I'm confused with the structure regarding these phrases and whether or not estar is used or not:

I am cooking…Estoy cocinando

or

Yo cocino

They are swimming in the pool…Estan nadando en la piscina

or

Nadan en la piscina

Duolingo often drops the appropriately conjugated estar followed by the verb (not sure what the form is called when it is "swimming") and merely replaces it with the conjugated verb.

What is common usage for native speakers?

Escribe la frase cambiando el objeto directo e indirecto por pronombres de objeto.

Javier ha comprado entradas para vosotros. –

These were my responses. All wrong 🙁

Javier se las ha comprado.

Javier os las comprado.

Javier se las compro (with accent over o)

Javier os la compro (with accent over o)

Recently I've been consuming a lot of my favorite English language media with Spanish dubs to further immerse myself in the language, but instead I have found myself with a bit of a phonological conundrum.

I know that in Spanish the "a" vowel is hypothetically an open central vowel, pronounced slightly more front than the "a" in the word "father." Like with all Spanish vowels, there is never an abundance of variation there; the Spanish vowels are remarkable stable.

Or at least that's what I thought, until I started paying close attention to the voice actors Netflix uses to dub their shows. On multiple occasions, I have heard the "a" pronounced like "æ" (or as in the English word "cat" if IPA isn't your thing). I know this is not the standard pronunciation, but I'm not even aware of any regional accents that do this.

You can especially hear this on the dubbed versions of "Supernatural" and "Breaking Bad" (no not the god awful Colombian remake, but the Spanish dub of the original). You can hear it in the first episode of both shows if you are interested in hearing it yourself, specifically the words "claro" and "blanco."

Is this a dialectal thing or is Netflix using non-native speakers to dub their content? I'm not just asking for the curiosity element; if they are speaking poor Spanish then obviously I don't want to mimic other aspects of their pronunciation (intonation, hiatus resolution, etc). This is the dub for Latin American viewers, to be clear.

TL;DR Netflix voice actors in Spanish dubs sometimes pronounce "a" like in English "cat." Is this bad Spanish or are there certain dialects that actually do this?

They both mean "to start" are there different uses for them or can you use both for every situation?

Empezar y comenzar signifcan "to start", pero puedo usar estes palabras por todas las situationes?

Is there a difference between these two phrase? Or are they synonyms?

Today I saw something written on the internet which described a (customer service) woman as 'bien sangrona.' Does that mean the ugly misogynistic thing I think it means?

In Diary of a Wimpy Kid book 2, the narrator is talking about a drawing and is saying that he knows the picture is a drawing of he and his brother. The sentence is:

Me consta que los que aparecían en el dibujo éramos Rodrick y yo.

I'm confused at the apparent mismatch between aparecían (they appeared) and éramos (we were).

Can someone explain the grammar at work here?

I was trying to learn some vocabulary and one of the words was "modales", so I tried to put it into a famous movie phrase, in order to make me remember.

The phrase, in English, is "manners maketh man". I thought it would be "los modales hacen el hombre" but I was wrong; it should've been "los modales hacen al hombre". As in, 'hacer a' + 'el hombre'.

I don't really get the 'hacer a' part. when is it used and why?

thanks in advance

HOMBRE 1: Como se dice 'cowboy?'

HOMBRE 2: 'Cowboy' es vaquero.

HOMBRE 1: No. Un vaquero es un vaquero, un 'cowboy' es 'moo-chacho.'

The joke being muchacho loosely translates as boy, and when you say "moo" it makes a cow noise thus indirectly translating as 'cowboy.'