Grupo Básico Español – lección veintiseis

Grupo Básico Español – lección veintiseis

Buenos días señores y señoras. Bienvenidos a la lección veintiseis de la clase de español.

Hoy, estoy solo otra vez. Lucía y Aureliano, mi hijo Tom y mi nieta Julia están en el consulado ecuatoriano en Londres. Tom ha solicitado una visa para vivir en Ecuador. ¡Crucemos los dedos!

Here’s another example of how you cannot translate English literally into Spanish. Type ‘fingers crossed’ into Google Translate and it will come back with ‘dedos cruzados’ but they don’t say that in Spanish, they say ‘we are crossing the fingers’.

Creo que la lección de la semana pasada fue muy difícil. Esta semana será mucho más fácil: tenemos un video de Xisca y una canción en español.

ADVERTENCIA 1 – there is some present subjunctive in our story this week.

ADVERTENCIA 2 – our song is a little saucy!

First, we must find out what happens in our story: Las Dudas de Marta. This is the final episode.

Las Dudas de Marta

Capítulo Tres conclusión. Time is running out for Alberto – he’d better get moving!

A la hora de despedirse, Alberto dice:

“Marta, me gustas mucho, pero sé que tienes novio.”

“¿Que tengo novio? ¿Yo? ¡No, claro que no! ¡De dónde sacas eso?”

“Entonces, ¿quién es el chico que te acompaña cuando vas a la biblioteca?”

Marta se echa a reír. “¿Javi? ¡Ese es mi hermano!”

Alberto la mira sorprendido, y luego también se echa a reír.

“¿Tu hermano? ¡No puedo creerlo!”

De repente, suena el móvil de Alberto. ¡Es Yolanda!

“Alberto, esto es una emergencia. Me ha salido otro vuelo urgente. Tengo que ir a Roma directamente desde Japón. Pero necesito mi ropa. ¿Puedes recuperarla y llevármela?”

“¿Quieres que te lleve tu ropa a Roma?”

¿Sí, hermanito. La necesito sin falta. Yo te arreglo el billete. ¿Cuándo puedes volar?”

Alberto mira a Marta antes de contestar, y sonríe con complicidad.

“Yolanda, ¿puedes arreglar dos billetes en lugar de uno? Estoy en el aeropuerto con alguien más. ¡Podemos volar ya!”

“Está bien. Atento al teléfono. Enseguida te llamo te doy los datos del vuelo.”

Alberto cuelga el teléfono, Marta no se lo puede creer.

“¿Significa eso que …?

“Sí Marta. ¡Nos vamos a Roma! ¿Qué te parece?”

“¡Que estás loco!”

“Sí loco por ti. Desde el primer día que te vi en la biblioteca. ¿Qué me dices? ¿Vamos a Roma?”

Marta se sonroja al escuchar esto. ¡Increíble! Pero, por primera vez, no tiene dudas. Contesta sin pensárselo dos veces.

“¡Sí, vamos!”

Alberto la besa y, de la mano, se dirigen juntos a la oficina de embarque.

©This story is from Spanish Short Stories for Beginners published by the Language Academy

Did you spot the subjunctive. There was a sentence: “¿Quieres que te lleve tu ropa a Roma?”

This is another example of the present subjunctive form which we talked about last week. If you remember, we said that this form of a verb is used rarely in English, but quite often in Spanish. One of the instances is after a verb that expresses doubt, fear, joy, hope, sorrow or some other emotion.

Last week I said: Espero que estén (I hope they are …). Estén is the present subjunctive form of estar for “they are”. Instead of saying estan, you say estén.

The subjunctive is also used after a verb expressing some kind of wish, suggestion or request, Alberto is asking if Yolanda wants him to take her clothes to Rome. ¿Quieres que? expresses the wish, so the form of the verb “to take” (in this case “I take”) moves into the subjunctive.

Llevo is I take, but the subjunctive form is lleve. So, ¿Quieres que te lleve tu ropa a Roma?

Do not worry about this. I don’t expect you to learn these conjugations. I just want you to be aware of this form of the verb and to know some instances of where it is used.

  

OK, I think it’s time for some Xisca.

Last week, I threw a lot of new verbs at you. Do you remember them? They were:

Ir – to go

Poder – to be able

Tomar – to take

Coger – to catch (to grab or seize)

Venir – to come

Viajar – to journey

Volar – to fly

You have to know all the various conjugations to use the language properly and in Spanish there are very many more conjugations than in English.

However, if it’s a regular verb, you know that all the endings will follow a pattern, so learning the pattern is a quick way to learn to conjugate verbs.

This week, Xisca is looking at -ar verbs. Let’s watch the video … CLICK HERE

Some quick exercises with those verbs:

1.     Hablar (to speak). Do you speak English? ¿… usted Inglés?

2.    Amar (to love). I love you very much my love. Te … mucho mi amor

3.    Bailar (to dance). We dance every Saturday night. … todos los sábados por la noche.

4.    Caminar (to walk). They walk to school every day. Ellos … a la escuela todos los días

5.    Cantar (to sing). Does he sing in the shower? ¿… él en la ducha?

6.    Visitar (to visit). Do you all visit your grandparents each week? ¿Todos … a sus abuelos cada semana?

7.    Trabajar (to work). We work hard at the factory. … duro en la fábrica

8.    Crear (to create). My friend creates amazing works of art. Mi amigo … increíbles obras de arte.

9.    Necesitar (to need). They need to go shopping tomorrow. … ir de compras mañana

10. Llevar (to carry, to wear, to take). You carry the bag for me please. Tú me … la bolsa por favor

11.  Admirar (to admire). She admires his work very much. Ella … mucho su trabajo

12. Reciclar (to recycle). I recycle all cans, glass and plastic. … todas las latas, vidrio y plástico

Next week we will look at regular -ir verbs.

Our Spanish song this week is a little risqué. In fact, I think anyone who suffers from high blood pressure or a dodgy heart should leave for 10 minutes. We’re going to listen to Despacito by Luis Fonsi.

Despacito, of course, means “slowly” in English. The song is performed by Puerto Rican singer Luis Fonsi with Puerto Rican rapper Daddy Yankee. They co-wrote the song with Erika Ender (pictured left), a Colombian singer/songwriter.

Commercially, the song topped the charts of 47 countries and reached the top 10 of ten others. It became the first song in Spanish to top the Billboard Hot 100 since "Macarena" in 1996, and the longest-reigning number one with 16 weeks. The song is also the longest-reigning number one on the Billboard Hot Latin Songs chart with 52 weeks.

The song was popular, but the video went absolutely ballistic.

In August 2017, the official music video for "Despacito" became the most viewed YouTube video of all time after receiving its three billionth view. It became the first video on the site to reach the milestones of three, four, and five billion views.

In Spanish, a billion is mil millones.

We’re going to watch the video now. It shows both artists performing the song in La Perla barrio (above) of Old San Juan, Puerto Rico and the local bar La Factoría. 

It also features Zuleyka Rivera (left), a Puerto Rican actress, TV host, dancer, model and beauty queen who won Miss Universe 2006. She made her debut as a telenovela actress in Mexico's Telemundo soap opera Dame Chocolate in 2007.

Maybe we’ll do it twice, once so you can enjoy the video and once reading the lyrics.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE VIDEO

In 2017, Puerto Rico was hit by the devastating Hurricane Maria, with winds of up to 175mph. Sixty-four people were killed. La Perla was one of the areas hardest hit. The barrio made famous by Despacito was devastated.

The US and the Trump administration were widely criticised for the lack of urgency in delivering help to the island and for insisting that aid money had to be paid back, something that Texas and Florida were not required to do.

Trump, of course, famously could not pronounce Puerto Rico.

The Spanish lyrics have introduced us to a couple of new verbs:

Gritar (a regular -ar verb) meaning to shout, scream, shriek or cry out. A gritos means at the top of your voice.

Pegar (a regular -ar verb with a slight spelling change in the preterit and subjunctive forms) means to beat, slap or hit; also to stick, glue or paste. Pegando is the gerund and nos vamos pegando is the present continuous tense (we are sticking together).

OK, back to Chapter 10 of Sueños. Aquí hay tres personas que hablan sobre el tipo de transporte que normalmente usan.

Persona uno:

Maria: ¿Siempre va usted en autobús?

Lucía: Siempre en autobús, sí exactamente.

Maria: ¿Y le gusta viajar en autobús?

Lucía: Me encanta.

What mode of transport does Lucía always use? Does she like it? Write a sentence answering those questions.

Lucía siempre va en autobús. A Lucía le encanta el autobús.

Persona dos:

Carlos: Uso el metro por las mañanas para ir a trabajar.

Luis: ¿El tren lo usas? o ¿Usas usted el tren?

Carlos: Uso el tren ocasionalmente. Algunos fines de semana viajo para visitar a mi familia fuera de Madrid y algún otro viaje de placer, normalmente, fines de semana.

How does Carlos travel to work? When does he use the train? Write a sentence answering those questions.

Carlos usa el metro para viajar a trabajar. Él viaja en tren algunos fines de semana para visitar a su familia fuera de Madrid.