In Spanish, the definite articles EL or LA is used when the person or the owner of the body part or the item is obvious. The correct Spanish for Open your eyes! is ABRE LOS OJOS! (The literal back translation would come out as Open THE eyes! ) Gender One very common mistake in a Spanish lesson is forgetting the gender. The other news (not that bad, actually) is that this would need work and cooperation from your end. For obvious reasons, the best and fastest way (and the most expensive, perhaps) is to spend enough time in a Spanish-speaking country. There you will have all the speaking and listening in Spanish all the time. Before the letters E and I, the letter stands for a harsh letter H, as in PAGINA. The Spanish R is formed using the tip of tongue on the upper palate behind the front teeth. The English R is done in the back of the mouth with the back of the tongue. Meanwhile, RR produces a trilling sound. And the letter Z sounds like the TH in the English word THIN. Once you already know the basic, then you can proceed to intermediate level. Make mistakes. People are afraid of making mistakes but mistakes make you a better person. You learn from it. The same goes with language-learning. Language teachers would say that committing mistakes would show that you are indeed putting some effort into learning. Prefixes You can expand your vocabulary, too, if you take advantage of suffixes and prefixes. They are both very common in English and Spanish. In English and in Spanish, the prefix MAL has a negative connotation. Examples in English would be MALADY, MALEVOLENT, MALFUNCTION, and MALICE. In Spanish, the words would include MALEVOLO (malevolent), MALFORMACION (malformation) and MALVADO (malignant). But you need to invest in a decent dictionary, a big hardcover dictionary if possible, as you go up in your class level. El Diccionario de la Lengua Espa ola is one of the best. One tip: Make it a habit to look things up. Soak up on their Spanish definitions rather than looking up for their simple translations.