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Say Hello to PeppyBurro!
Your favorite Spanish learning site has a new home now.

Dictionary, contextual examples, conjugations, flashcards, proficiency test...you name it! Whatever you need, PeppyBurro's got you covered. Go check it out now – That's where all future articles are going to appear anyway!

Visit PeppyBurro.com now


The big red book – the biggest EVER written – of vocabulary sorcery is here!!

  • Core Vocabulary: Learn only words that matter

  • Word Association: Learn in seconds, not days

  • Tricks & Mnemonics: Let your memory surprise you

  • Dialects & Colloquialism: Tailor your Spanish for the streets

Learn more

 Latest Articles

AlwaysSpanish is Retiring!

After a long awkward silence, here's something to break the ice – all over again. I can totally see why you should be upset to see no action from the Burro for over a month now, but trust me, your wait was all worth it. The news here is that your beloved Burro has just moved into a brand new home – one that's a whole lot richer, swankier, and easier to live in. I'm talking about PeppyBurro. That's the name of the new website! Isn't that cool? At least it tells you all about the Burro's pepped up temperament right off the bat, right? This post is not about Spanish-learning tricks (although I will drop in a couple out of habit, I guess) or grammar lessons. This one's all about our new home!

The Witchcraft Of Spanish Vocabulary

The very first step to conquering a language is to tame its vocabulary. And sadly, that's the part that puts off most novice learners because memorizing strange-sounding words is too darn boring! A never-ending chant of rote rehearsal and a nervous prayer can see you through an upcoming test, but the process just won't cut it if your goal is to actually use the language in the street. It's a mystery how this incredibly inefficient method has survived this long and still continues to be perpetuated by schools and educators around the world. So is there any nirvana around this assault of monotony in our miserable lives? Anything that could make learning foreign words less painful?




IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: Always Spanish has retired. Please visit the new blog at PeppyBurro.com for all future articles.

Making Sure The Burro Is Welcome In Your Inbox!

Whoa! I just wrote a long farewell post to less than 2 days ago announcing it to be the last you hear from AlwaysSpanish. And yet here we are! Well, that post was indeed meant to be the last and if you’re subscribed to our new blog at PeppyBurro, you’ve probably even received the first newsletter over the last few hours. So why bother confusing you with yet another post on a retired site, i.e. Always Spanish? Well, being a brand new site with hardly any prior interaction with you all, PeppyBurro is still a tad shy and needs your help ensuring it doesn’t get treated as a complete stranger.

When you receive an email from someone who has never written to you before, oftentimes your email server treats that sender with a certain amount of suspicion and for all the right reasons. Although PeppyBurro is committed to never spam or engage in any activity that even remotely resembles spam, your email overlords don’t know this. Somebody’s gotta vouch for the Burro to them which is where your help comes in. In order to continue serving you the way you’re used to being served, the Burro needs your help ensuring its messages don‘t get dumped in your Spam or Junk folder.

How to ensure a seamless delivery

In order to prevent getting tagged as Spam by your email server, please take a minute to whitelist important PeppyBurro email addresses. Whitelisting senders you trust is a fairly quick and simple process no matter what service you’re on. Depending on the email program you use, here are the instructions to add us to your address book, safe sender list, or whitelist.

AOL

  • Log into your account and click the “Settings” link.
  • On the “Settings” page, select “Spam Settings.”
  • Choose “Allow mail only from addresses I specify” on the drop-down menu.
  • Enter “newsletter@peppyburro.com”.
  • Click the “Add” button to add us to your sender list.
  • Click “Save” to save your changes.

Gmail

  • Open the email in your inbox.
  • Hover over the sender’s name.
  • Click “More” in the pop-up box.
  • Select “Add to contacts” to save our email address to your Contacts list.
You can also whitelist in Gmail before opening the email:
  • Hover over the sender’s name next to the subject line in the inbox.
  • Click “More” in the pop-up box.
  • Select “Add to senders” to save to your Contacts list.

Yahoo

  • Log in to your account and click the “Options” link.
  • Select “Mail Options from the drop-down menu.
  • In the “Options” tab, select “Filters” from the left menu.
  • Click the “Add Filter” button in the top bar.
  • Type a name for your filter in the “Filter name” field.
  • Select “contains” in the “sender” drop-down menu.
  • Type “newsletter@peppyburro.com” in the “sender” text field.
  • In the “Move to Folder” drop-down menu, select “Inbox.”
  • Click the “Save Changes” button in the top bar to save the filter.

Apple Mail

  • In the “Preferences” window, click the “Rules” icon.
  • Click the “Add Rule” button.
  • In the “Rules” window, type a name for your rule in the “Description” field.
  • Use the following settings: “If any of the following conditions are met: From Contains.”
  • Type “newsletter@peppyburro.com” in the text field beside “Contains.”
  • Select “Move Message” and “Inbox” from the drop-down menus.
  • Click “Ok” to save the rule.

Outlook (2003 and above)

  • Right-click on the message in your inbox.
  • Select “Junk E-mail” from the menu.
  • Click “Add Sender to Safe Senders List.”

Thunderbird

  • Open the email message.
  • Click the blue star next to the sender’s name and address to add them to your address book.

Windows Live Mail

  • Click the Windows Live Mail icon in the top left corner of the window.
  • Select “Options” in the menu.
  • Click on “Safety Options” in the next menu.
  • In the “Safety Options” window, click the “Safe Senders” tab.
  • Click the “Add” button.
  • Enter “newsletter@peppyburro.com” in the new window that pops up.
  • Click “Ok” to add sender.
  • Click “Ok” in the “Safety Options” window to save your changes.

Android

  • Open the email in your Gmail app.
  • Tap the contact icon to the left of the sender’s name and email address.
  • Tap on “Create new contact” at the top of your Contacts list.
  • Enter PeppyBurro Newsletter in the “First name” field.
  • Enter “newsletter@peppyburro.com” in the “Email” field.
  • Tap the “Save” button.

iPhone

  • Tap the sender’s name in the “From” line.
  • On the next screen, tap “Create New Contact.”
  • On the third screen, tap “Done” to save the address.
The most common way to whitelist an address is to add it to your address book, white list, or safe list.  There is no universal way to whitelist an address, so if this is not an option, you will have to consult the help section associated with your email application.  They should have instructions on how to whitelist an address there.

Hope this helps. Looking forward to having you on board over at PeppyBurro and showing off our shiny new toy to you. Now this one really is the last email you’re receiving from Always Spanish, I promise. Thank you for your time and see you soon!

Always Spanish is Retiring!

After a long awkward silence, here's something to break the ice – all over again. I can totally see why you should be upset to see no action from the Burro for over a month now, but trust me, your wait was all worth it. The news here is that your beloved Burro has just moved into a brand new home – one that's a whole lot richer, swankier, and easier to live in. I'm talking about PeppyBurro. That's the name of the new website! Isn't that cool? At least it tells you all about the Burro's pepped up temperament right off the bat, right? This post is not about Spanish-learning tricks (although I will drop in a couple out of habit, I guess) or grammar lessons. This one's all about our new home!

Six Words That Rule The Streets Of Mexico

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Having more Spanish speakers than any other country on the planet, Mexico naturally holds the lion’s share in vernacular creativity. Mexican slang lexicon is not only matured and complex but also as colorful and diverse, if not more, as any of its counterparts. Given the proliferation of Mexicans in not only entertainment but rather every aspect of life and trade in the Western world, we already enjoy a healthy exposure to its slang vocabulary. Although an exhaustive study of any country’s colloquialism would be overkill, learning some of the most common expressions is mighty fun and useful. Here, we explore six of them from Mexico.

So Many Ways “To Pull” In Spanish!

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Languages don’t always work in predictable ways. They have rules and they break their own rules. They have more than one word for the same thing and the same word for more than one thing. This makes them frustratingly complex and it is this complexity that makes them beautiful. This complexity is the very hallmark of an organic language setting them apart from the likes of Klingon and Dothraki. One such fun aspect of Spanish is its translation for the English verb “to pull.” If you’ve just started out with the language, it’s a no-brainer: halar. But there’s more than meets the eye. Turns out, Mexicans and their neighbors don’t even like the word!

Comprender Vs. Entender: Do You Understand?

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These are words that get mixed up by even native speakers, let alone noobs like us. Going by the dictionary, both are synonymous and have the same translation in English. However, the two have quite dissimilar connotations. Now the good news here is that mixing up comprender and entender is not a exactly deal-breaker like mixing up, say, ser and estar or por and para. So depending on how far ahead you are in your Spanish learning program, this might be a non-issue. However, if you’re like me and suffer from an itch for perfection, knowing where to use one instead of the other is surely the difference between a rookie and a native.

Decode Mexican Place Names Like A Native

When the Spaniards first arrived in Mexico, they asked the indigenous locals for directions and that’s where this story begins. The Indians, you see, didn’t speak Spanish (duh) and named their cities in ways only they could pronounce. First line of defense, maybe? Who knows. But the Spaniards did their best to learn. And in the process, wound up thoroughly messing up those names. This is what happens when you try to write a word that not only doesn’t exist in your language but is also nearly impossible for you to pronounce. The mistakes, however, stuck and with time gave Mexican place names their unique tongue-twisting character.
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