Trevor Huxham

One of the hardest parts on your journey to fluency in a language is just that—having the language literally “flow” off your tongue in conversation. You’re always going to sound like you’re a foreigner as long as you use disjointed, robotic speech and hesitate from one phrase to the next, even if you manage to communicate whatever message you’re trying to get across with the correct vocab or grammar. Ferrol Is Cool street art in Ferrol, Spain If you want to take the next the step toward having natural, fluid speech in Spanish, you’ve got to have a firm grasp on the kind of words that help you have a back-and-forth conversation with someone—words that you rarely get taught when taking formal classes in school. I’ve put together a list of 76 extremely useful words, phrases, expressions, and interjections that Spaniards commonly sprinkle into things to show they’re interested in whatever you’re talking about. These words are crucial to have a conversation with someone, but they’...

The Spanish capital of Madrid has enough to keep you occupied for years: a plethora of world-class museums, thousands of restaurants that serve up tasty local grub plus every cuisine you can think of, a handful of historical monuments, a clutch of unique neighborhoods that all have something different to offer, and one of the world’s largest collections of green spaces. Calle Sagasta But until 2021,  Madrid had no UNESCO World Heritage Sites to speak of, even as the historic cores of London, Paris, and Rome all boasted of this designation that honors and protects landmarks of cultural or natural significance. What got designated was only a few blocks of the Paseo del Prado and the Retiro Park. What the city center of Madrid lacks in stunning monuments, it makes up for with no fewer than six World Heritage Sites that surround the metropolis on all sides. Each of these cities is no more than an hour away from the capital, which means you could spend a week hopping from on...

When I moved back to Texas back in July after living in Spain for three years, I felt guilty that I could give people better food or sightseeing recommendations for cities like Madrid or Santiago de Compostela than I could for the city I claimed was my hometown, Dallas. Now, part of the problem was that I actually grew up in Plano, a suburb to the north of Dallas, but that didn’t excuse me from not knowing this place as well as I should. View this post on Instagram The iconic Dallas Pegasus slowly rotates on a mini oil derrick just after sunset. Originally crafted in 1934, this porcelain-plated metal sign with neon illumination topped the Magnolia Building in Downtown Dallas for decades and became an enduring symbol of the city of Dallas. When Magnolia Oil was folded into Mobil, the red Pegasus followed, showing up at gas stations across the country. It was replaced with a replica in 2000 and relegated to a shed near White Rock ...

One of the most striking ideas that I came across during my college-level Hispanic Culture & Civilization course was this notion of España y las Españas — Spain and the Spains. It forced me to reconsider my preconceptions of Spain as a land of Don Quixote, paella, and sunshine and instead come face to face with the rich history and endless variety of this country that refuses to live up to its stereotypes . During the three years I lived in Spain I was fortunate enough to visit 14 of the country’s 17 autonomous communities, or regions that the central government has granted varying degrees of home rule to. Many of these regions are considered nationalities  within the larger Spanish nation-state, either because they speak a language other than Castilian Spanish or because they hold culture and history in common. Getting beyond the standard Madrid-Barcelona-Sevilla itinerary gave me a more nuanced view of the country, told me the deeper truth of the country’s past, and (m...

Galicia, located in Spain’s northwestern corner, is  one of the country’s greatest regions. When I lived there from 2013 to 2015, I couldn’t get enough of the glorious, fresh food , the green, lush countryside, and the grand, granite architecture . But I could only take canned sardines with me back home, we’ve got enough humidity here in Texas, and sadly the oldest buildings in suburban Plano date back not to the 1070s but the 1970s. View this post on Instagram Okay, but really, y'all, where are the fairies??? This place has got some serious magic about it... // #flowers #spring #park #santiago #santiagodecompostela #galicia #spain #vsco #vscocam A post shared by Trevor Huxham (@trevorhuxham) on Mar 13, 2014 at 1:29pm PDT But what has stuck with me the most has been galego , the Galician language that I quickly picked up on after being immersed in it from day one at the elementary school I worked at. Clo...

This blog post has been literally years in the making. Although I’ve happily moved back home to Texas, the city of Santiago de Compostela in far northwestern Spain gave me two of the best years of my life. I spent much of that time drinking an expertly-pulled  café con leche , indulging in a fresh butter croissant (or two), and going out for tapas with friends in the old town. I cooked most of my meals at my apartment, but that’s not to say I didn’t gain an intimate knowledge of the cafés, bars, and restaurants in the Galician capital. View this post on Instagram Café con leche & chocolate con churros—breakfast of champions ☕️🍫 // #coffee #cafe #chocolate #churros #santiago #santiagodecompostela #breakfast #spain #galicia #snapseed #GaliciaCalidade A post shared by Trevor Huxham (@trevorhuxham) on Feb 8, 2015 at 7:57am PST Whether you’re a freshly-arrived pilgrim weary of the Camino , or a visitor wit...

I’ve talked some about Spanish pronunciation on the blog before, from how to speak Spanish like a Spaniard to tips on learning how to roll your Rs ; in fact, they’re two of my most popular posts! Today I’d like to share a little bit of what I learned when I took a Spanish linguistics course in college. Don’t worry, I’m going to make sure to explain everything in layman’s terms, but these subtle, rarely-discussed differences between English and Spanish were transformational in getting me to lose my American accent in Spanish and have made me sound much more native. I hope they help you as much as they helped me! Plaza de San Nicolás, Madrid 1) B, D, G are soft, not hard consonants This was one of the first things I picked up on in my linguistics class and it totally blew my mind. At the beginnings of word or phrases, the B, D, and G sounds are “full stops” or are pronounced strongly, just like they are in English: vinagre , día , and gamba  begin with clean, firm Bs, Ds, a...

I finished the Camino de Santiago almost two years ago, arriving in Santiago de Compostela a weary, dazed pilgrim who couldn’t get his bearings straight in the monumental old town. The skies were overcast, the cold weather chilled my shorts-clad legs, and all the plazas in this very gray city seemed to blend together; safe to say, it wasn’t the best of introductions to what would become my favorite place in Spain. The next morning, I ended up getting the hell outta Dodge by starting the Camino de Fisterra , the extension hike that takes you to Spain’s Lands End on the Atlantic Ocean. Santiago had left a bad taste in my mouth, and I even regretted my decision to transfer up to Galicia for the coming school year. If I’d had a better first impression of Santiago, I wonder if I wouldn’t’ve left the endpoint of the Way of St. James as disappointed and confused as I was. So I’m writing this post today to give future pilgrims something to use when they finish their Camino, so they don’...

Last year when I lived down south in Úbeda , I mostly took the bus around from village to village or even on long-haul trips to bigger cities. It helped that Úbeda was a sort of regional bus hub, and while the nearby Linares-Baeza train station had decent connections with the rest of the country, it was always a hassle to catch an infrequent bus just to get to the station. But this year, I’ve taken full advantage of Santiago de Compostela’s full-fledged, bustling train station, and I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve had to take the bus. Because of this, I’ve gotten to know the Galician rail network fairly well. (Source: Wikimedia Commons ) The region of Galicia in northwestern Spain sometimes seems a world unto its own—a different language, abundant seafood and baked goods, a foggy, mystery-laden landscape—but you can go from one major population center to another via train just as easily as anywhere else in the country. The Spanish national rail company Renfe o...

Like any responsible society, Spain has a well-developed system of recycling used materials like paper, plastic, or soda cans. You can find recycling bins, receptacles, and containers all over the country, from the biggest metropolises to the tiniest villages. However, these bins usually come in multicolored troupes of four, and unless you know the specific vocabulary surrounding, uh, waste, it can be a little confusing the first couple times you have to throw stuff away. Recycling bins in Madrid Green: trash ( residuos ) (Source: Wikipedia ) Okay, I know this isn’t really recycling, but you always find green-colored bins for all your trash alongside the other recycling containers. Throw your trash bags in here. Often they’re labeled with residuos orgánicos (organic waste), but it means the same thing as basura  (trash). Blue: paper ( papel ) (Source: Wikimedia Commons ) Throw your loose paper, cardboard ( cartón ), newspapers, and magazines in here. ...

The infamous Spanish trilled R  is found in words like pe rr o  (“dog”), r ama  (“branch”), and fe rr oca rr il  (“railway”), and I’m sure this double R has probably caused more grief to students of Spanish than the subjunctive, conditional, and imperfect…combined. Although most intermediate Spanish learners tend to pick up on how to “tap” or “flap” their Rs—think the way Americans pronounce the “TT” sound in the word bu tt er —trilling or rolling their double Rs is almost always a lot trickier. (Source: chrisinplymouth ) The main reason it’s so hard to trill the Spanish R is because many native speakers of English simply can’t reproduce the sound—no matter how hard they try—since the English language has no place for the alveolar trill  in its set of sounds, preferring instead the R we all know and love, found in words like wr ap , r eam , and te r abyte . Nevertheless, everyone is born with the ability to make all the sounds in every human language, ...

Read my Galician crash course here to get up to speed in the language. Galician  is a Romance language (i.e., from Latin) spoken by about 3 million people in Spain’s northwestern region of Galicia. Although it’s most closely related to Portuguese—which is spoken south of the border—it shares many similarities with Castilian Spanish, including sounds and spelling. A Coruña If you’re planning on spending any time traveling or living in this unique corner of Spain, or walking the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route that ends here, even a tiny knowledge of Galician will help you get around and navigate menus, maps, etc. If you happen to speak Spanish, you’re already 80% of the way to understanding Galician, and I’m serious! Getting a grasp on the grammatical and phonological differences will turbo boost you up to 90%. To whet your appetite (both literally and linguistically), here’s a little selection from the Galician Wikipedia’s article on empanada , or meat pie: Unh...

Confession: I’m not that big of a coffee drinker—tea is really more my thing. But I do enjoy the occasional cuppa joe about once a week, and after living here in Spain for a year, I’ve figured out how to add some variety to my morning injection of caffeine beyond the standard café con leche . Most of these are just variations on a shot of espresso and steamed milk, but there are a few surprises, too. Get your coffee pot started and join me as I explain the basics of drinking coffee in Spain. Café solo Coffee at O Dezaséis in Santiago de Compostela “Coffee alone” is simply a shot of espresso, the coffee beverage that is made from forcing hot water at a high pressure through ground coffee beans. It’s served in a short, tiny glass or ceramic cup with a saucer, spoon, and a bag of sugar. A good  café solo  will have a thick, almost bitter body capped with thin layer of foam. This is coffee at its purest. Café cortado (Source: Alexandra Guerson ) A café cortado ...

LAST UPDATED OCTOBER 2013 One of the most annoying parts about living and working in Spain as an  auxiliar de conversación  (English language assistant) is cutting past the red tape to get residency, albeit temporary. You have to wake up super early, go to a godforsaken office that’s only open mornings on weekdays, wait for hours until your turn is called, and then cross your fingers that you’ve brought all your required documents (and multiple copies, too). If everything goes correctly, you have to just…show up…in 30–40 days to pick up your ID card. Police station in Santiago Although it can be intimidating to undergo this months-long ordeal to get your NIE ( número de identidad de extranjero —“foreigner’s ID number”) and corresponding TIE ( tarjeta de identidad de extranjero —“foreigner’s ID card”), it doesn’t have to be. If you show up early and prepared enough, however, you can beat Spanish bureaucracy at its own game. In this post, I’d like to expla...

LAST UPDATED OCTOBER 2013 One of the least-discussed aspects of living abroad in Spain is getting empadronado  whenever you move to a new city. Oh, everyone will have their (horror) stories to tell you about dealing with the Spanish bureaucracy—don’t get me wrong!—but I’ve barely heard boo about this simple act of going to the town hall and registering as living in the city. My certificate of residence a.k.a.  empadronamiento In Spain, the padrón  is a registry office that is coordinated by the local council for people who live in the municipality. When you move to a town in Spain, it’s a good idea to go and register yourself ( empadronarse ) at the town hall, because you need the certificate of residence—the empadronamiento —to sign up for a library card, among other things, but also because you need it to prove you are actually living in Spain when you go to apply for your NIE and TIE (residency). Not all provinces require that you present your empadronamiento...

If you’re like me, you’ve probably learned Spanish as it’s spoken throughout Latin America. Now, I know there is no one single standard Latin American accent, but  there are a few things I’ve noticed when listening to Spaniards speak that distinguish them from Spanish speakers in, for example, Nicaragua or Argentina. Since living here for the greater part of a year, I’ve both consciously resisted and unconsciously picked up on many features of the typical Spanish accent. After thinking about it for a while, I’ve decided there are around five characteristics that most distinguish the Spanish of Spain from the Spanish of the Americas. These five sounds, when spoken in the Castilian way, will bring you much closer to sounding native. Streets of the village of Cazorla 1) Pronounce C before E & I and Z like TH In the Americas you’ll hear the words ciudad  (“city”), cereza  (“cherry”), and zorro  (“fox”) pronounced as “see-oo-DAHD” [sjuˈðað], “say-RAY-sah...

My trip to Morocco for Easter vacation was one where I went outside of my comfort zone a lot —even if it was with the help of the tourist trail. I had to manage daily life with a language I barely spoke (French) and one I didn’t at all (Arabic); there was absolutely no question I was a foreigner, being Christian, white, and non-fluent in any of Moroccan’s languages; and I basically winged transportation day by day, be it trains, buses, urban or interurban taxis. Douche et Bain Barakat, Chefchaouen (“Barakat Shower & Bath”) One of the things I wanted to do to push myself out of my comfort zone and to *ahem* immerse myself in Morocco was to bathe in a traditional hammam , or public bath. Ideally, I wanted to try out a hammam in each of the three cities I would stay at (Fez, Meknes, Chefchaouen), but because it’s such a time-consuming process and I didn’t have much down time in the first two cities, I didn’t end up bathing (I did shower, though!) until I got to Chefchao...

LAST UPDATED JANUARY 2014 After applying and getting accepted into Spain’s language assistant program , and after living and working abroad for a whole school year, you’ve decided you want to do it all over again. You’ve read through Spain’s official how-to-renew guide , but their guide for renewing via Profex is all in Spanish and the application period begins tomorrow…so what do you do? Read below, that’s what! In this blog post, I want to make it as clear as possible how to renew for Year 2 (or Year 3…) since the process is similar, yet different, from Year 1. If you finish reading the post and still have questions, leave a comment and I’ll try to answer it! Me at the Plaza de España in Sevilla 1) Figure out where you want to renew Sevilla’s Torre del Oro and the Guadalquivir River at the blue hour Not everyone chooses to stay at their same school for a second or even a third year; sometimes people want to change from a rural to an urban setting, from a primary...