Grupo
Básico Español – lección veinte
Buenos
días señores y señoras. Bienvenidos a la lección veinte de la clase de español.
It is St Valentine’s Day on Thursday. This is
celebrated in Spain, much as it is in Britain, it’s a good excuse to sell
chocolate, flowers, cards and romantic meals out. In Latin America, it’s
celebrated as El Día del Amor
y la Amistad (the Day of
Love and Friendship) and it’s an excuse for random acts of kindness as well as
cards, chocolates, etc.
In Ecuador, where my son and family are living at
present, one of the country’s important exports is roses. My son was married at
a hacienda in Cayambe on the equator. Although on the equator, it’s sited at 9,000
feet, so the weather is perfect for roses and they grow in massive poly-tunnels
to keep the bugs controlled and to avoid rain marking the petals.
For about $20 we filled the pick-up. Lucy’s
sisters made table decorations, I did the altar garlands with the help of the
hacienda owners’ two young daughters and we had so many left that we filled the
fountain in the central courtyard full of them.
People in the USA must be feeling romantic this
year because Ecuador’s exports of Valentine’s Day roses are up more than 3% to
18,000 tonnes.
Anyway, I thought we should mark Valentine’s Day
with a poem by Pablo Neruda, a Chilean poet who won the Nobel Prize for Literature
in 1971.
His poetry translates well into English and is
also fairly easy to read in Spanish. The poem I’ve chosen is Puedo Escribir
los Versos más Tristes Esta Noche.
It’s perhaps a bad choice for Valentine’s Day
because it’s about lost love and it contains the line: Es tan corto el amor, y es tan
largo el olvido
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
Pablo Neruda (here he is) was a poet, diplomat and
politician. Neruda’s most famous work is Twenty Love Poems and a Song of
Despair (1924) and he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in
1971. He would have probably won it earlier, but for his political beliefs. He
was a prominent South American communist, a supporter of Cuba and Che Guevara
and was viewed by the US and CIA as a dangerous insurgent.
Neruda occupied many diplomatic positions in various
European countries and served a term as a Senator for the Chilean
Communist Party. When the Chilean President Gabriel González Videla, under
American pressure, outlawed communism in Chile in 1948, a warrant was
issued for Neruda's arrest. Friends hid him for months in the basement of a
house in the port city of Valparaíso before he escaped through a
mountain pass into Argentina.
Years later, Neruda was a close advisor to
Chile's socialist President Salvador Allende. When Neruda returned
to Chile after his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Allende invited him to read
at the Estadio Nacional before 70,000 people. Can you imagine 70,000
people turning up to listen to a poetry recital in this country?
Neruda was in hospital being treated for prostate cancer
when the American-backed coup by Augusto Pinochet overthrew Allende's
government. Within days, Neruda was murdered. It was long reported that he died
of heart failure, but the Interior Ministry of the Chilean government issued a
statement in 2015 acknowledging that "it was clearly possible and highly
likely" that Neruda was killed as a result of "the intervention of
third parties". Just another victim of Pinochet.
Neruda is considered the national poet of
Chile, and his works have been popular and influential worldwide. The Colombian
novelist Gabriel García Márquez called him "the greatest poet of the 20th
century in any language"
Anyway, you can decide. Here’s the poem, set to a
dramatic Argentine tango.
VIDEO: https://youtu.be/nYltpmF8gZo
In case any
of you are thinking of getting romantic and poetic in Spanish, here’s a little
help:
Te amo mucho/tanto
– I love you a lot.
Yo te amo
[insert name here] y quiero pasar el resto de mi vida contigo – I love you and
want to spend the rest of my life with you.
Te amo con
todo mi corazón - I love you with all my heart
Amar en soledad es como
un pozo sin fondo - Loving alone is like a hole without a bottom
Te amaré
hasta el fin de los tiempos – I Will love you until the end of time
Right, that’s
enough of that …
Homework
For homework
last week, I asked you to translate the following sentences:
Our
neighbours are very friendly - Nuestros vecinos son muy amables.
He is handsome and intelligent, but very unfriendly - Es guapo e
inteligente, pero muy antipático.
Jane is a fun person - Jane es una persona divertida.
I like Ian,
but he is very boring - Me gusta Ian, pero él es muy aburrido.
Can you believe
Mike, he is such a fool? ¿Puedes creer a Mike, él es tan tonto?
John is total
extrovert - John es un
extrovertido total
William is
very shy, he never speaks - William es muy tímido, nunca habla.
If we wanted to say William can be very boring,
what would we say?
William
puede ser muy aburrido.
How would we say: William is very bored.
William esta muy aburrido
So we use ser in the first
sentence because the fact that he is boring in an inherent characteristic. In
the second instance, we use estar because we
are talking about a state which may, or may not be, temporary.
We also had to write some descriptions for three
famous people. Who wants to read their offering?
Last week we started to learn how to tell someone we
were ill and what was wrong. Let’s have a refresher:
What’s the word for a pain? Dolor
What’s the word for a dull pain? Dolor sordo
How would you say: I have a headache? Tengo dolor de cabeza
If you have a migraine, you
need to say: tengo
jaqueca
What is the word for ear? La oreja.
How would you say: I have
earache? Tengo dolor de oreja.
Do you remember the verb
meaning to hurt? Doler.
How would you say: My
back hurts? Me duele la espalda.
The verb to fall is Caer, if it’s you doing the falling (rather than the British
Economy), then you make it reflexive (Caerse) because
it’s something you do to yourself. The preterite (simple past tense) I fell is caí and because it’s reflexive you have to say: me caí. It sounds a bit like the cry you might make if
you fell.
If you want to say he or
she fell, use the preterite. It is cayó but it
still needs to be reflexive.
How would you say: my son
fell? Mi hijo, se cayó.
How would you say: I fell
and now my arm hurts? Me caí y
ahora me duele el brazo.
How would you say: My
husband fell and his arm hurts? Mi marido,
se cayó y le duele el brazo.
Can you remember the word
for broken? A broken arm is el brazo roto.
Can you say: My wife fell.
Her arm hurts. I think it is broken. Mi mujer se cayó y le duele el brazo. Creo que está roto.
The word for wrist is muñeca
(it’s the same as doll). Can you say: I fell and my wrist hurts. Me caí y me duele la muñeca. Creo que está roto.
Sentir is to
feel, Sentirse is the reflexive form. If you
feel ill, it is you, yourself that feels it, therefore you need to use the reflexive
form (as in caer). You also need those reflexive
pronouns …
I don’t feel well – no me siento bien.
How would you say: I feel
ill – me siento enfermo.
How would you ask your
husband or wife if they felt ill: ¿te sientes enfermo?
How would you tell the
doctor your child feels ill: mi hijo, se siente enfermo.
OK, we’re going to take a
look at last week’s videos in a bit more depth. They were pretty awful videos,
but they did have a lot of good dialogue.
¿Cómo se siente hoy?
Me siento terrible
Me duele todo el cuerpo
¿Se siente cansada y débil?
No puedo dormir por la noche
¿Dónde se siente dolor exactamente?
Abra la boca
Saque la lengua
A ver – let’s see
¿Qué es lo que tengo?
Me parece que tiene un resfriado
A useful phrase is: Me
parece que tiene razón – It appears you are right.
Mañana ya se sentirá mejor
You can say: espero que se sentirá mejor pronto
Recetar – to prescribe
Me siento que me estoy muriendo
Tengo moqueo nasal, ojos llorosos y sigo tosiendo y
estornudando
No te preocupes
Me siento náuseas
Me duele la garganta
A lo mejor tiene gripe
Other ways to say “maybe” - tal vez, quizás o a lo mejor
Creo que debes ir al médico mañana
Tienes razón
Necesito tomar medicina
Let’s have a look at some
common holiday problems:
Tengo picadura de insecto – I have an insect bite
or sting – Sam’s insect ear
Tengo una erupción o Tengo un sarpullido – I have a rash
Me pica o me está picando – it itches, por ejemplo: la pierna me pica mucho
Tengo quemaduras solares – I have sunburn
Estoy sin aliento – I am breathless
Tengo una erupción o Tengo un sarpullido – I have a rash
Me pica o me está picando – it itches, por ejemplo: la pierna me pica mucho
Tengo quemaduras solares – I have sunburn
Estoy sin aliento – I am breathless
Mi nariz está mocosa – my nose is runny. How would you say: I have a runny nose? Tengo una nariz mocosa.
Estornudar –
to sneeze. Por ejemplo: No puedo parar
de estornudar
Tengo un corte en el pie – I have a cut on my
foot
Una resaca – a hangover.
Estoy
preocupado
He sido mordido por una serpiente
Me ha
picado por una medusa
|
I have an insect bite
|
It is on my arm
|
|
I have a rash
|
It is on my left leg
|
|
I have sunburn
|
It is on my arms
|
|
My leg is very itchy
|
It has been like that for about a week
|
|
I have a bad headache
|
It has been like that for two days
|
|
My ear aches
|
It is only my left ear
|
|
I have a cough
|
I am allergic to penicillin
|
|
I have fallen and my knee hurts
|
It is my right knee
|
|
I am breathless
|
When I walk upstairs
|
|
I have an allergy
|
My nose is runny
|
|
I am sneezing all the time
|
I do not have a cough
|
|
I cannot sleep
|
I am very tired
|
|
My back hurts
|
I have played golf twice this week
|
|
I have a cut on my foot
|
I did it on the beach
|
|
I have a hangover
|
I only had a few beers
|
The doctor may prescribe
a number of things. He may ask:
¿Es alérgico a algún medicamento?
You can say: Soy alérgico
…
Por ejemplo: “Soy alérgico a la penicilina” o “Soy
alérgico a los yesos”
Note that we use ser and
not estar because an allergy is a permanent condition.
What might you be
offered?
Las pastillas, los comprimidos y las tabletas are all
words for tablets.
El jarabe is a syrup
El ungüento y la pomada are words for ointment
La crema is a cream
Las gotas are drops
El sobre is a sachet
How will you take them?
Las cucharadas are spoonfuls. Por ejemplo: Tome una
cucharada, tres veces al día.
Frótelo means to rub it. Por ejemplo: Frótelo en la espalda.
Masticar means to chew. Por ejemplo: Mastique una tableta
después de las comidas.
Tomar means to take and
Deber means you should. Por ejemplo: Debe
tomar unas tableta antes de las comidas.
You can also use Tener. Por ejemplo: Tiene que tomar unas pastilla dos veces al dia.
To ask how you should take the medicine, you can say: ¿Como
debo tomar esta medicina? o ¿Como tengo que tomar estas pastillas?
Of course, the doctor
might not offer you medicine. What do these sentences mean?
Necesitas hacer más ejercicio: you need to do more
exercise.
Deberías hacer dieta: you
should go on a diet.
Tienes que perder peso:
you have to lose weight.
Debes beber menos
alcohol: you should drink less alcohol.
Come más frutas y
verduras frescas: eat more fruit and fresh vegetables.
Duerme más, ve a la cama
más temprano: Get more sleep, go to bed earlier.
Te preocupas demasiado, intenta relajarte: you worry too
much, try to relax
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