Error Doctor
Catch the errors that survived into fluency — and fix them yourself, mid-sentence, out loud.
The errors that survive into advanced Spanish are fossilized, not random — and they cluster. False cognates: realizar means carry out, not realize (that's darse cuenta de); actualmente means currently, not actually (en realidad); asistir a means attend, not assist. Prepositional drift: it's depende de, soñar con, pensar en — the wrong preposition feels right but isn't. And the dodged subjunctive: espero que llegues (never espero que llegas) and cuando llegues, avísame for anything still pending — while the reverse trap, hypercorrection, makes creo que tiene razón the right answer, indicative and all.
Below: the repairs phrase by phrase, the calques that mark you as translated — and a way to practice catching them the only way self-correction sticks: mid-conversation, out loud, not on a worksheet.
Say this
Regional Spanish
Textbooks teach one word. Locals use several — pick your region's and stay consistent.
Watch out
The part no drill site can do
Carla
Your grammar teacher for this pack
No error lists to memorize, no gap-fills. In the Error Doctor lessons you talk, and Carla hands you your own fossils to repair in real time: she feeds you sentences with realizar, asistir and actualmente used English-style and you fix them to native Spanish; she makes you produce the right preposition for pensar, soñar and depender with no model to lean on; then she shows you creo que tiene razón next to creo que tenga razón and asks which one a native would actually say — and why. Out loud, until you catch the slip before she does.
Blank mid-sentence and nothing bad happens — she waits. That's the practice, without unnecessary judgement.
Finish the 6 lessons and Error Doctor is yours — earned, not given.
First 10 lessons free · 10-minute spoken lessons · your AI coaching team remembers you
Quick answers
No. Realizar means to carry out: voy a realizar un estudio de mercado. To realize something is darse cuenta de: me di cuenta de que había olvidado las llaves.
Depende de, always: depende de la situación, no de ti. The same drift hits other verbs — it's soñé con un viaje (not de), consiste en tres etapas (not de), se parece a su padre (not como).
No — it's a calque from English 'make sense'. Say eso no tiene sentido. Same family: llevo diez años viviendo aquí beats the translated-sounding he estado viviendo aquí por diez años.
Espero que llegues — hope, doubt and emotion verbs take the subjunctive: dudo que sea verdad, me alegra que hayas venido. Future-referring time clauses too: cuando llegues, avísame, never cuando llegas.
Reaching for the 'more Spanish-looking' form when the simple one is right. Affirmative opinion and knowledge take the indicative: creo que tiene razón, sé que están ocupados hoy — forcing the subjunctive there is itself the error, one C1 students make constantly.
