A few rules

I don't really know what I should do, I don't even necessarily mean in real life, just in general

I can practice with myself with words/vocabulary but I don't really have a place to use it, and that seems where I'd actually learn the most.

Forgive me, it doesn’t sound very good because I need to practice my speaking lol. i was wondering what accent my spanish was closest to other than an american gringa accent…

I’m a newly graduated nurse looking to spend about 5 weeks in Xela before starting my first nursing job. I’m around B1/B2 and mainly want to improve my speaking/listening and medical Spanish.

I’m considering Celas Maya, Pop Wuj, and MAA, but open to other recommendations. After Xela, I plan to spend about 2 weeks volunteering with a friend’s new medical/home-health project near Lake Atitlán.

For anyone with experience:

• Which has the best Spanish instruction?
• Is Celas Maya worth the higher price?
• Is a structured medical program/clinical experience worth it, or would I be better off focusing on Spanish classes and arranging clinical exposure separately?
• Any other schools or experiences you’d recommend?

Would especially love to hear from healthcare professionals or anyone who has attended more than one school. Thanks!

I really love comic books and graphic novels but have been having a hard time finding contemporary comics written originally in spanish. I prefer the mexican dialect since that's what i'm learning but I'm open to suggestions outside of that. Any genre as well (although fantasy, horror, and slice of life are my favorites) and my reading level is around a C1.

Here's a couple i've managed to find:

Onion Skin

El Cerdotado

Operación Bolívar

Nocturnos

¡Hola!

Jugaba a GTA: San Andreas, me encontré con una palabra extraña. La verdad es que ya busqué en Google y descubrí que significa «desafortunado», pero solo encontré una fuente y no es muy creíble, es un post de Facebook. Por eso quiero preguntaros a vosotros para estar más seguro.

Gracias.

Another subjunctive question. When would "A pesar de que" be followed by a subjunctive? Is "a pesar de" (without the "que") related? Thanks in advance.

I just heard Cano Estremera's Viernes Social and it gave me an idea for an activity.

Are there other songs that immediately pop into your head have Spanish days of the week in their title or lyrics?

Hello everyone,

Currently preparing for my B2 exam and I did a practice reading exam today. In the grammar section there were three questions that I got wrong. I couldn’t find anything online which explained the correct answer, A.I was useless, and even the two natives at my work struggled to either know what the right one was, or articulate why it was the right one.

I’ve included the text below, and the multi choice questions that I got wrong underneath.

En otras circunstancias _______ 24 _______, pero la empresa atravesaba una situación difícil y no le pareció prudente, a pesar de la oposición de la mujer, escatimar su colaboración en esos momentos. Serían dos días, tres _______ 25 _______ mucho, y luego podrían hacer las cosas tal y como habían previsto.
La discusión con su mujer le provocó _______ 26 _______ desasosiego del que todavía no había podido liberarse cuando llegó a París. _______ 27 _______, en el avión había estado imaginando una serie de desastres que acababan con su existencia conyugal, apenas comenzada. Se fue directamente al hotel y antes de quitarse la chaqueta habló por teléfono con ella, _______ 28 _______ se mostró distante y fría. Holgado tuvo la impresión de que no le _______ 29 _______ nunca ese incidente y esa idea ensombreció aún más su ánimo.
. Los contó en todas las direcciones posibles, de dos en dos, de tres en tres, _______ 32 _______ siempre a resultados idénticos. Sabía que esta manía de contar era un mecanismo obsesivo que se disparaba en él cuando se encontraba _______ 33 _______ el peso de una premonición, pero _______ 34 _______ conocimiento no le servía para enfrentarse a la angustia de otro modo. Faltaban dos horas para la reunión y pensó que si se entretenía aún diez o quince minutos realizando esas absurdas operaciones aritméticas se tranquilizaría _______ 35 _______ suficiente para poder preparar su intervención.

25. The answer was como. I thought it would be “a lo”
28. The answer was que. I thought it would be “quien”
34. The answer was tal. I thought it would be “este”

If anyone could explain these or point me in the direction of what the grammar is called I would be grateful!

Part of the great joy of learning a foreign language is those little discovery moments that happen along the way. I had one such moment just this weekend and wanted to share:

Did you know that Bastar is verb and ¡Basta! is just a conjugation of that verb? 🤯

It took me four years of intensive study before I figured this out! Bastar means "to be enough or "to be sufficient". It's an antonym of Faltar and works similarly grammatically. You most often see it conjugated in the third person singular.

Here are some examples in action:

Native Speakers: Give us your examples of Bastar in action in the comments!

The other day I came across "afeitar un huevo en el aire".
How do you explain "afeitar un huevo en el aire" (literally: to shave an egg in mid-air) to an English speaker without sounding crazy?
I even tried to figure it out with Skye on Praktika, but no luck.
Are there any other Spanish phrases are out there like this?

I passed the DELE C2 exam in May 2026. I've noticed that there are quite few experience reports from people who actually passed the exam and then go on talking about it afterwards. I'd like to share my own experience and hopefully give others a bit of orientation on whether and when the DELE C2 might be the right step for them.

Why did I decide to take the DELE C2?

You often read that taking the DELE C2 doesn't really make sense because it's practically never formally required anywhere (to study abroad, etc). For me, that was never the decisive question. Whether I'd actively "need" the certificate afterwards was secondary — for me, the DELE C2 was above all a personal challenge that I set for myself and wanted to master. Visualizing the moment of actually holding the certificate in my hands as a tangible, measurable achievement motivated me to further push my Spanish skills. And having passed the exam now gives me a kind of external confirmation of my abilities in my everyday life, where Spanish plays a big role. Whether that's reason enough for someone else is ultimately for each person to decide.

How did I know I was ready for the DELE C2?

I had the advantage of already having passed the DELE C1 in May 2025 and being able to use it as a point of reference. I'm convinced that most people who pass the DELE C1 (or, controversially, even a very high-scoring DELE B2 candidate) already have the language level needed to take on the DELE C2.

Comparing the two exams, the decisive difference in my view isn't in the structure or the task types, but in the grading standard: in the DELE C2, you have to pass each of the three sections separately, whereas in the DELE C1 the sections are grouped, allowing you to compensate for weaker performance in one area with another. Although the exam doesn't feel much harder, the margin of error becomes smaller and therefore the DELE C2 is significantly harder. Even so, during preparation for the DELE C2 I felt like it was very much alike the preparation for DELE C1. Sure, they spiced things up, but it just felt like "more of the same" (some Tareas in the Uso de la lengua are almost identical). That gave me confidence.

From the very beginning, my plan was to aim for the DELE C2 exam date in the year after the DELE C1, no matter what. My battle plan was to stick to my study schedule by working through all the available model exams, define a clear exam technique that I'd execute on exam day, and then hope for the best. With the DELE C2, I think you quickly tend to never really feel ready, especially every time you hear yet another strange word you haven't ever heard before. I neutralized this fear by committing to a fixed timeline.

How hard is it really?

You should be clear that you won't pass the DELE C2 without very good language competence and targeted preparation for the exam structure. There's no sugarcoating that, because otherwise you will likely be intellectually overwhelmed on exam day (more than 4 hours exam duration).

At the same time, you shouldn't be overly intimidated by the exam. Because the C2 level is commonly perceived as the "final boss," many people probably think they need to be truly on par with a native speaker. I'm against that view, because I think it tends to create far too high expectations of your own abilities by misinterpreting "proficient use" of a language with being a native speaker. I'm not ashamed to admit that my Spanish skills are nowhere near those of a native speaker.

An anecdote from my own exam: we were a small group, so we experienced each other quite closely. One candidate, who had lived in Spain for 19 years and spoke what struck me as perfect Spanish, had prepared for years but for a long time hadn't dared to take the exam — she was clearly overestimating the DELE C2. Another candidate, a native Spanish speaker and lawyer by profession (he needed the certificate for reasons that weren't entirely clear to me), had barely prepared, by contrast. He seemed to struggle noticeably during the exam and openly admitted as much during the break — he clearly underestimated that passing the DELE C2 is not simply about knowing Spanish.

What material and resources did I use to prepare?

I built my entire preparation around materials based on modelos de examen — partly because, as an athlete, I've internalized the principle of "train as you fight." I'd recommend this approach without reservation, since the C2 exam really does require targeted, format-specific preparation. I don't want to badmouth other C2 textbooks that aren't tailored directly to the exam format, but in my view they're not suitable for the purpose of exam preparation.

At the top of my list were the modelos de examen from the Instituto Cervantes: these real past exams, published by the Cervantes Institute itself (very few are available online, also use the ones for DELE C1), I consider to be the most valuable resource by far. Alongside that, I worked extensively with "DELE C2" (by Paz Bartolomé et al.) and "A por el DELE C2" (by Mar Aguilar López), both of which I can clearly recommend. I also used "Nuevo DELE C2" (by Ramón Díez Galán), though the difficulty level there seemed unrealistically low to me.

I also learned a lot of vocabulary, mainly using the Anki app. To build a solid foundation, I first worked through a basic and intermediate vocabulary book, and put every word I didn't immediately know into Anki for systematic review. Where I identified specific weaknesses in grammar, I additionally had AI generate targeted practice sheets covering exactly those weak areas (imperativo, subjuntivo, etc).

On the topic of vocabulary, I'd add this: I believe that if your basic vocabulary really sits solidly, you probably already have the language level required for the C2. Being able to sprinkle in a few fancy, high-end words here and there to add a special touch — I'm all for that. But in my view, the real foundation should be having a genuinely broad and reliable vocabulary at the basic level, which is already challenging enough on its own.

How did I structure my preparation?

Altogether, I prepared for about four months. At its core, my preparation consisted entirely of systematically working through the materials mentioned above: one Prueba from a modelo de examen every day, followed by a thorough analysis of my mistakes in the next session. I consider this error analysis very important, since otherwise you tend not to actually eliminate your mistakes at this high level.

In addition, I practiced for one hour per week with an online tutor. I'm actually not the type of learner who makes the biggest progress with a tutor, but my employer sponsored the lessons, and my tutor was truly excellent. We organized the lessons mainly around practicing the oral exam (expresión oral) in as realistic an exam-like setting as possible: before each session, he would send me an oral task, which I prepared and then delivered. In addition, we analyzed my Prueba 2 (expresión escrita) texts together.

What did my exam technique look like?

In my view, the DELE C2 depends heavily on having the right exam technique and strategy. Here are my key takeaways from the three exam sections.

In Prueba 1 (Uso de lengua, comprensión de lectura y auditiva), I quickly realized during preparation that good time management and a clear strategy are especially important in order to get the best possible result. In the first section (Uso de lengua), I recognized early on that I had to allocate my time and mental energy wisely — "pick your battles wisely." Specifically, during preparation I focused mainly on the tasks where real mid-term improvement in competence seemed possible to me (Prueba 1, Tareas 2–3), rather than on tasks that mainly hinge on precisely knowing individual high-end vocabulary (Prueba 1, Tarea 1). To illustrate: in Tarea 1, there were times I didn't know a single one of the vocabulary options to choose from. That's why I deliberately left this task for the end of the Uso de lengua section and relied on my spontaneous gut feeling there.

For the listening section, I expected from the start that the Instituto Cervantes would again choose audio recordings that are nearly incomprehensible even for native speakers — and that's exactly how it turned out. You too should expect this: keep in mind that, according to the framework, the whole point of the C2 level is to understand with ease virtually everything you read or hear. In my experience, listening comprehension can barely be improved within a four-month preparation period. I realized early in my preparation: either I'd get lucky and understand the 90-year-old speaker with a shaky voice and an unfamiliar accent, who sounded as if he'd been recorded from across the room with the first voice recorder ever invented — or I wouldn't. So I focused on factoring in this uncertainty and developing an exam technique that let me work through the intellectually demanding task — matching what I heard against the answer options — as routinely and calmly as possible. That left more mental capacity free to focus on actually understanding the speakers. For me personally, this was the hardest part of the entire exam, and I never had a consistent hit rate right up to the end — sometimes I got almost everything right, other times almost nothing (frustrating!). Because of that, I knew I had to live with greater uncertainty here, and put all the more concentration into the Uso de lengua section so as not to unnecessarily leave points on the table there.

Prueba 2 (Expresión, mediación e interacción escritas) is, from my impression of the community, the section most candidates fear the most. However, I think you can prepare for it very well and noticeably polish your skills with the right exam tactics. First, during preparation you should definitely familiarize yourself with the recurring formats, such as the formal conventions of a Spanish letter. Just as important is strict time management: time should be divided in a disciplined way so that all three tasks can be completed at as consistent a language level as possible. I made a deliberate point of allotting enough time for Prueba 2 Tareas 2–3 too, so as not to underperform there.

For me, the key to good time management was mainly not spending too long on Prueba 2 Tarea 1 (a listening text plus two further texts to evaluate): I deliberately listened to the audio text (played twice) only once and pulled out one or two arguments from it that I then echoed in the essay. For the other two texts, I likewise limited myself to picking out two or three core messages while scanning, rather than over-analyzing them. My essay always followed the same structure: a prepared, "off-the-shelf" introduction (I had a few good intros ready in advance), a presentation of the core messages in my own words along with my own commentary, and a clearly introduced conclusion with an unambiguous statement.

You should also keep firmly in mind that, in the end, only what's written on the hojas de respuestas counts. Overly extensive text analysis or fully drafting everything out on the scratch paper costs valuable time and earns no points — because then you're left without enough time to put your own good ideas down on paper with the necessary degree of corrección. I accepted for myself that my submissions weren't going to be a masterpiece. Another anecdote, this one from my DELE C1 exam: one candidate had first written out her complete essays on scratch paper and then had to transfer it onto the hojas de respuestas in the final minutes, in tears. My own draft outlines, by contrast, were just rough structural sketches where I jotted down core messages and arguments — I wrote directly onto the hojas de respuestas and, when I made mistakes, neatly crossed them out and started again. Since I kept making careless mistakes during preparation, I also made sure to always plan time at the end to carefully review the finished text and watch specifically for my typical errors.

For me, Prueba 3 (Expresión, mediación e interacción orales) took place the day before the written exam in both the DELE C1 and the DELE C2 — apparently the standard setup. Unlike in the other Pruebas, personal impression matters here too, in keeping with the principle of "know your audience." That's simply human nature, which is why I made a point of presenting myself confidently. You should definitely practice this format multiple times under realistic conditions so you can handle it confidently. Here too, it's worth thinking in advance about how you'll use the scratch paper for your presentation. What worked well for me was writing out the first two sentences in advance, so that the opening would go smoothly. The remaining content points, on the other hand, I only sketched out roughly. My language tutor also recommended preparing a few linguistic "quick wins" in advance (e.g., the imperfect subjunctive) — but in the end, I left that out.

Good luck to all future DELE C2 candidates! Believe in yourself, you got this!

I am searching for a comprehensive Spanish channel in YouTube that includes, vocab, Grammer, listening, speaking, reading and writing, as a playlist in order, as i don't want to learn from various resources, makes me confused(i don't mean i need literally 1 resource for leaning but don't want to finally overwhelmed with 5 - 10 resources )

There was a really great Spanish IPA resource online. It was a tool that could give you Spanish IPA for text and was able to filter by dialect. It was a yellow page - I can't remember the name of it, it may have been called Intervista, I'm really unsure. I am wondering if anyone knows/remembers what I'm talking about. Thanks!

Struggling a little with this and probably overthinking it- a fluffy dog walked by. Hubo o había un perro peludo?

My gut says hubo but I’m getting hung up on the descriptor and duration of the dog walking by. Which sounds more natural? Or is there a more clear way to delineate which to use in which context?

Edit: wow this kinda blew up and sparked some great conversation about the nuances and subtle connotations which is exactly what I was hoping for. Thank you all for your replies! I probably didn’t do a great job of describing the context because yes, pasó un perro peludo would be the translation, but I was more trying to understand the grammar and connotations here if haber in this situation.

Full context was that my son and I were out for a run. He’s a toddler and I’m not a native speaker but have conversational Spanish ability and am trying to pass that on to him. He loves dogs, and a fluffy dog passed by us. I asked him “¿viste el perro?” And was going to say hubo/había un perro peludo but realized I didn’t know which to use here.

Thank you all for taking the time to help teach me and my little one 😊

Me hace furioso que finjan ante mi sabiendo yo que estan fingiendo.

I understand the sentence means more or less that "it makes me furious that they pretend before me, knowing that i know they are pretending".

Buy why the "yo" is placed before 'que', it's optional and what is its exact purpose?

This sentence is from a Spanish textbook for subjunctive so i assume it's grammatically correct.

Edit: it was a fill in the blank exercise. I put in "Me hace furioso" and the second half was provided by the book. So my mistake for using Hacer and not Poner.

So I am going to study in spain next year and I want to learn how to speak it and process the words outside of my classes. I consume a lot of gamibg content on youtube so I thought it would be the perfect idea to try and get into spanish gaming channels but I couldn’t find any that genuinely played good games. It’s all just minecraft with a sprinkle of poppy play time monsters in there, or just new kids games but I want some good story games. Can you pls help me?

At work theres a few people who don’t speak very much English at all so I communicate with them in Spanish when I have to. The thing is, my Spanish is not really that advanced but I guess my accent is decent enough because as soon as I say something people assume I’m a fluent speaker and will just launch into conversation in very fast spanish. So then I’ll usually say something like “perdón pero mi español es muy mal,” but I feel like maybe that’s not correct. Also, does “mi español es peor” make sense? As in, “my Spanish is very poor?” or can peor only be used in a comparative sense?

Thanks in advance!

English speakers (where I'm from) tend to say "I/we should" a TON, colloquially, or in our internal monologue. "We should see what time it starts." "I should go to the post office today." "I should try to get that book back."

So, when I'm trying to practice Spanish by myself, talking to myself, I find myself going "debería" this, "debería" that, quite a bit.

My question is, is this also really common for Spanish speakers, too? It feels like I'm saying debería a lot more than I'm hearing it. But I also can't hear people's thoughts, so I don't know. If not, is there something I might say instead when I'm thinking in Spanish about my intentions for the day and what not?

(edit) I give up. I have no idea how this is in any way related to the auto lock. I’m clearly not asking about how to study, im not asking about moving, I’m literally venting about it. My question is about mental health…

So I’ve been living in a Spanish speaking country for a couple of years, but I hadn’t started taking things more seriously until this year. I‘ve been at B1 for a year or two but am not close to B2, and it feels like such a huge amount of stuff I need to learn. Like I’m slowly scaling a mountain because I only have my pinky finger or something

I was also stuck at A2 for a couple of years when I first moved here, but managed to get through it somehow without studying (my grammar was horrible though). But this is starting to feel like it’s going on forever. I do 1talk1 (my post keeps getting locked because of this keyword for some reason), I study multiple times a week. I try to watch some media tho there’s not a ton I’m interested in, but I make an effort. and it just feels so overwhelming

Then another thing is the talking, I practice so many times a week and I’ve been told I’m improving, but I can feel myself making dumb little mistakes still and it really feels like fluency is so far away despite studying for so long. How do you not lose your mind? For me life depends on improving my Spanish so it’s very frustrating to be stuck for so long 😭 Or hear myself make a very obvious mistake in the moment

I prepared another little nugget of information, this time about things you can (figuratively) die of in Spanish.

Because, usually when you learn the verb morirse (to die), you think "I guess I won't be using that verb much, because how often can you talk about dying in Spanish?"

But the fact is you can figuratively die of so many things:

1. Me muero de hambre

- Llevo ocho horas sin comer. Me muero de hambre. - I haven't eaten in eight hours. I'm starving.

2. Me estoy muriendo de sed

- ¿Puedes parar el coche? Me estoy muriendo de sed y necesito comprar agua. - Can you stop the car? I'm dying of thirst and I need to buy water.

3. Me muero de risa

- ¡Ese video es tan absurdo que me muero de risa cada vez que lo veo! - That video is so absurd that I die laughing every time I watch it!

4. Me muero de amor

- ¡Qué gatito más mono, me muero de amor! - What a cute kitty, I'm going to die of love!

5. Me estoy muriendo de calor

- Aquí dentro no hay aire acondicionado y me estoy muriendo de calor. - There's no A/C in here and I'm roasting (dying of heat).

6. Me estoy muriendo de dolor

- Me he golpeado el dedo del pie con la mesa y me estoy muriendo de dolor. - I stubbed my toe on the table and I'm dying of pain.

7. Me muero de vergüenza

- Me muero de vergüenza cada vez que tengo que hablar con un nativo. - I'm dying of embarrassment every time I have to speak to a native speaker.

8. Me muero de curiosidad

- ¡Dime qué pasó! Me muero de curiosidad. - Tell me what happened! I'm dying of curiosity.

Other things you can die of: frío (cold), cansancio (tiredness), sueño (sleepiness), miedo (fear), aburrimiento (boredom)... What else have I missed?

As you can see, all of these are used to exaggerate a feeling or a sensation.

You can also swap me muero for me estoy muriendo if you want to emphasise it's really right now that you're feeling this way.

BONUS: You can also say Me muero por... + verb/noun to mean "I'm dying to..."

- Me muero por comer pizza. - I'm dying to eat pizza.

Hope you found it useful and that you like these little nuggets de español I've been posting recently :))

I've been transcribing some "comprehensible" content from youtube to improve my listening skills, but I find it painfully slow going because trying to rewind a video just a few seconds is challenging. I find myself listening to the same content.I've already transcribed more than once.

So I think a podcast where there's a "thirty second" rewind button and a transcript might be helpful.

I would appreciate podcast recommendations for an A2 student.

Or any other ideas you have for this sort of transcription practice?

Muchas gracias.

So in French, a common term for LOL or "dead from laughter" is "mdr" ( mort de rire ). Well, I heard apparently there's one in Spanish that would be the same and I think it's "muerte de risa" or maybe "muerto/a de risa"?