Medical Spanish Quick Tips

Short video lessons to help you with your medical Spanish

Medical Spanish Quick Tip #1: Using SER with professions in Spanish…

When describing your profession or talking about any profession in Spanish, you may be tempted to use a literal translation like: “I am” + “a” + “nurse” which would result in saying: “Yo soy un enfermero”. It’s not wrong, per se, but most Spanish speakers would just say “Yo soy enfermero”. This medical Spanish quick tip explains why…

Medical Spanish Quick Tip #2: Dormir vs Dormirse

Most people never think about sleeping as a reflexive verb in Spanish. Dormir is the verb “to sleep” – so how could it possibly be reflexive or have a reflexive equivalent? In this medical Spanish quick tip, we look at the interesting (and actually very useful) difference between dormir and dormirse in Spanish.

Medical Spanish Quick Tip #3: How do you say “Quit” in Spanish?

Have you ever accidentally used the verb “Quitar” in Spanish when you meant to say “Quit”? This is an easy mistake to make. Quitar and Quit are what we call “false cognates”… they look the same in both languages but they don’t mean the same thing. The verb “Quitar” means to “take off” or “take away”. So how do you say Quit in Spanish?

In this video I share 3 good ways to say “quit” in Spanish depending on what you’re trying to communicate.

Medical Spanish quick tip #4: What is the difference between mover and moverse in Spanish?

Use mover in Spanish as a normal verb (not reflexive) when the person doing the moving is moving a separate object. It’s reflexive (moverse) when the person doing the moving is also the object being moved. It’s admittedly confusing… check out the examples in the video lesson and it will make more sense!

Medical Spanish Quick Tip #5: How to say “Is for” in Spanish

When you want to say “…is for…” in Spanish, which possible equivalent are you going to choose? Here are your choices:

• Está para
• Está por
• Es para
• Es por

Watch this lesson to figure it out!

Medical Spanish Quick Tip #6: How to choose between “vez” and “tiempo” when saying “time” in Spanish

In English, when we use the words “time” and “times”, we may unknowingly be using the same word to communicate different meanings that are just contextually understood in English. However, the problem comes when there is more than 1 equivalent for “time” in Spanish… and we have to think about context. In this medical Spanish quick tips lesson, I teach you how to avoid one of the biggest mistakes we tend to make when trying to say “time” and “times” in Spanish.

Medical Spanish Quick Tip #7: “Hora” another use of “time” in Spanish.

There is one more use of “time” in Spanish that we need to be aware of. It’s “clock” time. Whenver you’re talking about what time it is or at what particular time something is going to happen, you use the word “hora” in Spanish. Check out this week’s medical Spanish quick tip for a brief explanation and easy-to-understand examples.

Medical Spanish Quick Tip #8: “Thank you for…” in Spanish

You might be thinking that “Thank you for” should be easy to remember in Spanish. You’re right, it’s just 2 words, so it’s not hard to commit them to memory. However, it’s also easy to make a mistake with as soon as you start learning the differences between two words that can mean “for”: POR and PARA in Spanish. We all know that “thank you” is GRACIAS in Spanish, but which are you going to say: Gracias por or Gracias para? Watch today’s medical Spanish Quick Tip to find out!

Links referred to in today’s video lesson:

• Por v Para blog post
• Por v Para in Medical Conversations mini course

Medical Spanish Quick Tip #9: Why you don’t need the future tense in Spanish

Has anyone ever told you that you don’t need the future tense in Spanish? You might have thought they were crazy, but they were right… you don’t! In this week’s medical Spanish quick tip, I share with you why you don’t need the future tense in Spanish, what the 6 essential Spanish tenses are, and how you work around the future tense with present tense conjugations.