With LV, I can get my home insurance from just £133. They've made it easy for me to get a great price. And their 24-7 emergency helpline lets me look after what matters to me, because insurance is simple when it's me and LV. No wonder we're rated excellent on TrustPilot. Get your quote today at LV.com. Ten percent of new customers paid £133 or less July to December 2025. LV General Insurance is part of Allianz. Welcome to Coffee Break Spanish. Yo soy Anabel y tengo muchas ganas de traerte cinco de los errores más comunes en español. I'm very excited to help you take your Spanish to the next level by bringing you five of the most common mistakes in Spanish. And just as a disclaimer, I am not going to be talking about ser, an estar, por, an para, or even the subjunctive. The five mistakes I am bringing you are core basic mistakes. ¿Quieres saber si cometes estos errores? Venga, no nos entretengamos más y vamos a ver el primer error. Me duele mi cabeza? Dame tu mano? Or hago mis deberes? These are some of the most common mistakes learners make, and it can be a bit tricky to correct because grammar-wise, the sentences are kind of correct, but they sound strange. Why is that? Because in Spanish we don't use possessive adjectives, mi, tú, su, nuestro, vuestro, and su with body parts. This means we must say, me duele la cabeza? Or dame la mano? Why is that the case? Because we understand that body parts are part of ourselves, so it sounds redundant, repetitive to use the possessive adjective in Spanish. If I am saying that something hurts to me, it must be my head or my hand or my leg, that's why we don't need the possessive adjective. What is interesting is that this situation where the possessive adjective sounds redundant happens in other contexts where it is understood that the thing named is yours. No te preocupes, vemos esto con un ejemplo. I do my homework. In Spanish is hago los deberes. Seguir hago mis deberes sounds strange because of course I understand that if you are doing any homework you'll be doing your own homework, right? That's why it sounds repetitive. The possessive adjective is not adding new information, so it is not required. Another situation could be, coje las llaves, for take your keys. I understand that if you are going to take anything, it'll be any of your things, so I don't use the possessive adjective. Now, what is interesting is that if I want you to take my keys, then I'll be using the possessive adjective. Coje mis llaves, take my keys. This is the case because now you are taking one of my things. The possessive adjective is adding information, it is useful, so here I need to use it. Me encanta este inicio. Creo que hemos empezado fuerte, ¿no crees? Vamos por el siguiente error. ¿Qué es decir cosas como… Buenas días en el noche o el clase de español? We all know that gender and agreement are tricky in Spanish, but it is also understood that day-to-day words should be mastered in intermediate or advanced levels. Probably you have learned that in Spanish, nouns ending in O are masculine and nouns ending in A are feminine. The thing is that soon enough you realize that there are exceptions. But not only that, you also realize that there are nouns ending in a consonant like televisión or ending in other vowels like noche, which ends in an I. What happens then? Although there are certain tricks to know the gender of some words, sometimes the only way to know is by exposure. And that's why certain words that you learned early in your language learning are supposed to be mastered later on. This means you must know it is el día for day, la mano for hand, la noche for night, or la televisión for the television or TV. Of course, basic vocabulary depends on each individual. So basically we could say that the more you use a word in your daily conversations, the more confident you should be using it. Well, let's change the subject and now it's time to talk about something very common, especially in English speakers. I'm talking about mistakes like trabajo a la universidad or estoy a la entrada. This type of mistake is very common especially in English native speakers and it is to use the preposition a in Spanish as if it were at in English when we use it for a location. Con un ejemplo lo vemos mejor. In English we can say I work at the university using at. Then some learners think oh we can use a in Spanish as well. Trabajo a la universidad. However, that is not the case. In this type of cases where in English we use at in or on as allocation that is not moving, so location that is not moving, we simply use en in Spanish. So I work at the university is trabajo en la universidad. The main thing happening here is that en is for allocation where the thing or person is not moving in any direction. While a means that the thing or person is moving towards. Estoy en la estación. This means I am at the station or I am in the station. I know they are different in English but we don't have that distinction in Spanish so we always use en. Now if we wanted to use a then we need something or someone to move forward. Por ejemplo voy a la estación. I am going to the station. I am going towards the station. Estupendo pues pasamos al siguiente error. Te recuerdas? Mmm. Sabes que está ocurriendo aquí? Do you know why this is a mistake? As you may know we have two ways of saying to remember in Spanish. Recordar algo and acordarse de algo. In general they are interchangeable so the tricky part is to remember the grammar involved in them. Recordar algo but acordarse de algo. Recordarse is a reflexive verb and it requires the preposition de when saying the thing you remembered. But recordar is not reflexive and does not need a preposition. This means that if I want to ask you do you remember my two ways of asking this is recordas or te acuerdas. The funny thing is that if you seem the verb recordar with a reflexive pronoun as te recuerdas then you are saying or you are asking if you remember yourself. So it is not wrong but I don't think that's what you actually want to ask so just be careful. Now the best way to avoid this mistake is by repetition. For ejemplo get the sentence do you remember and repeat it again and again and again in Spanish. Recordas, recordas, recordas or te acuerdas, te acuerdas, te acuerdas. This way you'll be familiarized with them and next time you need to say it or to say do you remember then it will come up naturally and you will say it correctly. Genial pues llegamos al último error de este vídeo. Que puede o no sorprenderte. The next mistake is saying mi primo es doce años or even things like it es frío. What is happening here is that we are literally translating from English. Mi primo es doce años is the literal and wrong translation of my cousin es 12 years old. And maybe you remember that in Spanish we use tener when talking about age back in the time when you were doing A1 level classes. But in my experience what learners tend to forget is that there are other situations where we use tener in Spanish for to be in English. For example I am cold is tengo frío. I am hungry is tengo hambre and so on. Forgetting this is easy and that's why it is a very common mistake. So just be careful next time and pay attention to like try to expose yourself to different contexts where that tener is being used. Perfecto pues esos son cinco de los errores más comunes de los estudiantes de español. You are making any of these mistakes don't worry and simply try to pay closer attention next time. Step by step you will be improving your Spanish. Pues eso es todo por mi parte. Muchísimas gracias como siempre y nos vemos. Elimited recording copyright 2026. Radiolingualimited all rates reserved.
