Español básico - lección dos

Español básico - lección dos

Hay ajíes pimientos

ají = chilli
pimiento = pepper

Hay is the most useful word in the Spanish language. It means there is or there are.

No hay means there are not.

Congratulations to Simon Yates, the British cyclist who won the Vuelta a España on Sunday. Vuelta is also a useful word.

It means a return, round, lap, turn or spin. In this case, it’s a Round Spain race.

Dar una vuelta means take a walk. It’s one of my dog’s favourite Spanish phrases: Holly, vamos a dar una vuelta.

How was last week’s class? Have you all be studying your alphabet? Let’s have a quick recap and then try some words in Spanish.

          C        G

A        k        g        cava             gato

E        seh     h        cena             gente

I        seh     h        cielo             ginebra

O       k        g        comida         gota

U        k        g        culpa            gusano

Let’s try these words:

Mujer (que significa) woman

Huevos (que significa) eggs – fritas o revueltos. Huevos rancheros en México

Queso (que significa) cheese

Coche (que significa) car

Guapo (que significa) attractive

Guardia (que significa) police

And some place names …

Zamora

Gijón

Tenerife

Jerez

Almería

¡Bien hecho! (well done)

¿Estamos listos para la lección dos?

I am ready is estoy listo (or estoy lista if you’re a woman)

We learned how to say hello, goodbye, please, thank you, sorry and excuse me. We also learned how to ask “how are you?” and to tell someone how we are.

We’re going to have a 10-minute video to recap on those basics …

CLICK FOR VIDEO

So, that was easy. In Spain, they would say: Fue pan comido.

The literal translation is “it was eaten bread”, but don’t do a literal translation

Fue pan comido – it was a piece of cake (it was easy).

Es pan comido – it’s easy.

Extending the conversation:

Qué bueno verte. How nice to see you.

Estoy cansado hoy. No dormí anoche. I am tired today. I did not sleep last night.

Me duele la espalda. My back hurts.

Estoy enfermo. Tengo dolor de cabeza. I am ill. I have a headache.

Tengo hambre, no lo comí el desayuno. I am hungry, I did not eat breakfast.

Today – hoy

Tomorrow – mañana

Morning - mañana

Tomorrow morning – mañana por la mañana

Tomorrow afternoon – mañana por la tarde

Tomorrow evening – mañana por la noche

Yesterday – ayer

Yesterday afternoon – ayer por la tarde

Last night – anoche

The week – la semana

Weekend – el fin de semana

Last week – la semana pasada

Next week – la próxima semana o la semana que viene

The month – el mes

The year – el año

What would last year be? Next year? el año pasado y el próximo año

So the Spanish do not say “I am hungry”, they say “I have hunger”. The verb “to have” is tener and “I have” is tengo. Hunger is hambre, so – tengo hambre.

You can also say

Tengo calor – I’m hot

Tengo frio – I’m cold

If you said estoy calor it would also mean I’m hot, but in a different sense altogether.

One reason why Spanish is an easy language to learn is that we have so many words that are the same or almost the same. A word that’s the same in two languages is called a cognate, if it’s exactly the same it’s called a perfect cognate, it it’s similar enough to guess it’s called a close cognate.

Xisca explains this very well …

CLICK FOR VIDEO

We’ve talked about why Spanish is easy, let’s look at why it might be difficult?

Well I find that at my age, sometimes remembering where I left my car keys is difficult, so learning a new language is very hard. Things don't stick like they did when I was 10, so it's important to practise as often as possible.

Talk to your partner or, if your partner doesn't want to listen, talk to your dog or cat. Try to think in Spanish, listen to Spanish TV, watch a Spanish film with subtitles or read a Spanish book or newspaper (you can get lots online). Go to Spain on holiday.

Other complications:

There is no such thing as Spanish. Even in Spain there are huge regional differences and when you go to Latin America, they just make up their own words. In Spain car is coche, in LA it is carro. Don’t worry, once you have the basics of the language, you soon pick up the local speak.

Nouns have a gender – masculine or feminine. We say 'the book' and 'the table'. The Spanish definite article 'the' changes to reflect the gender, so they say 'el libro' (masculine) and 'la mesa' (feminine). It's the same with the indefinite article: a changes to either 'un' or 'una'.

It seems hard, but you get used to it (although I still get it wrong). At the beginning, I found it useful to say if a word ended in 'a' or 'e' it was feminine and in an 'o' it was masculine. That's not a bad start, but there are exceptions – for example día (day – and one of the first words we learned), is masculine even though it ends in an a.

Here’s a long, but useful guide: www.spanishdict.com/guide/masculine-and-feminine-nouns

There is also a different way to use adjectives. We say 'the red car' and 'the red apple'. In Spanish you would say ‘the car red’ el coche rojo and ‘the apple red’ la manzana roja, so adjectives generally (not always) come after the noun and have to agree with the gender of the noun.

Now we come to the really hard bit - rolling the R. This terrifies the British, but it is an essential part of Spanish pronunciation. The R is always rolled at the beginning or end of a word and when you get two Rs together, it is rrreally rrrolled. I am not very good, but you get better with practice. In a word such as perro (dog), try pausing between the two Rs – per-ro.

There are other tricks: I asked my Spanish teacher if there was a way to practice and she told me to look in the mirror every morning and say ‘burro’ (I found out later that means donkey – I have no idea what point she was making).

You can practise rolling your Rs in the showerrr. In the bar, you can have anotherrr.

The best way to learn is to say “sort of” in an English accent. Now let’s try that in an American accent. What’s your tongue doing? That’s the action you need to make.

What’s your name?

In Spain, women do not change their name when they are married, everyone keeps their name throughout their life. Children, both boys and girls, are given a surname which is the surname of their father and the surname of their mother.

So when Lucía married my son, she didn't become Lucía Rayner, she kept her name  Lucía Rojas Rodriguez. Their children's surnames are Rayner Rojas. My Spanish surname would be Rayner Little from my dad (Eric Rayner) and my mum (Nellie Little). The man's surname always comes first. Nick Clegg's wife is called Miriam González Durántez, what would her mother's name be?

What are your Spanish surnames?

Checking into a Spanish hotel might cause some confusion. Spanish pronunciation of my name and how an English speaker would say it are quite different. You may be asked: ¿Cómo se escribe tu nombre? Or ¿Cómo se escribe tu apellido?

Spell out surnames in Spanish.

Asking a name:

There are several ways of asking someone their name:

¿Cómo te llamas? - informal

¿Cómo se llama? - formal

To which the response is: me llamo … Eric

You could also say:

          ¿Cuál es tu nombre? - informal

¿Cuál es su nombre? - formal

To which the response is: Mi nombre es Eric Rayner

Or you could say: Yo soy Eric Rayner

The word for surname is apellido, so you could also say: ¿Cómo te llamas? And then ¿Cuál es tu apellido?

On meeting someone, you can say mucho gusto (a pleasure) or encantado (charmed)

Espero verte pronto, chao. I hope to see you soon, bye.