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I feel like half the time when I stumble on a youtube channel or see a tweet in Spanish, it turns out the creator is from Spain. I’ve stumbled more big Spanish account than South American countries combined (excluding Argentina which also seems to have a disproportionately large presence). Is this just due to Spain’s relative wealth?

Edit: I should also add that what inspired this was realizing that searching for informational content, whether math, science, film, or history, almost always showed videos by Spanish channels having the most views.

So, I've heard a lot of things about the interchangeability and use cases for the two imperfect subjunctive endings here, and I was hoping to try to get some clarifications or confirmations for some of the things I've heard that I've saved.

- Firstly, I've heard they're totally interchangeable in most contexts, but some dialects may use -se more or less than others. I'm personally focusing on Puerto Rican Spanish, so would anyone have any details on how -ra and -se are used in puertorriqueño specifically?

- Secondly, I've heard that -ra and -se are used together in sentences where there are multiple verbs in the imperfect subjunctive to avoid repetition. An example sentence i saw was "algo hubiera sido mejor si alguien hubiese[...]." Every example sentence I've seen shows two instances of the same verb being used in the sentence. Is this still true if two different verbs are used in the sentence?

Like, would you say "Si quisieras que lo leyese, lo haría" or is it moreso important for usages of two identical verbs in the same sentence?

- Thirdly, I've read that the -ra form can be used to replace the perfect conditional, but -se forms cannot in subordinate clauses.

Example I've heard for this:
"Si me hubiera ido más tarde, habría perdido el vuelo"
can become:
"Si me hubiera ido más tarde, hubiera perdido el vuelo"

And that "hubiera" in the first clause can be replaced with "hubiese" but not the "hubiera" in the subordinate clause, so
"Si me hubiese ido más tarde, habría[...]" and "Si me hubiese ido más tarde, hubiera[...]" are both good, but "Si me hubiera ido más tarde, hubiese[...]" is not. And the comment I heard this from had a fair few number of upvotes and no replies contradicting it...

- HOWEVER, I've also read comments saying that the subjunctive can only be used in conditional clauses that start with "si" but not in other conditional clauses, and an example i saw was that:

"No habría venido si lo hubiera/se sabido" is good, but

"No hubiera venido si lo hubiera/se sabido" is bad.

That seems to contradict the previous thing I've heard by saying that you can't use the subjunctive at all if it isnt a "si" clause, or maybe I'm missing something and it isn't a contradiction...? Clarification on that especially would be great.

That's all I have for now, thank you so much in advance for anyone who takes the time to help me!

- I saw “un muerto de hambre” could mean like “poor” essentially
- I also saw but not from a native speaker that it could mean to be literally very hungry

Someone (from Honduras - incase there’s any difference) said “soy un muerto de hambre”
My question is: are both meanings used by native speakers based on context or is it really only used for one meaning

Thanks in advanced, hope I explained well enough

Uno de mis recuerdos favoritos es de cuando era niña. Mi papá leía conmigo una parte de cada libro de Harry Potter por la noche. También hacía las voces de los personajes, como Hagrid y Snape. Era mi parte favorita del día. Siempre voy a amar Harry Potter porque me recuerda a mi papá y a mi infancia. ¿Cuál era tu libro favorito cuando eras niño?

(Soy una estudiante practicando español en línea.)

i’m trying to talk more in spanish but i haven’t gotten approved yet. has anyone else? maybe people have tried a different language?

I've been learning Spanish for many years. I'm proud of my progress and think I sound pretty good, but I want to perfect my accent as much as possible. Do you have any advice for specific improvements / any words or phrases I can practice with?

https://voca.ro/18dEFIIteVVr

(P.S. Can you tell where the people who taught me are from? I've been told it's quite obvious. Hahaha)

I'm flying today and recieved a young adult novel called La Educación de Margot Sanchez. I looked through it and I recognize a LOT of words. I downloaded the brovolol spanish English dictionary since I heard that it works offline.

My question is how do I approach reading it? Do I look up each words I don't understand from context? This is kind of daunting. I was hoping I could finish this book on my six hour flight. Also should I write the translations above the word?

On camera, Tennis player Rafael Jodar said "Dame la puta toalla, coño!" to a ball kid. The referee then gave him a warning regarding this but Rafael Jodar argued and believe a warning for this was too extreme.

So what exactly does this sentence mean? I heard a variety of translations:

"Give me the towel already!"

"Give me the fucking towel, bitch!"

"Whore, give me the towel, bitch!"

I am confused... these 3 translations are dramatically different, which one is correct?

While watching native content, I’ve noticed that I occasionally hear people say the subjunctive imperfect 2 version of a word (such as “hubiese” as version 2 and “hubiera” as version 1). However, when I speak with native speakers who particularly speak Mexican Spanish, I never hear the 2nd version used. Is it really true that there’s no difference between version 1 and 2–just more people prefer to use version 1?

Hey so one of my biggest goals is to be fully bilingual. As of right now I can fully understand Spanish and I speak it with my mom. The main problem is though I don’t have anyone else to speak it with. Now that I’m about to graduate with my social work masters, I’m now getting worried about still not being fluent. One of my biggest goals is to be an immigrantion social worker but I can’t do that without speaking another language. I feel like I need to live in a different country but there is no jobs related to social work that I can get in Latin America without being fluent. I feel like right now my only option is peace corps but many of there sites usually don’t have WiFi. I need advice now. I don’t know what to do I’m panicking.

I'm playing Pokemon in Spanish and a character describes a plant as "Tiene pinta de saber a rayos." I know what each of those words mean individually, but why does "tastes like lightning" mean "tastes bad"? Or does rayos have a second meaning?

I saw this video feed on X and like the song but I don't speak spanish. Possible it is generated by AI but I don't know. Any lead on the original singer and title would be appreciated.

https://x.com/suozhang_ny/status/2107962016887415081?s=61

Can anyone speak to the difference in quality between SIS and other comparable immersion programs?

SIS is rated highly but is $3,000-$4,000 USD more than others in the area. I'm on a budget and want to gain as much conversational fluency in three months as I can for the best price (preferably $6k or less).

Hi everyone! Way back when I used Reading Explorer textbooks by National Geographic to teach English and those textbooks were absolutely magical. High quality articles and interesting content. Now i'm looking for something in the same vein but in Spanish.

Any recommendations for similar textbooks but for Spanish? Doesn't have to be National Geographic, could be just a collection of interesting articles to discuss in class, for levels B1 and above.

Thank you all in advance!

So, I currently work as a Spanish tutor and I've been using a Spanish grammar in use textbook for explanations regarding grammar. And in it, it is said that nouns beginning a or ha will have article el, not la, even though they retain their feminine gender otherwise. My question is, why is la habitación an exception to this rule? I checked a dictionary and it also showed me that it is not affected by this rule, so my question is, does anyone know why we say el agua, el águila, el hacha, but not el habitación?

Hello,

I have questions about the phrase la máquina. I’ve heard it mostly in song, and really don’t understand it - I think it has something to do with following or doing something like a machine, but I’m not too sure.

The lyrics are from a Young Miko song, so it might be specific to PR. The order of the sentence confuses me; why is la máquina in the middle, and then also what is la máquina? Which person? Can anyone describe what this means?

Thank you in advance!! I appreciate it!!

I took Spanish for 3 years at my highschool, all my teachers were from Venezuela and moved to America to work. I remember listening to them closely and carefully to make sure I was hearing them right and they pronounced their "y" and "ll"s like in the words yo and pollo as something that sounded like an English "j" sound in a word like "judge." Any time I say it like that though, I get corrected (not by native speakers or anyone that knows Spanish well) whenever I read something and say it like that. Was I just mishearing them all of that time and the teachers never corrected me or are they just enforcing a different accent as authoritatively correct?

Hi! I am looking to do more immersion travel to better practice and learn Spanish. I recently went to San Pedro, Guatemala and studied at a Spanish school and loved how much I learned during my time there. I was thinking of going to Honduras or Nicaragua next. Would anyone have any Spanish school recommendations in either country? I am not a beginner anymore but probably wouldn’t be considered intermediate either - somewhere in between. Thank you!

I work with a majority of Spanish speakers from Latin America. Mostly Venezuela and Colombia. I’ve picked up a lot of Spanish from listening, and one thing I heard a lot as a way to say excuse me was “permiso”. I began copying them and using “permiso”. However, yesterday, a coworker told me to use “disculpe” instead.

Is “permiso” rude? I don’t want to be rude.

Hi! Does anyone have any recommendation for dictionaries or resources that are specific to legal wording/legal phrases, etc? I’m currently in the process of getting licensed in Illinois to practice law, and I speak Spanish conversationally (years of education) but obviously don’t have the background to know court specific terms/legal phrases. I want to be sure I can communicate with individuals who speak Spanish about court specific language if necessary. So I’m looking for recommendations if anyone has them or knows of law specific dictionaries, guidebooks, etcetera that contain legal/court language specific phrases.

I’ve looked this up before, and while some resources pop up, I wanted to know if anyone had recommendations for ones they personally used that worked well or were ones that really were legal specific (some of the ones I was finding didn’t utilize phrases in the way they are meant legally, or were just not expansive nor specific enough)

I know too in Illinois courts, especially criminal, they have access to interpreters but depending on what area of law I go into, those might not be available. Plus as a note of pride lol, I want to be able to have conversations still on my own without needing an interpreter. Any guidance would be much appreciated!

my in-laws are both mexican. one is from oaxaca and the other is from puebla. i learned through self study, that in the preterite tense, tú usually ends in -iste or -aste. why do they always add the s on the end? for example, they’ll say “que hicistes”. is this a mexican thing?

I'm learning Spanish, and I'm at a very early A1 level.

I've noticed that there is a musical, melodic quality to spoken Spanish, and I noticed this when I heard people speak in Spanish, especially when it's spoken rapidly.

How does this work? I suspect it has to do with how syllables are stressed. Has anyone else here noticed this effect?

I like how it sounds, and it's pleasing to hear. It's oddly calming.

However, when you learn Spanish, does this musical quality disappear? Does it change, or improve?

Thanks!