctors wanted to make sure that I had not had a stroke or a heart attack. Luckily they did not find serious damage, but they told me that my blood pressure was extremely high and that I needed immediate treatment. Now I have to take many pills every day. I also have to check my blood pressure twice a day, once in the morning and once at night. From that experience, I try to rest more, eat better and not worry so much about the small things. The truth is, this experience made me understand that health can change from one moment to another. Now I am much more grateful for every day that I have with my family. So how did you do on that? Did you understand everything? If you did, that's fantastic. If you didn't, that's okay. Listening comprehension is one of the most difficult aspects of learning any language and it's going to take time. Now, if you didn't understand everything, I invite you to come back and watch and listen to that little segment in a month or so, and you're going to see real progress. Unless you're not doing anything to get better at Spanish, then you won't. But if you are, it's going to make you feel better because you're like, you know what? I got a lot on that second run. Now we're going to go ahead and go through the breakdown line by line. And I'm going to tell you that I do my breakdowns aimed towards those folks who are probably advanced beginners through mid-intermediate range. They're going to get the most out of my breakdowns. If you're a higher intermediate or advanced speaker, you're not going to get much out of my breakdowns. In fact, you're going to be like, they are way too detailed and you might as well just stop the video. But if you're in that other range, you're going to get a lot out of this. All right. Just what I do is I read through it and I start to point out, you know, why a particular area of grammar is used, if some vocabulary is interesting, and we're going to be building a lot on your Spanish. So feel free to take notes. Me llamo Rosa y tengo 55 años. My name is Rosa and I'm 55 years old. And you know, we say I have 55 years, not that I am 55 years. Hace unas semanas. A few weeks ago. This is something worth pointing out is using hacer with time expressions. Hace dos semanas. Two weeks ago. Hace un día. A day ago. It's a fantastic way to start a sentence. I had a very serious medical emergency. And one of the things I point out a lot when I go through my breakdowns, and by the way, if you pop over to the Curious Spanish Crew, there's a section under the classroom tab and it is listening comprehension story breakdowns. And that's what this is. All right. One of the things I like to point out is which form of the past tense I'm using. If you've been learning the past tense, you know, you're struggling between like preterite and imperfect a lot, trying to figure out which one to use. So I go through and explain that. We use the preterite for something that's seen as being completed at that point in the past. And the imperfect is for ongoing things in the past, like background information, weather, emotions, things like that, or actions that are going on in the background. Like they were dancing when I arrived. They were dancing, that would be imperfect. When I arrived would be the preterite. Okay. You'll get a feel for that as we go through. Here we have tener in the preterite. I had a very serious medical emergency. Now they're using the preterite here because they're just saying this occurred in the past. It's seen as finished. Sometimes your English can help you. If you were to say, I was having a very serious medical emergency, that's imperfect. I had a very serious medical emergency. Boom. Just a statement about something in the past. Preterite. Todo pasó muy rápido y todavía me siento un poco nerviosa cuando pienso en ese día. Everything passed. Pasó muy rápido. This is preterite, right? Just seen as talking about something that's already occurred in the past. And using pasar for like something happening is a great verb for that. Really easy. Y todavía, and still, me siento un poco nerviosa. I feel a little nervous. Another thing people will have trouble with is you can have just siento to feel and me siento, the pronominal reflexive form, and that confuses people. Use the non-pronominal form if you're talking about a noun, like siento el viento. I feel the wind. Just siento. And if you're talking about an adjective, right, in which we have nervous, then go back to that reflexive form. Me siento, and I would, since I'm a male, would be nervioso, and this is where a female is narrating this, so it's nerviosa. Un poco nerviosa. A little nervous. Cuando pienso en ese día. When I think about that day. Now, one thing I want to point out here is this is the verb pensar, to think, and sometimes I'm going to be just jotting things down. And some people are like, hey, can I, can I get a copy of this afterwards? And I kind of see it on the video, but I don't like download this thing afterwards. Sorry about that. Pensar is to think, but to think about something is pensar en. When you're learning your Spanish verbs, be sure to learn them with the appropriate preposition, especially if it's a preposition you did not anticipate like this. Pensar en is to think about. Esa mañana, that morning, estaba tendiendo la cama en mi habitación como siempre. I was making the bed in my room like always, como siempre. And you could have had yo in here so it's clear who that verb belongs to, but they didn't have it here in this story. And estaba is in the imperfect. And we're also talking about like the past progressive. So this is going on in the past. Hey, that morning I was making my bed. All right. We're setting the background. That's when we know we're going to be using the imperfect. De repente, de repente, suddenly. That is fantastic for your word list. Great way to start a sentence. Empecé a sentirme mal. I started to feel bad, right? All right. A couple of things I want to point out here. This comes from the verb empezar, to begin. And look, there's a preposition here, a, before the next verb. Sometimes we just drop in verbs. Sometimes there's a preposition. That's why we need to learn verbs with the preposition. And when we have a verb of beginning like empezar or comenzar, there's always going to be an a before that next verb. So here, empecé a sentirme mal. I started to feel bad. This is in the preterite, seen as being done at that point in the past. Even though, you know, the feeling bad might be ongoing, the beginning to feel bad occurs, right? And then that's it. You don't continue to begin something. So if you think of it that way, the preterite makes sense. So if you're struggling with beginning to do something, the preterite is normally your choice. Primero senti una presión fuerte en el pecho. First, I felt a strong pressure in my chest. And here it says in the chest. And that's because in English we like to use, you know, possessives, my arm, my hand, my head. And in Spanish, if it's very clear whose arm, hand, head you're talking about, it's more natural to just use a definite article and say the hand. Possessives you can still use, but normally if it's not clear, it's you. One exception might be when you talk about somebody's mind. A lot of times, a possessive is going to be with that. En mi mente. En su mente. Okay? So here we have first, primero senti una presión fuerte. So it's not sentirse, right? We have a noun following it, a strong pressure. So we did not use the pronominal form. I'll explain it in el pecho. De repente. We already know that one. It means suddenly, right? That's how we start to learn. You know, all day you should just be working in de repente. De repente me dio un fuerte dolor de cabeza. Suddenly. And in English we would say something like, suddenly I got, you know, a strong headache. In here, we're using dar. Like, suddenly it gave me a strong headache. They're using dar here. And it just kind of means I got that. You're going to be learning like little expressions, things like that. If you think that one's useful, maybe you're in the healthcare field, you might want to put that one down. There's different ways to talk about headache. I should do a video on that. También. Also. Me sentía mareada y débil. Now we're back to this reflexive, right? Pronominal form. Sentirse. I felt mareada. And if it was a male, it would be mareado. And this means like dizzy, you know, that whole, ooh, feeling. And if it helps you remember it, mar right here is the sea. So this is also what we use for seasickness and that kind of blah. So she's feeling this way and débil is weak. Pensé que tal vez era estrés y cansancio, pero el dolor seguía empeorando. Okay. So we had, just back up right here. She was feeling, you know, dizzy and kind of sick and weak. That's ongoing in the past. So it's imperfect. Pensé. I thought. That's just predicate. Because, and you're going to see that a lot with pensar, to think. And remember, pensar en is to think about, pensar by itself, to think. Pensé. I thought. Just in that moment, not ongoing. That perhaps, tal vez is perhaps. Era estrés. It was stress. And this is the imperfect because this is ongoing. So I thought, you know, it was stress because what am I talking about? How I'm feeling. That's ongoing in the past. Imperfect. O cansancio. Or just tiredness, fatigue. Pero. But. El dolor seguía empeorando. But the pain was continuing to get worse. But this is a useful thing for your Spanish toolbox is seguir. The verb means to follow. Plus the Spanish gerund means to keep doing something. I use this one a lot in the present tense. Let's mix it with what we just talked about with pensar en. Sigo pensando en. I keep thinking about, right? That en's important. Lo que dijiste ayer. What you said yesterday. So you see, when you're learning these little things in Spanish, like pensar en, they don't exist in a bubble. You start to go, okay, I can pop this in with other things I'm learning to make more complex sentences. Even sentences I may never have seen or heard before, but they will be correct because Spanish is such a logical language. Decidí acostarme en la cama porque sentía que no podía mantenerme de pie. We have used the verb sentir a lot in this one, start up here at the beginning. I decided to lie down. Acostarse is to lie down. It's starting with the preterite. And you're going to see this. It's a great way of great verb decidir. And you're going to be using it in that preterite a lot in the past tense. I decided to do something. Boom. That decision's made. So not I was deciding to do something. That helps you know. Decidí acostarme. I decided to lie down. En la cama. In the bed. Porque. Because. Sentía. I was feeling. Que no podía mantenerme de pie. So we're not feeling an internal like, you know, adjective or something. I was feeling that I couldn't, you know, mantenerme de pie is to maintain myself standing. So that is not going to be the reflexive here because we're not following it with an adjective. En ese momento. At that moment. And that's a really good one for your Spanish toolbox when you're telling stories. Llamé a mi esposo. I called my husband. And this is preterite, right? I called him. El vino rápidamente. He came quickly. Del otro lado de la casa. From the other side of the house. Okay. This is preterite. Seen as complete in the past. He came quickly from the other side of the house. Y se asustó mucho cuando me vio. And he got very scared when he saw me. Now, if you have questions about why the may's in front of the verb, those are all called direct and indirect object pronouns. I do have several videos on it that talk about what they are, how to use them, and where to put them in a sentence. They can seem really complex at first, but once you learn some simple rules, you'll be able to apply it pretty easily. Okay. There's only a few places it can be, depending how the sentence is set up. Yo apenas podía hablar porque me sentía terrible. There's sentir again. I barely was able to talk. And this is in the imperfect, so she's describing how she's feeling at that moment in the past. Because I felt terrible. Was feeling terrible, right? It's still ongoing in the past at that point in the story, so it's also imperfect. Mi esposo llamó a emergencias inmediatamente. My husband called emergencies and depending, I was going to put some numbers in there, like 911, but it's 911 everywhere. So we're just going to keep it pretty simple that way. So he called them, right? Preterite. Los paramédicos llegaron muy rápido a la casa. The paramedics arrived very quickly to the house. Preterite. Llegar. This one right here. You got to have that verb in your Spanish toolbox. Me hicieron varias preguntas. They asked me several questions. Now, one thing I want to point out there, hacer means to make or to do, but to ask questions to somebody is to make questions to them. So we say hacer preguntas. That's a good thing to note on your Spanish word lists or your flashcards or however you're studying the language, because Spanish may phrase things differently in English. So it's a good idea to, you know, think of these things very literally. You know, I'd always be like, so in Spanish, you know, you don't ask questions, you make questions. And another one is in Spanish, you know, you don't make decisions. You don't use hacer. You take decisions. Tomar decisiones. Just little things like that will really boost your Spanish. And that's why breakdowns like this are so useful. They can be really time consuming. I don't expect you to sit here in just one sitting and take all this in. You know, you can break it up over a few days. I don't know how I do it. Okay. Especially because my coffee's getting low here. Y me tomaron la presión arterial. And they took my blood pressure. This is preterite, tomar, right? This is what we'd expect. They took my blood pressure. There's a couple other ways we could have said it. Cuando vieron los números. When they saw the numbers. How do we know it's they? Well, we can tell by our verb conjugation. Also up here, we could tell because it's third person plural. Over here, hicieron same thing. Cuando vieron los números. When they saw the numbers. Todos se preocuparon mucho. Everyone got very nervous. This is also in the preterite. Mi presión estaba en 220 sobre 140. My pressure estaba in. We're using estar. Estar is used for temporary states or conditions. You know, your blood pressure can fluctuate. So we're using estar. And we're using it in the imperfect because it's ongoing at that point in the past. Estaba en. It was at. 220 sobre. Over. 140. 140. That's pretty high. Now, I will tell you that this story is based on a real event. This is something that happened to my wife very recently, and she spent a couple of days in the hospital. Scary situation, but it did inspire a story. So she's doing much better, folks. Doing much better now. Después me llevaron en ambulancia al hospital. Okay. Después is a word we can use for like later, or in this case, then when you were storytelling. Me llevaron. Llevar means to carry. They carried me in an ambulance to the hospital, and that is in the preterite. Allí, there, me hicieron muchos estudios. They did many studies to me. Y análisis and análisis durante los días. During two days. Los doctores. The doctors. And another way you can say that is los médicos. Because, you know, you can have a doctorate and not be a medical doctor. So you're going to hear people specify in certain countries, los médicos, because when I went to Colombia, like everybody seemed to have a doctorate, but none of them were actually medical doctors. So everybody had the title doctor. So I had to help narrow it down. Los doctores querían asegurarse de que no hubiera tenido un derrame cerebral, ni un ataque al corazón. There's a lot going on there. So the doctors wanted to be sure that. Asegurarse de que is to be sure of something. And this is where it's going to get a little bit more complex. So we have the doctors wanted to, this is ongoing in the past, make sure of that. And we think of these things as set phrases. Asegurarse de que, to make sure about something. Now, if it is your responsibility to make sure that something happens and you're going to take some action to make sure, that's going to be followed by the subjunctive. The subjunctive is a big part of Spanish I talk about all the time. Just think of it as a different set of conjugations that are triggered by certain constructions. And this is one of them. I recently released a PDF book that you can download of subjunctive triggers. This is one of the big triggers in there. Now, the subjunctive is a huge aspect to the language and you can easily get information overload. So not every subjunctive triggers in there. The thing would look like this and most of them you would never use anyway. What I did is simplify it so you can start using the subjunctive today. All right. You'll find a link to that in the description section. So back to this, they wanted to make sure that I didn't have un derrame cerebral, that is a stroke, ni nor un ataque al corazón, a heart attack. There's different ways you can also say heart attack, un infarto, por suerte, by luck. That is a great sentence starter. No encontraron daño grave. They did not find serious injury. This is preterite, pero me dijeron, but they told me que, that, and this is going to be in the preterite, seen as finished in the past, mi presión arterial, my blood pressure, estaba, was, see, it's imperfect. It's ongoing at that point in the conversation, extremadamente, extremely, alta, high, y que, and that, necesitaba tratamiento inmediato, and that I needed immediate treatment. There's different words for treatment. If you're going to get treatment, medical treatment, you're going to be using this one. Ahora tengo que tomar muchas pastillas todos los días. Now I have to take many pills every day, all the days. You'll see here, if you've taken my Spanish Master Course, which you can get the whole thing over in the Spanish, QRU Spanish Crew, it's one of the first constructions I talk about, is tener plus que plus infinitive is to have to do something. Don't try to translate that que, just think of it as a set formula, a set phrase. También, also, tengo que revisarme la presión dos veces al día. I also have to check myself, okay, that's why that me is there, it's a reflex, so I'm checking myself, la presión, the pressure, right, we're talking about blood pressure, dos veces al día, two times a day, and it's using a. So what you're saying is like two times to the day. Una vez, once, one time is what it says, en la mañana, in the morning, y otra, and the other, en la noche. And, you know, we're saying at night, but you've got to think more literally sometimes. They're going to say en la noche, in the night. Okay, got that. Desde esta experiencia, since this experience, trato de descansar más, I try to rest more. This is one thing I want to talk about right here, tratar de plus infinitive, and infinitive is the unconjugated form, you're just going to pop it in, is to try to do something. So what is she doing? Okay, trato de descansar más, I try to rest more, comer mejor, eat better, y no preocuparme, you can see these are still infinitives because it's still like we're attaching them to that expression here, trato de, y no preocuparme tanto por las cosas pequeñas, and not to worry so much about the little things, la verdad, the truth. Esta experiencia, this experience, me hizo entender, made me understand, and this construction and some similar ones is also covered in my subjunctive triggers book, que la salud puede cambiar de un momento a otro. So the truth, this experience made me understand that health, and they say the health, because when you talk about something as a whole, they use the definite article in Spanish, like you wouldn't say like, Catholicism is a religion, you'd say the Catholicism is a religion. See, just one little thing you got to learn and you're using it correctly. The truth is this experience made me understand that health can change from one moment to another. Ahora estoy mucho más agradecida por cada día que tengo con mi familia. I'm much more thankful, and if it was a male, it would be agradecido, for, por, cada día, each day, que tengo, that I have, con mi familia. Well, there you have it. That is the end of the breakdown. Hopefully you got something out of it, and if you're an absolute beginner, a lot of these things you're like, I just got clicking noises, Paul, like you sounded like a porpoise. I don't know. If I'm describing you, come back in a month or so, listen to it again. I guarantee you're going to pick up more if you've kept up with your Spanish, that is, and then watch the breakthrough again, if you can stand to watch it twice, and you're going to pick up even more things, because as you advance, you're like, okay, now that makes sense. I can see where that fits into what I've already learned. Well, that's it for this particular video. I don't know if you stuck around until the end, but I hope you did, and if you did, do me a favor, just give it a thumbs up, and until next time, hasta luego.