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  • HandoutHandout 1: Supply & Shopping List

    Handout 1: Supply & Shopping List ### Intermediate Spanish Conversation — Misty Cruz

    Okay so this class is not gear-heavy, at the end of the day it's mostly your mouth and your willingness to sound dumb. But a few things make it easier. Here's what you actually need, what's nice, and where to grab it without overthinking it.

    ---

    The Budget Tier (get this, skip everything else if money's tight)

    A notebook you don't mind messing up. Not cute. Not the good one you're saving for something. Something you'll actually scribble in mid-conversation. Spiral, composition book, whatever's already in a drawer.

    A pen that works. I know. But half of you will show up with a dead pen and borrow Franklin's for the whole semester. 😭

    A phone with a translator app you already have. Google Translate, whatever's free. You don't need a paid one. This is for looking up a word real quick, not for building sentences. If you're translating whole thoughts in your head during class, that's actually the habit we're trying to break, so don't lean on it too hard.

    Willingness to talk before you're ready. Free. Non-negotiable. This is the actual supply list, honestly.

    ---

    Nice-to-Have Tier (if you've got a little extra)

    A small notecard set for vocab you want to actually keep. I'm not big on flashcard drilling as the main event, but if you're the type who likes a stack of cards in your car for red lights, go for it.

    Something to record yourself with — voice memo app is fine. Recording yourself telling a story in Spanish and listening back is super humbling and super useful. You'll hear your own head-translating happening in real time.

    A photo or two from your phone to bring some weeks. I'll ask you to describe things — your kitchen, your dog, your worst haircut, whatever. Having an actual picture in front of you makes people talk more. I notice it in myself too.

    Spanish-language TV with captions on, if you've got a streaming service already. Doesn't need to be a purchase, just turn captions on for something you'd watch anyway. This is basically how I leveled up years ago, half-watching a show and slowly not needing the captions as much.

    ---

    Local-ish Notes

    Nothing on this list requires a special trip. If you're already doing a Costco or Macey's run, grab the notebook and pens while you're there and call it done. I'm not sending anyone up the canyon or across the point of the mountain for classroom supplies, that would be ridiculous for a conversation class.

    If you want notecards specifically for Spanish vocab (some have the word on one side, blank on the other, made for language stuff), any general office aisle has something close enough. Don't go hunting for a "language learning" branded version, it's the same cardstock.

    ---

    What You Do NOT Need

    • A grammar workbook. We're not doing worksheets in here.
    • A textbook. I'll bring what we need.
    • Anything that promises to make you "fluent in 30 days." Tell me about it if you've bought one of those, I've got opinions. 😭

    ---

    That's genuinely it. Bring your notebook, bring your willingness to mess up in front of people, and we're good. See you in class. 💛

  • HandoutHandout 2: Cheat Sheet — Core Techniques & Settings

    Handout 2: Cheat Sheet — Core Techniques & Settings

    This is the short version of everything I keep saying in class. Print it, stick it on the fridge, whatever. When you're stuck mid-conversation and your brain goes blank, come back to this page.

    ---

    The Big Rule: Stop Translating

    If you're building the sentence in English first and then converting it, you're always three seconds behind and the conversation has already moved on without you. The goal is to skip that step entirely.

    How to practice it: think in short phrases, not full English sentences. Don't wait for the "correct" sentence to assemble in your head. Say the piece you have and keep going.

    ---

    Sound Dumb On Purpose

    I mean this. You're gonna sound dumb sometimes and that's fine. The people who get fluent are the ones talking before they feel ready. The perfectionists stall out waiting for a version of the sentence that never comes.

    If you mess up a word, own it, laugh, move on. (I once told my mother-in-law I was pregnant for ten straight minutes when I meant embarrassed. I was not pregnant. Never forgot the word again. That's the whole method right there. 😭)

    ---

    Preterite vs. Imperfect — the story way, not the chart way

    Forget memorizing rules for a second.

    • Preterite = the thing that happened. One event. "Fuimos a la tienda."
    • Imperfect = the backdrop. What was going on, how things usually were. "Hacía frío."

    You'll actually learn the difference by telling somebody what happened last weekend, badly, several times, until it starts sounting right in your mouth. That's why we do the "tell me about your weekend" prompt almost every week. It's not filler, it's the whole lesson.

    ---

    Accent: Let Most of It Go

    You're not auditioning for anything. You're communicating. Clean up pronunciation only when it actually changes the meaning of the word — otherwise don't sweat it. Super common worry in this class, super not worth the energy.

    ---

    Our Class Settings (what we actually do in the room)

    • Paired talking, fast. We're not lecturing for twenty minutes. You'll be talking to a partner within the first ten minutes of class, every week.
    • Real prompts, not textbook prompts. Worst haircut. Grandma's kitchen. What you did Saturday. Describe a photo. Stories stick, worksheets don't.
    • I won't rescue you too fast. If you're stuck mid-sentence, I'll wait a beat before jumping in. The struggle is where the learning happens. At the end of the day I'm not doing you any favors by handing you the word the second you pause.
    • Mistakes get celebrated out loud. If you make a good, common mistake, I'm going to stop and point it out to the whole room — not to embarrass you, to save everyone else the trouble of making it themselves.
    • We switch activities if the room goes flat. I'd rather cover less material with everybody actually talking than finish a whole chapter to a dead room.

    ---

    The Cooking Trick (steal this for home practice)

    My mother-in-law taught me this and it's still the best advice I've gotten: cook with someone in Spanish. You have to ask for the salt, the spoon, "hand me that." It's all present tense, all useful, no textbook required. Try it with a spouse, a kid, a friend from your ward. Doesn't have to be fancy — even reheating leftovers works.

    ---

    When You Truly Blank

    Say "¿Cómo se dice...?" and describe around the word instead of stopping. Describing your way around a missing word is a real skill and it's one you'll use forever, way past this class.

    Tell me about it if it doesn't click — that's what class time is for. 💛

  • WorksheetHandout 3: Preterite vs. Imperfect — Your Weekend Story Checklist

    Handout 3: Preterite vs. Imperfect — Your Weekend Story Checklist

    Okay. This is the past tense one. I know charts exist for this and you can google them any time, so I'm not gonna hand you a chart. Instead I'm giving you a checklist to actually tell a story with. That's how this sticks — not from memorizing rules, from telling somebody what happened to you, badly, a few times, until it isn't bad anymore.

    Fill this in before you come to class. Use it to tell your partner about your weekend. Don't write full sentences ahead of time — just notes. The talking part is where the tense actually lives, not the paper.

    ---

    Step 1: Pick one thing that happened. Not your whole weekend. One thing. A drive up the canyon, a bad haircut, a kid's soccer game, whatever.

    What happened, in one line (English is fine here):

    _______________________________________________

    Step 2: Set the scene (imperfect — the background stuff). This is weather, mood, what was going on while the thing happened. No sharp edges, just the wallpaper.

    • Weather / time of day: _______________________________
    • How you felt: _______________________________
    • What was happening around you: _______________________________

    Step 3: The actual events (preterite — the stuff that happened and finished). List 3-4 things that happened, in order. These are your plot points.

    1. _______________________________
    2. _______________________________
    3. _______________________________
    4. _______________________________

    Step 4: The one line where they mix. This is the sentence everybody trips on and it's super common, so don't sweat it. Something like: "I was driving (imperfect) when it started raining (preterite)." One ongoing thing, interrupted by one finished thing.

    Your sentence: _______________________________

    ---

    While you're talking, check yourself on:

    • [ ] Did I use imperfect for anything that was ongoing or repeated ("I used to," "I was ___-ing")?
    • [ ] Did I use preterite for anything that happened once and is done?
    • [ ] Did I catch myself translating from English in my head? (If yes — that's fine, that's the whole battle, just notice it.)
    • [ ] Did I keep talking even when I wasn't sure which one to use? 😭

    ---

    A note on the "wrong" answer. Sometimes both tenses are technically fine and it just changes the flavor of the sentence a little. Native speakers argue about this too. At the end of the day nobody's coming to check your conjugation homework. The goal is that your partner understood what happened to you last Saturday. That's it. That's the whole assignment.

    If you freeze up, just start with "El sábado..." and keep going. You'll fix the tense mid-sentence half the time, and that's completely normal — I still do it and I've been at this a long time.

    Bring this filled out (messy is fine, notes not paragraphs) and be ready to tell your story out loud. 💛

  • HandoutHandout 4: Troubleshooting Guide — The Problems Everybody Hits

    Handout 4: Troubleshooting Guide — The Problems Everybody Hits

    Every single one of these shows up in my class, every session, without fail. If you're doing one of these right now, super normal, you're not behind. Here's the fix for each one.

    ---

    1. You're translating in your head first. This is the big one. You build the sentence in English, then convert it, and by the time you've converted it the conversation's moved on. Fix: stop reaching for the perfect sentence. Reach for any sentence. Say the three words you have and let the rest come or not come. Speed beats polish, every time, at your level.

    2. You stall out waiting to be "ready." There's no ready. I've watched people sit on a sentence for ten full seconds trying to get it right before they say it. Just say it wrong first. You're gonna sound dumb and that's fine — that's basically the tuition for this class. 😭

    3. You mix up preterite and imperfect and just... give up. Tell me about it. Everybody does this. Here's the shortcut: preterite is the thing that happened (the plot), imperfect is what was going on around it (the scenery). "Yo caminaba por el canyon cuando vi un alce" — I was walking (scenery) when I saw (plot) a moose. Tell a story a few times and it starts sorting itself out. It won't click from a worksheet. It clicks from telling somebody about your weekend, badly, four times in a row.

    4. Ser vs. estar has you frozen. Rough rule that gets you through 90% of real conversations: ser for what something IS, estar for what's happening or where it's at. "Estoy embarazada" versus "estoy avergonzada" — pregnant versus embarrassed, and yes, I have personally mixed those up in front of my mother-in-law for ten straight minutes. I never forgot it after that. 😭

    5. You apologize for your accent before you even talk. Stop. Nobody's grading your rolled R's. Clean up pronunciation only where it actually changes the word's meaning. Otherwise let it go. You're communicating, not auditioning.

    6. You freeze on the phone or in a fast real-life conversation. This happens to everyone, including me at work more than once. The fix isn't confidence, it's reps. Practice the specific words you know you'll need — I did this with medical vocab for a week after I bombed a call — and the next time it's there.

    7. You know the word but can't find it under pressure. Super common. Your brain has it, it's just buried. Describe around it instead of freezing — "the thing you use to..." — Spanish speakers do this constantly too, it's not a beginner move, it's a normal move.

    8. You keep waiting for someone to slow down for you. At the end of the day, nobody's going to slow down for you in real life, and honestly that's the best teacher you'll have. Ask them to repeat once, then just ride the wave. You'll catch more than you think.

    9. You think a chart is going to save you. Grammar rules explain WHY something works, they don't make you fluent by themselves. Use them like a reference, not a rulebook. If you're spending more time on the chart than on talking, flip that ratio.

    10. You practice alone and wonder why it's not sticking. Apps are fine for vocab on your lunch break. But fluency comes from a real person reacting to what you said, correcting you, laughing at you, whatever. Find one person — a spouse, a neighbor, a kid who'll mess with you in Spanish just to be a jerk about it — and talk to them regularly. That's the whole trick.

    ---

    If you're stuck on something not on this list, bring it to class. Somebody else has the same problem, guaranteed. 💛

  • podcast_scriptClass podcast — episode 1

    Audio coming soon — show notes below.

    JESS: —okay so she didn't actually say she was pregnant, right, that's not a real story—

    MISTY: It is a hundred percent a real story. Ten minutes. I stood in my mother-in-law's kitchen and told her I was "embarazada" like eight different ways, super emotional, really committing to it.

    JESS: And embarazada means—

    MISTY: Pregnant. I meant embarrassed. I was trying to tell her I was embarrassed about something dumb I did at the store and instead I announced a pregnancy that was not happening. To my mother-in-law. In her kitchen.

    JESS: What did she do?

    MISTY: She just kind of blinked at me for a second and then everybody lost it. My husband's aunt had to sit down. And here's the thing, I have never once forgotten that word since. Fourteen years later, embarazada, I got it, I'm good forever.

    JESS: So that's kind of the whole class in one story.

    MISTY: Basically. Welcome to Intermediate Spanish Conversation, I'm Misty, I'm gonna be super honest with you for the next however many weeks.

    JESS: I'm Jess, I just make the podcast, I don't speak Spanish, I'm along for the ride.

    MISTY: You're doing great though.

    JESS: I've said one word.

    MISTY: You said it with confidence. That's 90% of it, I'm not even joking.

    JESS: Okay so tell people what this class actually is, because I feel like "intermediate conversation" sounds intimidating.

    MISTY: It's not a grammar class. I mean, we'll get into grammar, but only when we need it for something. Like, we're gonna learn past tense because you need it to tell somebody what happened last weekend, not because a chart says you should know it. If you want somebody to hand you a worksheet and quiz you on conjugations, that's super not this class.

    JESS: What is this class.

    MISTY: Talking. A lot of talking. You're gonna be paired up with somebody probably within the first ten minutes of session one and I am not gonna rescue you right away when you freeze, because freezing is where the learning happens. I know that sounds mean.

    JESS: A little mean.

    MISTY: At the end of the day the grammar police aren't coming for you, nobody's writing you up for a wrong verb ending. You just gotta talk before you're ready. The people who wait until they feel ready never get there.

    JESS: Okay give people something they can use right now, before they even sign up.

    MISTY: Oh, easy one. Stop translating in your head. If you're building the English sentence first and then converting it word by word, you're always three seconds behind whoever you're talking to, and three seconds is an eternity in a real conversation. Instead — and this actually works — cook something with a Spanish speaker if you know one. My mother-in-law taught me that. You have to ask for the salt, hand me that, where's the spoon. It's all present tense, all useful, all stuff your hands are already doing so your brain doesn't have to build it from scratch.

    JESS: So basically make somebody cook enchiladas with you.

    MISTY: Or literally anything. Tacos. Even just doing dishes together and narrating it. The point is real people, real moment, not an app on your lunch break. Apps are fine for vocab, they're not gonna get you fluent.

    JESS: I love that. Okay, last thing — next session, what are we doing?

    MISTY: Next time we're doing past tense through storytelling, so everybody's gonna tell the room about their worst haircut ever.

    JESS: Their worst haircut.

    MISTY: In Spanish. Badly, probably, the first few times. That's fine. Preterite versus imperfect, which sounds terrifying, but it clicks so much faster when you're just trying to explain why your bangs were tragic in eighth grade than when you're staring at a verb chart.

    JESS: I have a haircut story.

    MISTY: Save it. Bring it. Bring it in Spanish, or bring it in English and we'll build it together, either way.

    JESS: Okay. Anything else before we go?

    MISTY: Just — you're gonna sound dumb sometimes. In session one, probably in every session honestly. That's not a bug, that's the whole deal. 💛

    JESS: Love that. Alright, that's episode one, we'll see you at the first session, or hear you, I guess, since this is a podcast.

    MISTY: See, this is why I don't write the scripts. 😭

  • podcast_scriptClass podcast — episode 2

    Audio coming soon — show notes below.

    MISTY: —and that's the thing, she wasn't even mad. She was laughing so hard she had to sit down.

    JESS: Okay wait, back up, I walked in mid-story.

    MISTY: Sorry, I do this. I was telling Jess about my mother-in-law.

    JESS: For people just listening, catch us up.

    MISTY: So years ago, I'm feeling super proud of myself, I'd had this whole conversation entirely in Spanish, no English, no translating in my head, and I turn to my mother-in-law and I'm trying to say "I was so embarrassed." And I say "yo estaba embarazada."

    JESS: Which means—

    MISTY: Pregnant. I told her I'd been pregnant for ten minutes straight. Not embarrassed. Pregnant.

    JESS: Oh no.

    MISTY: The whole kitchen just lost it. My father-in-law had to leave the room. And here's the thing, I was mortified in the moment, super mortified, but I have never once mixed up embarazada and embarrassed again in my life. Never. That word is welded into my brain.

    JESS: Because of the humiliation.

    MISTY: Because of the humiliation, yeah. That's kind of my whole philosophy, actually. The mistakes that make you want to sink into the floor are the ones that actually teach you something. The safe, quiet, careful answers, you forget those by Thursday.

    JESS: Okay so this is a good excuse to ask, because people ask me this all the time when they're deciding whether to sign up. What if I'm just, like, bad at this. What if I freeze.

    MISTY: You're gonna freeze sometimes. That's not a special you problem, that happens to everybody, that happened to me at work more than once.

    JESS: Wait, tell me this one.

    MISTY: Early in my phlebotomy job, I had a Spanish-speaking family on the phone, and I completely froze. Like, brain just went blank, forgot words I use every day. Had to hand the phone to a coworker and just stand there feeling like garbage.

    JESS: What'd you do?

    MISTY: Went home and spent a week just drilling medical vocab, blood draw stuff, appointment stuff, the actual words I'd need. Next time a call like that came up, I nailed it. Didn't even think about it, it just came out. So when a student tells me "I can't," I don't really buy it. You froze once. That's different than can't.

    JESS: That's the whole class in one story kind of.

    MISTY: Pretty much. You're gonna sound dumb sometimes and that's fine. At the end of the day nobody's grading your accent.

    JESS: Okay, give the podcast people something they can actually use today. Something that doesn't require signing up for the class.

    MISTY: Okay, here's a real one. Stop translating in your head. I know that's easier said than done, but here's a trick — next time you're cooking dinner, narrate it to yourself in Spanish. Out loud or in your head, doesn't matter. "Pass me the salt," "where's the spoon," "hand me that." All present tense, all stuff you already know how to say, and it's exactly how my mother-in-law taught me. She always said you learn a language cooking with somebody because you're forced into simple, useful sentences the whole time.

    JESS: No conjugation charts required.

    MISTY: None. That's the whole point. You're not building a sentence in English and converting it word by word, you're just saying the thing you need. Do that for ten minutes over dinner prep a few nights a week and it adds up more than you'd think.

    JESS: I love that it's just, use your kitchen.

    MISTY: Everybody's got a kitchen. Super low bar to clear.

    JESS: Okay, last thing, what's coming up next session for the people actually in the class.

    MISTY: We're doing past tense, finally, the two big ones, preterite and imperfect, but I'm not gonna stand up and lecture about it.

    JESS: How's it gonna work then.

    MISTY: Everybody's telling a story about their weekend. Bad haircuts, worst road trip, whatever, and we're gonna mess up the past tense together in real time until it starts clicking. That's genuinely how it lives in your brain, not from a chart, from telling somebody what happened, badly, a few times in a row.

    JESS: So come with an embarrassing weekend story.

    MISTY: Everybody's got one. 💛

    JESS: Alright, that's it for this one.

    MISTY: Go bug your family for salt in Spanish tonight.

  • podcast_scriptClass podcast — episode 3

    Audio coming soon — show notes below.

    JESS: —wait, say that again, because I don't think I heard you right.

    MISTY: I said the whole table made me order. In Spanish. As a bit.

    JESS: For everyone.

    MISTY: For everyone. Lori, Franklin, Porter, they just stopped talking and looked at me like, well, go on then.

    JESS: This is my favorite genre of story, when your friends weaponize your own class against you.

    MISTY: Right? It started as a joke, like "oh here's our resident expert," super sarcastic, and now it's just what happens when we get tacos. I have to order for the table in Spanish or nobody eats.

    JESS: Does it still feel like a joke or has it turned into actual practice.

    MISTY: It's both. That's the thing. I'll be standing there going "quiero" and then blanking on the word for extra cilantro, and Franklin's just watching me sweat, no help at all, total gremlin about it.

    JESS: You're the teacher and they show you zero mercy.

    MISTY: None. And honestly, super good for me. Because in class I can rescue people if I'm not careful, I catch myself wanting to jump in and hand somebody the word. My friends don't do that. They let me just stand there.

    JESS: Okay this is basically the whole class philosophy in one taco order.

    MISTY: It kind of is. Peer pressure is such an underrated teaching tool. Nobody designs a curriculum around "your friends will make fun of you until you talk," but it works. It worked on me.

    JESS: Speaking of which, this connects to episode three, right, we're supposed to give people something useful even if they're not in the room.

    MISTY: Oh yeah. Okay, here's the tip. If you're trying to practice on your own, without a class, without anybody signed up to help you — get one other person to agree to order for you. At a restaurant, doesn't have to be Spanish food, doesn't matter. Just tell a friend, hey, tonight I'm ordering in Spanish and you're not allowed to help me.

    JESS: That's it?

    MISTY: That's it. You don't need an app for this one. You need a slightly mean friend and a menu.

    JESS: I feel like people are gonna be nervous about that.

    MISTY: Good. You're gonna sound dumb and that's fine. That's like, ninety percent of the actual class, is getting people okay with sounding dumb in front of somebody. A waiter's a low stakes person to sound dumb in front of. They don't know you. You'll never see them again probably.

    JESS: Unless it's your regular spot.

    MISTY: Then it's even better because they start knowing you as "the lady who orders in Spanish" and there's no going back, you're locked in now, that's your bit.

    JESS: I love that for you.

    MISTY: At the end of the day nobody's grading you on it. The grammar police aren't coming for your table.

    JESS: Okay so, real talk, this feels like a really specific and slightly chaotic tip for someone just listening to the podcast and not in the class.

    MISTY: It's the most useful thing I've got though. Real people beat apps every time. You can drill vocab on an app on your lunch break, fine, I do that too sometimes. But you don't get fluent talking to a screen. You get fluent because a human looked at you funny when you ordered "una embarazada" instead of "una empanada" and you had to fix it on the spot.

    JESS: Wait is that a real—

    MISTY: No, no, that one's from way back, that's the pregnant story, I'm not doing that one again, I already told that one this session.

    JESS: Fair, fair. Okay, so, what's coming up next class, give people a reason to show up.

    MISTY: Next session we're doing past tense through actual stories. I'm gonna have everybody tell the room about their worst haircut ever.

    JESS: Oh no.

    MISTY: Oh yes. Because preterite and imperfect, the two past tenses, they only make sense when you're actually narrating something that happened. Nobody conjugates in a vacuum. You tell me your hair was awful for three years, that's imperfect, and then you tell me the one day your mom took you to get bangs and ruined everything, that's preterite. It just lives in the story.

    JESS: So bring a bad haircut memory.

    MISTY: Bring your worst one. Everybody's got one. I've got mine. We're gonna be bad at the grammar together and it's gonna be great.

    JESS: Love it. Okay, that's episode three—

    MISTY: Go order something in Spanish this week. Just try it. 💛

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