how are you, i'm fine, and you
module: talking on day one
okay. three lessons in. you can say buenos días, you can ask someone how to say something in spanish, you've got a name to give and a name to ask for.
today we string it together. this is the lesson where it turns into an actual conversation instead of a bunch of phrases sitting next to each other.
the phrases
¿cómo estás? — how are you
estoy bien — i'm fine / i'm good
¿y tú? — and you
that's it. three lines. say them out loud right now, wherever you're reading this. cómo estás. estoy bien. y tú. don't sluff the vowels, spanish doesn't hide them the way english does. every vowel gets said.
how it actually goes
buenos días. buenos días.
¿cómo estás? estoy bien, ¿y tú?
estoy bien también.
that's a whole conversation. two people, four lines, and neither one had to reach for a vocab list. that's the thing about spanish — a little goes a long way if it's the right little.
why i teach it this way
i'm not a fan of vocab lists. you memorize two hundred words off a sheet and you still can't say hello to a real person standing in front of you. i'd rather you learn ten phrases and say them a hundred times each until they're not phrases anymore, they're just what comes out of your mouth. this is one of those ten. cómo estás, estoy bien, y tú — these three get used constantly. more than almost anything else you'll learn from me.
practice at home
pair this with buenos días from lesson one. do the whole four-line thing, out loud, by yourself if you have to. i know that feels ridiculous. do it anyway.
if you've got a kid, a spouse, a dog that tolerates you talking at it — practice on them. melody and i drill this stuff back and forth while i'm canning peaches and her accent's already better than mine, which bugs me a little, but that's the price of having a kid in school with better ears than you.
if you've got nobody, practice on yourself in the truck. say both parts. sounds silly. works fine.
a caution, sort of
estoy bien means i'm fine, i'm good — but it does not mean "I'm doing well" in the deeper sense, and you don't need to overthink that. this isn't therapy spanish. it's checkout-line spanish. somebody asks how you are, you say estoy bien, you ask them back, you move on with your day. don't get precious about it.
a story, because it's relevant here
i once tried to order an entire meal in spanish at a taco place in provo, just to practice. felt good about myself walking up. asked for pollo — chicken. guy at the counter heard something else. i ended up with tongue. lengua. ate the whole thing, actually pretty good, but that was not the plan.
here's why i bring it up for this lesson specifically: being wrong out loud, in public, in front of a guy with a menu behind him, is how you get better. i didn't die. i didn't get laughed out of the restaurant. i ate something new and now i say pollo slower and clearer every single time. that's the whole method. you say it, sometimes it goes sideways, and the sideways teaches you something the vocab list never would.
the people who won't practice because they're scared of the tongue-instead-of-chicken moment — they're the ones who learn the slowest. i'll say that to your face, kindly. good enough talks. perfect stays home.
in class
we're pairing up again today. you and a partner, back and forth, buenos días into cómo estás into estoy bien y tú, over and over until it stops feeling stupid coming out of your mouth. i'll circle the room and fix stuff quiet, at your table, not in front of everybody. nobody's getting put on the spot here.
we'll also flip it — what if you're not fine. estoy mal, estoy cansado, estoy un poco enfermo, if you need those. we'll get there if there's time. mostly today is about getting the good version smooth, because that's the one you'll use ninety percent of the time.
before next time
say buenos días, cómo estás, estoy bien, y tú to one real person before we meet again — a neighbor, a cashier, javier if you happen to have one. doesn't matter if you get a weird look. iykyk. ✨