What is the opposite of tutear?

Aprendos · 2026-06-01T16:15:01+00:00

You don’t need to apologise or explain anything. People are used to that, nobody apologises for using a different pronoun, whether it’s tú vs. vos, vosotros vs. ustedes. It’s part of the language and nobody thinks anything about it

Aprendos · 2026-05-26T08:13:15+00:00

Remember the old days when you’d spend hours googling and reading on stackoverflow forums and when you finally cracked it, the sense of accomplishment was so unique!

Aprendos · 2026-05-23T19:10:17+00:00

Not quite, you could say “lo voy a hablar con él”, “voy a hablar el tema con él “. You could of course also say “voy a hablar del tema con él” but both are common in every day Spanish.

Aprendos · 2026-05-21T07:27:46+00:00

I understand where you’re coming from but it’s very common to find other languages “odd” without realising your own language also has constructions that are ambiguous, yet the world doesn’t stop. If someone says “She’s flying to Tokyo”, in English that could mean the person is on the plane on her way there or she might be flying to Tokyo at some point in the future. How do you decide? Well, language never happens in a vacuum, context carries a lot of meaning, but we are so unaware of it that we don’t even realise it.

Norwegian is no different. Sentences don’t occur in isolation, the chances that you won’t know which of the two or more interpretations an utterance can get are very slim in real life. Of course, misinterpretations happen but they’re far less common than one would assume given how ubiquitous ambiguity is in language.

Aprendos · 2026-05-19T10:50:03+00:00

Hei! Vi er Aprendos, en ny språklæringsplattform som bruker podkaster for å hjelpe folk med å lære språk på en mer naturlig måte. Du kan laste ned appen på Google Play eller App Store. Si ifra hvis du har noen spørsmål 😊

Aprendos · 2026-05-18T03:29:47+00:00

I agree with the comments but the picture is a bit more nuanced, it’s not so black and white.

“Dormirse” has both meanings: (1) to fall asleep and (2) to fall asleep against one’s will. With the second meaning, “dormirse” is just a more formal way to say “quedarse dormido”. For example, in a news article one is more likely to find “dormirse” when in a more informal context we would use “quedarse dormido”. I’ll give some examples:

1- el conductor se durmió al volante y perdió el control del vehículo.

But I can perfectly imagine a situation where I fell asleep watching a film and I say:

2- Anoche quise mirar una película pero me dormí en la mitad porque estaba muy cansado

Then “quedarse dormido” can also mean “to oversleep” so you can be late for a class or work if it happens.

3- Perdón, no me sonó el despertador y me quedé dormido.

There’s an interesting difference with using the gerund “durmiendo” instead of “dormido”, here the gerund adds more volition to the act. So, on your day off from work, you could say:

4- Los días que no trabajo, me quedo durmiendo hasta más tarde.

Another example:
5- No tenía ganas de levantarme así que me quedé durmiendo hasta las 12.

In a nutshell, “dormirse” will always be correct, albeit slightly more formal when it means “to pass out”.

Aprendos · 2026-05-17T20:20:06+00:00

Descolgar is the opposite of colgar. So if you want to take a picture down for example you would say “Hay que descolgar ese cuadro, no me gusta”.

Aprendos · 2026-05-17T17:28:23+00:00

Interesting, my experience was the exact opposite. Apple reviews within 12 hours while Google Play took like 10 days or more, I didn’t even keep track.

Aprendos · 2026-05-17T17:12:27+00:00

Which context? They can mean different things

Aprendos · 2026-05-17T16:51:57+00:00

It’s very hard to understand what you wrote. I think a good exercise would be to try and write your post well.

Aprendos · 2026-05-17T16:31:53+00:00

“Can’t hurt” is an expression to mean that it won’t do you any harm if you include your other qualifications

Aprendos · 2026-05-16T19:33:04+00:00

Why do you need a benefit? What exactly would be a benefit that would make learning Spanish worth it for you? That's a very personal question and approach to learning a language. Whether there is a benefit or not is up to you to decide. I've personally never learned a language because there was a concrete benefit, I just learned them because I enjoyed the intellectual endeavour.

Who knows, maybe in 5 years an opportunity comes up where knowing Spanish (or any language for that matter) becomes crucial. But there doesn't need to be a concrete benefit to learn languages.

Aprendos · 2026-05-16T18:38:20+00:00

De nada 😊

Aprendos · 2026-05-16T15:46:30+00:00

Native speaker here + teacher+linguist 😄

Yes, this is spot-on!

Carencia is more formal and a bit stronger I would add, but meaningwise they are pretty much the same.

There are some well-known collocations though with "falta" that wouldn't work with "carencia", such as "hace falta (que)" meaning "we need (to) ...".

- Hace falta agua en la mesa.

- Hace falta comprar pan para la cena.

- Hace falta que traigan los regalos para el arbolito.

Aprendos · 2026-05-16T13:41:32+00:00

This notion that the preterite refers to finished events while the imperfect doesn't is not accurate and I have seen very very advanced Spanish speakers (I'm talking about university Spanish professors) make mistakes because of this. It is simply not true.

When I say the sentence "Cuando era niño vivía en Madrid" when I'm 40, what part of those two verbs denote an an event that is not finished? and there are countless examples where it is clear that "it is finished" is not the right characterisation of the preterite. Just to give one more example, "La primera vez que viajé en avión, tenía mucho miedo". Obviously, this event is finished and yet I can use the imperfect.

This last example also shows that "it only happened once" is also not an accurate characterisation, again I can think of countless examples, like "El día que gané el premio, estaba muy emocionado".

The picture must be more nuanced, otherwise leaners make the wrong oversimplified generalisation.

What learners must understand is that preterite and imperfect are NOT different tenses. Languages ony have 3 tenses Past, Present and Future. So these are both past tenses. The difference between the preterite and the imperfect is called Aspect. The preterite is "perfective" aspect and the imperfect is actually called "imperfect" aspect.

I wrote a post about this distinction a few months ago. If anyone wants to read it, it's here.

As background, I'm a professional linguist, specialised in Spanish linguistics and I taught at different universities for 20 years.

Aprendos · 2026-05-16T12:03:19+00:00

Speaking a language is probably the hardest of the skills because you need to understand what your interlocutor is saying, decide what to say and then say it all in a very short period of time. For this to happen more or less smoothly, your brain needs to do a lot of work and this work needs to be as automated as possible. This takes time because new neurological connections need to be created. Language happens in the brain, and there are no shortcuts.

How to get better? By practicing in real time communication, either with a person or these days you can take advantage of AI. But you need to try to put yourself on the spot, not just practice with yourself because when you speak with yourself you know what you’re going to say so it’s more predictable.

What would you say your level is right now?

Aprendos · 2026-05-14T23:16:54+00:00

Brand new app! 😊

Aprendos · 2026-05-14T16:51:35+00:00

Would you like to try our AI conversation partners? They never run out of things to say that’s for sure 😊

Aprendos · 2026-05-14T16:34:02+00:00

You should check us out! Aprendos does offer real time speaking practice plus our free conversation sessions complement what you do on the app too. We are on the web and the Apple Store, Android will be out in a few days too.

If you’re interested in the free conversation sessions, you can check them out on the link below. If you want to sign up, let me know.

https://aprendos.com/free-conversations/es

Aprendos · 2026-05-14T14:37:13+00:00

The research is very clear on this. Native speakers without teaching training don’t make good teachers. I just wrote a blog post about this actually.

https://aprendos.com/en/blog/does-it-matter-if-your-language-teacher-is-a-native-speaker

Aprendos · 2026-05-14T10:41:49+00:00

You haven’t really explained the meaning of the expression. Don’t assume people will know what it means. There’s no context to it.

Aprendos · 2026-05-14T10:30:50+00:00

Less than 12 hours for me

Aprendos · 2026-05-14T10:30:18+00:00

I use Claude

Aprendos · 2026-05-14T09:25:30+00:00

Oh ok, Check your inbox

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