Coffee Break Spanish - How to maximise your language learning every day | A Coffee Break with Mark

Episode Date: September 4, 2025

In this espresso episode, join Mark as he shares practical tips to help you make the most of the little moments in your day and turn them into powerful opportunities for language learning! 💪 Discover how his recent trip to Slovenia taught him how his small interactions can help you build confidence and momentum in your learning.You’ll also get a taste of exclusive resources from the Coffee Break Club, our on-demand video library. The Coffee Break Club features over 1700 video lessons in French, Italian, German and Spanish, which you can access wherever you are, on our app and web platform, so that you always have a video lesson ready to accompany any time of your day.✅ From 1st-15th September 2025, we're offering a special discount on subscriptions to the Coffee Break Club. You can get 15% off a monthly subscription or 25% off a yearly subscription. Just visit coffeebreakcourses.com/club to get your discount.Finally, sign up to our newsletter to receive regular free mini-lessons straight to your inbox. 📩 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, what how? I'm Mark and I'm very content to be back in the studio for an episode of Coffee Break Spanish. I hope you're enjoying these little espresso episodes with the coffee break team and it's my turn once again to spend a coffee break with you today.

In this episode, we're going to be focusing on language learning. And I have some useful tips and tricks to help you get the most out of the time that you have available for language learning. Now, stick around because later on in this episode I've got some interesting resources to share with you, but I'll explain everything about that then. I think it's time to get started this episode.

And on this, empethemos. Now, I was lucky enough to travel to Slovenia in the past few weeks, and I found myself thinking about something really important, an important aspect of language learning. And that is how we make the most of the time that we have. Because, let's be honest, most of us don't have hours every day to sit down with our time. textbooks or tune into long lessons. But what we do have are little moments sprinkled throughout the day and that's what we can turn into opportunities to practice. And when you think about it, those small, consistent moments often add up to more progress than we realize. So in this episode, we're going to be looking at some of the ideas that we could put into those little moments

and do some real language learning in small, many challenges. Now, if you've ever had the chance, to visit Lubbriana, the capital city of Slovenia. I'm sure you'll agree that it is a stunning city. It's absolutely beautiful. Now, when I traveled to Lubriana, I didn't speak any Slovenian at all. I'd probably learned a couple of words on the plane or something like that, but no more than that.

So what I decided to do was take the opportunity to give myself a little mission, just one thing each day that would take me a tiny step forward with my Slovenian. So, for example, when I arrived at breakfast, in the hotel. Normally you're asked for your room number, so I would start with a Dobroyotro, good morning, and I would give my room number in Slovenian. And this was already a step forward. It was already an achievement. And of course, you can build that up each day.

So each day I became more confident giving my room number. And that, of course, applies to other aspects, so whether it's asking for something in a cafe or figuring out what a sign means as I walked along the street. But every little success builds your confidence, and the more confident I felt, the braver I became the next time. By the end of my trip,

these short interactions felt really natural, even though I'd only been there a few days. And I think that's the thing. Progress doesn't usually come in giant leaps. It comes in these small, steady steps, steps that fit into your life as it is now. Think about your own, day, maybe you're commuting or cooking or going for a walk. These moments can all be turned

into practice sessions for your target language and they don't need to feel like study time when you're walking, for example. You might try counting your steps in the language you're learning or just noticing what's around you and quietly seeing the names of the things you see. One of my favorite tricks is to narrate my walk. So I'll say something like, I'm passing the park. There's a bus coming, the sun is shining because it all feels so natural and you're reinforcing words and structures without even realising it. And then there's travel. If you're lucky enough to be in a place where your target language is spoken, the opportunities are everywhere. Whether you're ordering a coffee or asking for directions or even just saying hello to someone at a bus stop

or a trade station, these tiny interactions give you such a sense of achievement. I often say that language learning is about building layers and these moments help you add another layer. You don't need to wait until you're fluent to use your language. In fact, I would say that the opposite is true. The earlier, the sooner you start using it, even in small ways, the faster you grow. But what if you're not travelling? Well, that's not a problem. You can still create these moments of practice wherever you are.

For example, one thing that I know many of our learners do is label items. around the house. So if, for example, you choose the kitchen, you could put a post it on each item in the kitchen and every time you see it, say the words out loud. Something else I like to do is basically have a fake conversation on my phone when I'm out and about. It's the perfect way to practice the language without anyone batting an eyelid. So you can be having a conversation in your target language on your phone as slowly as you like, answering the made-up questions that you want to answer. You could be telling a story.

You could be talking about a place. You could be seeing what has happened. You can make it up. And as you go along, you'll be practicing the language, imagining this conversation that you're having. It possibly sounds a little silly, but you know what?

It works. And I think language learning should be fun. It's those little playful moments that I think stick in your memory. If you want to take things up a notch, here is an approach I've been experimenting with. Learning with intention. Instead of just waiting for those moments to happen, build a bit of structure around them.

One way to do this could be by choosing a focus word or a phrase for the day, just one. And then challenge yourself to use it as often as you can. Maybe you'll drop it into a conversation or write it in a sentence or just even think it to yourself while you're doing something else. Or try keeping a tiny diary, just a couple of sentences each day. It doesn't have to be complicated. You can even write it in the present tense if past tenses aren't your thing yet. The important thing is to start capturing your thoughts in the language, even in the simplest form. And I think one of the nicest things about this is that you'll be able to look back and see how far you've come. And I think one of my favorite techniques is record yourself speaking. Just limit yourself to 30 seconds talking about anything, your weekend, your breakfast, your plans for the day. Right, let's do the snow. And we'll do it in Spanish. Today, I'm working

all the day. This morning I've organized my agenda a little because this time I have a reunion with the team to talk to the project of the week.

After the work, I think I'm going to visit to my mother. I'm sure that we'll talk about. This night, I hope a visit and then

relax me a little, being the TV. Well, yeah, it's a 30 seconds, eh? The great thing about this is that you can make it as simple or as complex as you want, using the words and phrases that you know and adding

a little bit each day. And then a few weeks later, you can listen back. And it's amazing how quickly you'll notice progress when you can actually hear it. The big idea here is that language learning doesn't need to be about perfection. or pressure. It's about consistency, about stacking up those small winds one by one until you look

back and realize how far you've come. So here's my challenge for you this week. Pick one small thing you can do today. Perhaps it's a word you'll use three times. Perhaps it's a phrase you'll practice in the mirror. Maybe it's just listening to a podcast episode twice once for the overall, meaning and wants to pick out those little details. Because remember, each small moment matters, moment builds momentum and that momentum is what keeps you going even when life gets busy. I'd love to hear how you got on with this. Drop me a message, send an email to team at coffeebreaklanguages.com, or tag us on social media to share your mini wins because they're worth celebrating.

Now, if you're part of the coffee break club, then you have the perfect opportunity to commit to one video lesson each day this week. It's such an easy way to keep that momentum going. If you're not a member or if you've not even heard of the coffee break club, stick around because I'm going to share some of the content from the club with you now. Hello, I'm going to show you a translation challenge video. And in this type of videos, we are going to be translating some sentences from English into Spanish. You'll have 10 seconds, but you can always post the video in case that you need some more time.

So the first sentence that we are going to be translating from English into Spanish is, I'm pleased to see my friends again. 10 seconds, for favor. And time. So I'm pleased to see my friends again. The first option could be, I'm pleased to my friends or amigas,

other. So I'm pleased to, I'm encauntado or Encanada de. Quite literal, but keep in mind that in Spanish we are changing the preposition. In English, it's to be pleased to, yeah? So to,

please too, but in Spanish is Encanado or Encanada de. And then to see, my friends, my friends, my amigos or my amigas, Otrade again. This is one option that is like more literal, but there is a more natural way of expressing these amplies. And it's me agrada, bear a mis amiss amigos or amigas,

other way. So using the verb agradar, which works like the verb, or like or encanar. Okay, so me. Hello and bienvenino to walk, talk and learn. This is where we walk around the streets of a very hot town.

We talk about the language that we see around us and we all learn something together. Now I've spotted a sign today. It is on a building site where they're making new apartments and it says, Vive a one quadra of the playa. Otrae. Again,

Vive a one a quadra of the playa. Now, it's pretty pretty obvious what this means because there's an English translation beside it. But I thought it would be interesting to talk about the preposition A here. Vive A, one quadra of the playa, live at a distance of one block from the beach. Now that A is important and I think to find out more about it, we should go back to the studio. So, let's go back to the studio.

Much thanks, Mark. Exacto. The preposition A can be used to express the themes or people are at a particular distance or also within a particular distance. Now, let's see more examples of the preposition are indicating distance. For example, similar to marked example, we could say, vivias a una manzana del center of la city. You used to live one block away from the city center.

Now, very similar to mark his sample, Quadra is very used in Latin American Spanish for blog. However, here we have manzana that apart from Apple, of course, also means block in Spain. Let's move on. Travajo a five minutes de casa de my cuniaada. That means I work five minutes away from my sister-in-law. So I wanted to analyze this specific word. because it has many different terms depending on the country.

So in Spain, in Spain, in Spain, usamos camiseta. Camiseta is said in Spain, but also in Colombia, in Mexico, in Uruguay, and in Puerto Rico. So many countries use the word camiseta. However, if you go to Argentina, then they use a different word. In Argentina we say remera. And if you go to Chile or Bolivia, there they would use polera. And also another word that doesn't have anything to do with the ones that we have just discussed. Plagiera.

Plagera is used in Guatemala, in Honduras and also in Mexico. And we said before the camiseta is also used in Mexico. So imagine in the same country, we use different words for the same thing. So it's just very interesting to see how something as simple as a T-shirt can evolve to be said in different ways in different countries depending on the culture and depending on the preferences of the speakers. The rules are simple. I am going to give you five categories and one letter. You need to find a word for each category starting with that letter. For sure, in Spanish.

The categories are A country, an animal, a verb, comida, and an objecto. So a country, an animal, a verb, food, and an object.

All right, so we'll start. The letter of today is the letter M. A country that that starts for the letter M. Five seconds. Well, I've said Madagascar. Seguism A human that

that starts for the letter M. Fabulous. I've been Murcielago I love the word in Spanish for this animal A Mourcielago is a bat

We've been listening to some audio content from the Coffee Break Club But the vast majority of lessons on the club Are video lessons Meaning that you'll be joining our tutors in the studio Or watching the content with words on screen Where You Can Follow Along The Coffee Break Club features over

1,700 video lessons in French, Italian, German and Spanish, and it's aimed at learners between A2 and B2 level. So that's an upper beginner, lower intermediate, upper intermediate level. So if this sounds interesting, why not join us in the Coffee Break Club? You'll get access to hundreds of lessons, exclusive video content, and a supportive community of language learners just like you. Between the 1st and 15th of September 2025,

you can take advantage of 15% off our monthly plan. or 25% of our yearly plan. Just head to coffeebreakcourses.com slash club to find out more and to start your journey today. For now, I'd like to thank you for joining me on this episode. And until next time, keep practicing, keep learning, and as always, happy coffee breaking. You have been listening to a Coffee Break Languages production

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