Translation of erstmal

I thought it was great to hear from you. I would love to help you to learn Spanish. I'll write in English and you tell me the Spanish translation. I think that you're good enough for that exercise.
I've been working on and off on the dictionary during the entire week, and I'll spend some more hours on it this coming weekend. Sometimes he would get a bit mixed up and use formal Castilian sometimes instead of informal.
I am in my German lesson and I'm learning about the subjunctive. I had never heard about it before. Can you ever deal with all Verb conjugations? I just totally misunderstand the past tense!