¡Hola! ¿Qué tal?

Today, we are going to see some common leisure activities in Spanish and how to say when and how often we do them.

First let’s see some useful leisure activity verbs:

• Ver la televisión: To watch TV
• Leer el periódico: To read the newspaper
• Leer un libro: To read a book
• Salir con los amigos: To go out with friends
• Jugar al fútbol/tenis/golf: To play football/tennis/golf
• Ir de compras: To go shopping
• Ir al cine: To go to the cinema
• Ir a un concierto: To go to a concert
• Cocinar: To cook
• Escuchar música: To listen to music
• Viajar: To travel
• Ir a la playa: To go to the beach
• Ir al monte: To go to the countryside
• Ir de excursión: To go on an excursion

Now let’s look at Spanish adverbs of frequency that allow us to describe how often we do a certain thing:

• Siempre: Always
• A menudo: Often
• Muchas veces: Many times
• A veces: Sometimes
• Muy pocas veces: Not very often
• Casi nunca: Hardly ever
• Nunca: Never

Let’s practice using the adverbs of frequency with the verb “To go”, el verbo “Ir”:

• Vamos siempre: We always go
• Vamos a menudo: We often go
• Vamos muchas veces: We go many times
• Vamos a veces: We sometimes go
• No vamos casi nunca: We hardly ever go
• Casi nunca vamos: We hardly ever go
• No vamos nunca: We never go
• Nunca vamos: We never go

Next we are going to see other Spanish phrases to express how often we do things:

• Todos los días: Every day
• Todas las semanas: Every week
• Todos los meses: Every month
• Todos los años: Every year

• Una vez al día: Once a day
• Una vez a la semana: Once a week
• Una vez al mes: Once a month
• Una vez al año: Once a year

• Dos/Tres/… veces al día: Twice/Three times… a day
• Dos/Tres/… veces a la semana: Twice/Three times… a week
• Dos/Tres/… veces al mes: Twice/Three times… a month
• Dos/Tres/… veces al año: Twice/Three times… a year
• Una vez: Once

Let’s practice those phrases now with the verb “To study”, el verbo “Estudiar”:

• Estudio todos los días: I study every day
• Estudio dos veces al día: I study twice a day
• Estudio tres veces a la semana: I study three times a week
• Estudio una vez al mes: I study once a month
• Estudio cuatro veces al año: I study four times a year

This is a good time to refresh our knowledge about the days of the week and the months of the year in Spanish so that we can describe on which days and in which months we do certain things:

The days of the week in Spanish are:

• Lunes: Monday
• Martes: Tuesday
• Miércoles: Wednesday
• Jueves: Thursday
• Viernes: Friday
• Sábado: Saturday
• Domingo: Sunday

For example:

• El lunes/martes/miércoles/etc…: On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc
• Los lunes/ martes/ etc…: On Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, etc
• El viernes voy a un concierto: On Friday I am going to a concert
• Los domingos voy al cine: On Sundays I go to the cinema

The months of the year in Spanish are:

• Enero: January
• Febrero: February
• Marzo: March
• Abril: April
• Mayo: May
• Junio: June
• Julio: July
• Agosto: August
• Septiembre: September
• Octubre: October
• Noviembre: November
• Diciembre: December

For example:

• En enero/febrero/marzo/etc…: In January/February/March/etc…
• En agosto no trabajo: I don´t work in August
• El (date) de (month): The (date) of (month)
• El cinco de marzo: The 5th of March
• El veintidós de septiembre. The 22nd of September

This is all for today. As an exercise to practice what you have just learned I suggest you try writing about what activities you usually do and how often and when exactly you do them. For example, when you study Spanish, when you go shopping, when you play sport, etc… This will help you to memorise the new vocabulary and the structure of the sentences.

Have a great week and see you next time with more Spanish!

¡Hasta luego!