Course description

You can hold a conversation in Spanish. You understand a lot and people understand you. But the same mistakes keep coming back: ser or estar, the preterite or the imperfect, por or para, le or lo, and the subjunctive that you avoid whenever you can. This course is for that stage. It takes the grammar points that trip improvers up, one by one, and explains them properly, with the reasons behind the rules, so that you can get them right without guessing.

There are 10 sections and 54 written lessons, organised by grammar point so that you can work through from start to finish or go straight to the point that's bothering you. Each lesson explains the rule in plain English, shows it in tables and examples, corrects a real-looking piece of writing, lists the common traps and answers the questions learners ask. You follow Comfort, a radiographer in Worthing who has learnt Spanish for eight years, as her conversation partner Fulgencio, a retired maths teacher in Cartagena, corrects her messages before, during and after her first visit to the city. Every section has a practice pack with a worksheet of graded exercises, a full answer key and a cheat sheet, plus verb tables and original diagrams, including tense timelines and a por and para diagram. The course ends with a final project: correcting and then rewriting Comfort's blog post about her week in Cartagena.

What you'll learn

• Nouns, adjectives and the written word: the gender traps behind el agua and la mano, agreement with mixed groups and numbers, and the rules for written accents.
• The present tense: stem changes, irregular yo forms, everything the present can do, how-long phrases with desde hace and llevar, and reflexive and pronominal verbs.
• Ser and estar: the core idea, adjectives that change meaning, places, events, dates and prices, participles, and the hard cases.
• Por, para and the small prepositions: the core contrast with a diagram, the fixed expressions, personal a, de and en, and verbs with fixed prepositions.
• The preterite and the imperfect: every form, the core contrast on a timeline, verbs that change meaning such as conocí and supe, and plenty of practice in stories.
• Perfect tenses, the future and the conditional: the present perfect in Spain and in Latin America, the pluperfect, the future and the conditional, guessing, and every tense on one timeline.
• Object pronouns, gustar-type verbs and se: lo, la and le, two pronouns together, gustar and the verbs like it, and the many jobs of se.
• The present subjunctive: the forms, and why it's used: wishes and advice, feelings, doubt, conjunctions such as cuando and para que, and relative clauses.
• The imperfect subjunctive, si clauses and commands: the sequence of tenses, the three kinds of si clause, and affirmative and negative commands with pronouns.
• Relative pronouns, false friends and the final project: que, el que and cuyo, the false friends that catch English speakers, and a final project correcting and rewriting a longer text.

Who it's for

Improvers who can already talk in Spanish, roughly A2 to B1, and want to be accurate: in conversation, in emails and messages, and in anything you write. It teaches the Spanish of Spain, with vosotros, and points out where Latin American Spanish differs, such as the preterite for today and ustedes for vosotros. It's a written course with no audio. You practise with graded exercises and check your own answers with the answer keys.

What will I learn?

• Choose between ser and estar with confidence, including the adjectives that change meaning and the hard cases
• Use por and para, personal a, de and en, and verbs with fixed prepositions correctly
• Form every past tense accurately and choose between the preterite and the imperfect in stories
• Use the present perfect the way it's used in Spain, and recognise Latin American usage
• Form and use the pluperfect, the future and the conditional, including to make guesses
• Put object pronouns in the right order and place, and use gustar-type verbs and the many jobs of se
• Understand why the subjunctive is used, and use it after wishes, feelings, doubt, conjunctions and in relative clauses
• Build si clauses of every type and give commands, affirmative and negative, with pronouns and accents
• Write correct accents and agreement, use relative pronouns, and avoid the common false friends
• Check and rewrite a longer piece of your own Spanish with a reliable eight-step method

Frequently asked questions