Most Common Mistakes in Spanish

Hola a todos! How are you? Welcome back to Spanish with Patri. Today, instead of telling you what to say, I am actually going to tell you what not to say in Spanish. Most common mistakes you are making in Spanish. Are you ready? Let's go! ¡Vamos! The first one is such a common one when you are translating from English. That is, when you're using the verb to be in English, but in Spanish you should be instead using the verb to have, to have. Tengo, tengo and not soy. For example, this especially happens when you're expressing your age. In English we say I am 30 years old, but in Spanish we would say Tengo 30 años. I have 30 years old. Remember, be careful with the pronunciation of años. We say años, not anos. All the phrases that you are messing up if you're using the verb to be instead of the verb to have, would be Tengo frío. I am cold. In English, I am cold. When you translate it wrong, you say Estoy frío. That doesn't make any sense. You need to say Tengo frío. I have cold. Same happens with calor. Tengo calor. I am hot. Tengo calor. Instead of saying, never say Estoy caliente. That means I am horny. What? Continue with Tener cuidado. To be careful. Tener cuidado. Tener hambre. I am hungry. I am very dangerous when I am hungry. Tener hambre. Tengo hambre, mamá. I am hungry, mom. Tengo hambre. Tengo sed. I am thirsty. Tengo sed. We do not say I am hungry, I am thirsty. We say I have hunger, I have thirst. Miedo. When you're scared. Tengo miedo. I am afraid. That's how we say it in English. Tengo miedo in Spanish. Tengo prisa. I'm running late. Tengo prisa. I'm always saying Tengo prisa. Tengo prisa is especially useful if they stop you in the streets of Spain and they want to sign you up for God knows what and you just you can't stop to talk to them. You say Tengo prisa. I'm always saying that. Tengo prisa or even worse pretending I don't speak Spanish. Oh no. Llego tarde. I am late. Tengo prisa. I am in a hurry. Tengo prisa. According to my husband, I say this one way too often and way too lightly. Tengo razón. I am right. Tengo razón. Tengo sueño. Tengo mucho sueño. I am very sleepy. I am sleepy. Tengo sueño. I have sleep. Tengo sueño. Tengo suerte. I think. Yo tengo suerte. I am lucky. I have luck. Tengo suerte. ¿Y tú? ¿Tienes suerte? So that's the first one. Expressions that in English we use with the verb to be and in Spanish we would use the verb to have. Be careful with that. Tened cuidado. We continue with the verb ser and the verb estar. It's very very common to confuse the two of them. I'm going to do a few quizzes on this so you get the gist of it. However, you know that ser is for more permanent things. That's how we teach it normally and estar is for more temporary things. However, there are so many exceptions. One that I hear wrong all the time is estoy aburrido versus soy aburrido. Estoy aburrido means you're bored right now. Estoy aburrido. Temporary. However, if you say soy aburrido, that means that you're boring. You're a boring person all the time. Be careful. Estoy versus soy. Moving on to la gente. People. La gente. You can also say las personas but I am focusing now on la gente. In English we say people are. However, in Spanish we would say la gente es. La gente es. People is. People is singular in Spanish whereas in English it's plural. Simple as that. I spoke about this one in another one of my videos. Occupations. In English when we are talking about occupations, we would say I am a teacher. Soy una profesora but in Spanish we never ever ever say that una. We always miss it. We always skip it. It's not there. It doesn't exist. We would say soy profesora. I am teacher. Soy ingeniero. I am an engineer. Soy médico. I am a doctor, etc. We don't use the indefinite article un or una for occupations. It's never there. So all you need is the verb ser again and your occupation. Soy plus whatever you do for a living. Soy doctor. Soy jardinero. You know the song, right? Yellow Submarine, right? In Spanish. If the Beatles had been Spanish that song would have been called Submarine Yellow. Submarino amarillo. Why? Because adjectives in Spanish almost always go after the noun instead of before like they do in English. It's the other way around. So for example the dress I'm wearing today it's not a pink dress. It's a dress pink in Spanish. Vestido rosa. Okay and last but not least this one can be quite confusing because in English you would never say I don't know nothing. At least if you've learned that properly in school you wouldn't use that. In English we don't do double negatives. In English we keep the balance. We do a positive and a negative or a negative and a positive. I'll explain what this means in a minute but just remember in English we keep the balance. In Spanish we don't. In Spanish we go all negative. All or nada. So what do I mean by this? We use double negatives in Spanish and what does that mean exactly? That means that there are a list of words that are positive, affirmative and there are a list of words that are negative. So whereas in English you would say I don't know anything. Don't being the negative. Anything being the positive. In Spanish we would say I don't know nothing. Don't being the negative and nothing being another negative. A double negative. In English you can say I don't have anything. Don't negative. Anything positive or I have nothing. Have positive. Nothing negative. That doesn't work in Spanish. In Spanish we would say I don't have nothing. That's our only option. We use double negatives. Don't negative. Nothing negative. No tengo nada. Does that make sense? So to sum it up in English if there is a no before the first you need an affirmative word after that. In Spanish if there is a no before the you need to continue with the negative words and you might be asking yourself okay great Patrick but how do I know what is an affirmative word? What is a negative word? I'll leave you the list over here. Affirmatives. Alguien. Somebody. Algo. Something. Algún. Alguna. Alguno. Somebody. Someone. Always. Siempre. También. Two. Those are the main ones. And the negatives you've got. Nadie. Nobody. Nada. Nothing. Ningún. Ninguno. Ninguna. No one. Nobody. Jamás or nunca. Never. And that is it. Those are your most common mistakes that I have spotted in Spanish. There are loads more that I will cover throughout the next lesson. So if you're enjoying this, if you're finding this useful, please don't forget to subscribe. Subscribete. Hasta luego chicos!