El Profesor
State your thesis, cite your sources, and survive the Q&A — in formal Spanish, out loud.
Academic Spanish is carried by structure: state la tesis, support it with la evidencia empírica, close with a clear conclusion — claim, evidence, takeaway. The connective tissue is the formal markers: no obstante, por consiguiente, cabe señalar que. Hedge your claims the way scholars do — parece que, sugiere que — instead of stating absolutes, and upgrade the casual words that give you away: considerar for pensar, aspectos for cosas. Real campuses talk less stiffly than the textbook: in Mexico the bibliography is la biblio, and in Chile everyone says paper, even in a defense.
Below: the argumentation, discourse-marker and citation vocabulary lesson by lesson, how it actually sounds in seminar rooms across Latin America, and a way to rehearse a defense out loud — no flashcards, every term learned by using it in a live exchange.
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Regional Spanish
Textbooks teach one word. Locals use several — pick your region's and stay consistent.
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The part no drill site can do
Olivia
Your vocabulary teacher for this pack
The El Profesor lessons hand you nothing to memorize — you present, and Olivia supplies the formal register the second you reach for it. One lesson is a graduate seminar: five minutes to defend a thesis, then questions from professors who expect citations — como sostiene, según el autor. Another is a conference panel where a peer disagrees with your findings and you answer with no obstante instead of a shrug. Then the dissertation committee, pressing on your marco teórico and metodología until you defend both out loud. Olivia talks back — politely, precisely, and in exactly the register you're there to learn.
Blank mid-sentence and nothing bad happens — she waits. That's the practice, without unnecessary judgement.
Finish the 6 lessons and El Profesor is yours — earned, not given.
First 10 lessons free · 10-minute spoken lessons · your AI coaching team remembers you
Quick answers
Según el autor is the standard form; close variants are de acuerdo con and como sostiene. In casual academic talk, Mexicans use según fulano — 'according to so-and-so' — when the author is generic.
The core set: no obstante (nevertheless), por consiguiente and en consecuencia (consequently), cabe señalar que (it should be noted that). Regionally: Argentines often say igualmente where Spain would use no obstante, and Colombians lean on de hecho to introduce evidence.
Preface the counterpoint with a respectful marker — por un lado, sin embargo, con todo — then hedge the claim itself: parece que, sugiere que. Structured disagreement reads as rigor; a bare contradiction reads as rudeness.
La hipótesis is what you set out to test; la tesis is the position you defend once the evidence is in. Both sit inside el marco teórico and stand or fall on la metodología — the two words examiners probe first.
Spoken citation runs on como sostiene + author, citado en for secondhand sources, and obra citada for a work already named. A detail defenses reveal: op. cit. and íbid. are read aloud as 'op cit' and 'ibid', no periods pronounced.
