Learn Hardcore Spanish (Spain): Mañana habrá un seminario corto con nuestra tutora sobre cómo elegir prácticas y voluntariado. - Tomorrow there will be a short seminar with our advisor about how to choose internships and volunteer work.

hay = there is / there are (present)
- Mañana hay un seminario… is actually common in speech to talk about a scheduled future event, similar to English "Tomorrow there is a seminar".
habrá = there will be (simple future of haber)
- Mañana habrá un seminario… explicitly marks the future; it sounds a bit more formal/neutral and clearly future-focused.
será = will be (future of ser)
- Mañana será un seminario corto… is odd here; ser usually describes what something is, not the existence of an event.

For announcing events, Spanish typically uses haber (hay/habrá) or expressions like va a haber, tendrá lugar, etc. Here habrá = "there will be" is the most direct future form.

Why is it un seminario corto, not una seminario corta?

In Spanish, articles and adjectives agree with the grammatical gender of the noun:

seminario is a masculine noun (it ends in -o and is masculine by convention).
Therefore:
- Article: un (masculine singular)
- Adjective: corto (masculine singular)

So we get: un seminario corto.

Una seminario corta would be incorrect because una and corta are feminine forms and don’t match the masculine noun seminario.

Why is corto placed after seminario instead of before it?

Standard Spanish word order puts most descriptive adjectives after the noun:

un seminario corto = a short seminar

Putting corto before (un corto seminario) is grammatically possible but:

It sounds more literary, poetic, or marked.
In everyday Spanish (especially in Spain), un corto seminario would be unusual and might sound stylistically affected.

So noun + adjective (seminario corto) is the normal, neutral order.

Why is it nuestra tutora and not nuestro tutora or nuestra tutor?

Again, agreement in gender and number:

tutora is the feminine form of tutor (female tutor / advisor).
The possessive nuestro / nuestra must match the noun it modifies.

So:

nuestra tutora = our (female) tutor
nuestro tutor = our (male) tutor

Nuestro tutora (mixing masculine possessive with feminine noun) is incorrect.

What is the difference between tutora and profesora or mentora?

In Spain:

tutora
- Often refers to a homeroom teacher, academic advisor, or assigned tutor responsible for following a group or an individual student (meetings, guidance, reports).
profesora
- A teacher or professor (she teaches a subject; may or may not be your tutora).
mentora
- Less common in everyday school contexts; used more in professional or personal development contexts to mean mentor.

So nuestra tutora suggests this is the teacher/advisor assigned to guide the students, not just any teacher.

Why is sobre used to mean about in sobre cómo elegir…?

In this context, sobre means about / regarding / on the subject of.

un seminario … sobre X = a seminar about X

Other options exist (like acerca de, en torno a), but sobre is very common and sounds natural and concise:

un seminario sobre cómo elegir prácticas y voluntariado
= a seminar about how to choose internships and volunteering

Why does cómo have an accent here?

The accent on cómo shows it is an interrogative/exclamative word (even inside an indirect question):

cómo (with accent) = how in questions or indirect questions
- sobre cómo elegir… = about how to choose…
como (without accent) = as / like / since (not a question word)
- e.g. Trabajo como profesor. = I work as a teacher.

Because we are talking about how to choose, it’s an indirect question, so Spanish requires the accented form cómo.

Why is elegir in the infinitive (cómo elegir) and not conjugated?

After expressions like sobre cómo…, when you talk about how to do something in general, Spanish uses the infinitive:

cómo elegir = how to choose
cómo escribir = how to write
cómo preparar = how to prepare

The idea is general: not "how you choose" in a specific situation, but the method or process of choosing, so the infinitive is used.

What does prácticas mean here, and why is it plural?

In Spain, las prácticas (often prácticas universitarias or prácticas en empresas) usually means:

Internships, work placements, or practical training done as part of your studies.

It’s normally used in the plural:

Hacer prácticas = to do an internship / work placement

So cómo elegir prácticas ≈ how to choose internships / work placements.

What exactly does voluntariado mean, and can it be plural (voluntariados)?

Voluntariado is a mass noun meaning:

volunteering, or volunteer work in general,
or the volunteer program/sector as a whole.

Examples:

Hago voluntariado los fines de semana.
I do volunteer work on weekends.

You can see voluntariados in some contexts to mean different volunteering programs/placements, but the usual, neutral form for the concept is the singular voluntariado.

Here, elegir prácticas y voluntariado means choosing between or among different internship options and different volunteering options.

Why are there no articles before prácticas and voluntariado (no las or el)?

Spanish often omits articles with nouns when talking about things in a general, non-specific sense, similar to English “how to choose internships and volunteering” (not the internships and the volunteering).

cómo elegir prácticas y voluntariado
= how to choose internships and volunteering (in general)

If we said:

cómo elegir las prácticas y el voluntariado
it would sound like we’re talking about some specific internships and a specific volunteering program already known to the listener. That’s not the general idea here.

Could we say Mañana hay un seminario corto… instead of Mañana habrá…? What’s the difference?

Yes, Mañana hay un seminario corto… is perfectly natural and very common in spoken Spanish.

Difference in nuance:

Mañana hay un seminario…
- Present tense used for a scheduled future event (like English "Tomorrow there is a seminar").
- Feels a bit more informal or conversational.
Mañana habrá un seminario…
- Explicit future tense (there will be).
- Slightly more formal or announcement-like (e.g. in emails, posters, official notices).

Both are correct; choice is mostly about style and tone.

Can mañana be placed later in the sentence, like Habrá mañana un seminario corto…?

Yes, Spanish word order is quite flexible with adverbs of time:

Mañana habrá un seminario corto… (very common, neutral)
Habrá mañana un seminario corto… (also correct; sounds a bit more formal or emphatic on mañana).
Habrá un seminario corto mañana… (also possible; mañana at the end is fine too).

All three are grammatically correct; Mañana habrá… is probably the most natural in everyday use.

Is there a difference between corto and breve for short in this context?

Both can mean short, but with slightly different common uses:

corto
- Very general: short in length, duration, height, etc.
- un seminario corto = a short (not long) seminar.
breve
- Often a bit more formal, and more focused on duration (brief).
- un breve seminario or un seminario breve = a brief seminar.

Here, un seminario corto is everyday, neutral Spanish. un seminario breve is also correct, perhaps a bit more formal.