Lección básica de español treinta y siete

Bienvenidos a la lección básica de español treinta y siete

¿Qué tenemos esta semana?

1.            Nuestra historia – La Profe

2.           Grrrammar!

¡Empecemos!

La Profe

The last two chapters.

Grammar crammer

Grammar wasn’t taught at most schools when our generation was in short pants. There have been a few requests for a grammar crammer or some kind of aid memoire (sorry for the French).

·       Adjective – a word that modifies a noun or pronoun to describe, limit, expand or make the meaning particular. Por ejemplo: un jardín hermoso y ella es bonita.

·       Adverb – an adverb modifies a verb, an adjective or another adverb. It says something about how, when, where, to what extent, or in what way. Por ejemplo: María corre rápidamente, Juan es muy guapo, el niño habla muy rápidamente ahora, la oficina de correos está allá.

·       Auxiliary verb – sometimes called a helping verb, it´s used to make compound tenses. In English, it’s the verb to have, in Spanish it’s haber. So we say: he comido (I have eaten). He is the conjugated form of haber to create (in this case) the perfect tense.

·       Cardinal number – a number that expresses an amount, such as 1, 2, 3, etc.

·       Ordinal number – a number that expresses a position in a series, such as first, second, third, etc.

·       Conjugation: the fixed order of all the forms of a verb, showing all its forms in the three persons and in a particular tense. Conjugation in Spanish is far more complex than English.

·       Conjunction: a word that connects words or groups of words: y, o, pero, porque.

·       Definite article: In English ‘the’. Spanish has four forms to account for gender and plurals – el, la, los, las.

·       Indefinite article: In English a, an and some. In Spanish we also have gender-related forms – un, una, unos y unas.

·       Demonstrative adjective: an adjective that points out (this and these). It’s placed in front of a noun (as in English). Por ejemplo – este libro, estos libros, esta taza, estas flores.

·       Pronouns: a word that takes the place of a noun. Por ejemplo – el hombre: él, la mujer: ella.

o   Demonstrative Pronoun: a pronoun that points out. Por ejemplo – tengo dos naranjas, ¿prefieres esta o esa?
Prefiero aquéllas.
Don’t forget the masculine gender and the neuter …

o   Disjunctive or prepositional pronoun: a pronoun that has emphasis (it is stressed). Por ejemplo – para mí (for me), para él (for him); also con él (with him), con usted (with you). Note that it’s conmigo (with me), contigo (with you, familiar).

o   Interrogative pronoun: who and what when posed as a question. Por ejemplo - ¿quién es? ¿qué dice usted?

o   Personal pronoun: a pronoun that refers to a person – él, ella …

o   Possessive pronoun: it takes the place of a possessive adjective
Possessive adjective        Possessive pronoun
My book: mi libro             mine: el mío
My house: mi casa            mine: la mía
My shoes: mis zapatos     mine: los míos
My houses: mis casas       mine: las mías

o   Reflexive pronoun: In English – myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, themselves, yourselves. In Spanish, there are additional reflexive pronouns to account for formal and informal speech.
me – myself
te – yourself (informal)
se – himself, herself, itself (also yourself – formal)
nos – ourselves
os – yourselves (informal)
se – themselves, also yourselves (formal)

·       Direct object noun: a noun that receives the action of the verb directly – escribo una carta.

o   Direct object pronoun: takes the place of a direct object noun and is normally placed in front of a conjugated verb. Por ejemplo - escribo una carta becomes la escribo. If using an infinitive form of the verb or an affirmative imperative, it is hooked on the end of the verb. So … puedo ecribirla and compralo (buy it). In a negative imperative is goes before the verb … no lo compres. I know! Bloody complicated, isn’t it!

·       Indirect object noun: receives the action of a verb indirectly – escribo una carta a Christina. The letter is the direct object, Christina is the indirect object.

o   Indirect object pronoun: this takes the place of an indirect object noun. Instead of saying: escribo una carta a Christina, say le escribo una carta (to her I am writing a letter). If you need context, you could say: le escribo una carta a ella.

·       Gerund or present participle: In English, this is a word formed from a verb. Typically, it has an ‘ing’ ending. In English, we can use it as a noun: Seeing is believing. You can’t do that in Spanish, you have to say: ver es creer (to see is to believe). In Spanish, you can use a gerund (el gerundio) only as a verb, usually to create the present continuous tense - No puedo parar, estoy corriendo para el autobús, o Solo estoy mirando. The Spanish don’t use the present continuous tense as much as we do – we use it all the time!
To create a gerund, take the stem of the verb and add ando for -ar verbs and iendo for -er and -ir verbs.
hablar = to talk, hablando = talking
comer = to eat, comiendo = eating
vivir = to live, viviendo = living
Warning: there are lots of irregular gerunds. The one to remember is ir (to go). It’s not iriendo, it’s yendo.

·       Past participle: This form of a verb is used with haber to create compound tenses. We have looked at the Perfect (I have been there - he estado ahí) and Past Perfect (I had gone before you arrived - Me había ido antes de que llegases). To create the past participle of a verb, take the stem and add ado for -ar verbs and ido for -er and -ir verbs.
hablar = to talk, hablado = talked
comer = to eat, comido = eaten
vivir = to live, vivido = lived
Warning: there are lots of irregular PPs. The one to remember is ir (to go). It’s not irido, it’s ido.

·       Person: In English, we talk about first person, second person, third person, but often the verb conjugation doesn’t change very much. In Spanish it makes a big difference and we have to learn all the forms, plus plurals and formal/informal tenses.
First person singular – yo voy
First person plural – nosotros vamos
Second person (informal) - tú vas
Second person plural (informal) - vosotros vais
Second person (formal) - usted va
Second person plural (formal) - ustedes van
Third person singular – él/ella va
Third person plural – ellos/ellas van
Because the verb conjugation indicates the grammatical person, we generally don’t need to use the personal pronoun, except for emphasis.

·       Infinitive: In English, we’d call this the to-form of a verb – to run, to see, etc. In Spanish, all verbs end in -ar, -er or -ir. Use the infinitive form for the second verb when one verb follows another. Use the infinitive as a mood: ver es creer (seeing is believing).

·       Preterit (el pretérito): expresses an action that happened in the past and was completed. Salí de casa, tomé el autobús y llegué a la oficina a las ocho.

·       Superlative adjective: an adjective that expresses the highest degree when making a comparison -
Bueno/good            Mejor/better        El mejor/best
Alto/tall                Más alto/taller      El más alto/tallest
You need to agree gender and number (if required) - Ella es la mujer más alta y Son las mujeres más altas.

·       Superlative adverb: an adverb that expresses the highest degree when making a comparison -
lentamente             Más lentamente               Lo más lentamente
(slowly)                  (more slowly)                   (most slowly)