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Early Intermediate Spanish Podcast 21 – Spanish Relative Pronouns

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magnifying-glassSpanish Relative Pronouns.
Here is a very interesting podcast that really gets into the meat of what are Spanish Relative Pronouns and how you can use them in your spoken and written Spanish.
Of course, before you can use any aspect of Spanish grammar correctly, you must firstly understand how it works. And so, this has been our objective during the ten minutes that we consider this topic. In tandem with the podcast, we have also produced a comprehensive set of helpsheets that lay everything out clearly and concisely for you.

So, What are Spanish Relative Pronouns?

These are the words that relate one thing to another. Examples of them are THAT, WHICH and WHO.
For example, we say:

“The person who lives next to us.”

or

“The car in which we drive to work.” or more commonly, “The car which we drive to work in.”

or

“The lady with whom I speak on Wednesdays.” or more commonly, “The lady who I speak with on Wednesdays.”

Have you noticed that many of these sentences sound “high brow” and “posh”? In fact, if you go back through them you will probably notice that most times we could replace the words with “THAT”.

Exactly the same thing occurs with the Spanish Relative Pronouns. Most times, and certainly in spoken speech the more straightforward word QUE or THAT is used.

More often than not, it is in written language or when someone wants to make an impression or sound “culto” that the pronouns are used.

That doesn’t mean to say that people don’t use them. They certainly do. What we are saying is that Spanish Relative Pronouns tend to appear in more formal language situations. That said, not all are reserved for special occasions and as you will hear in the Podcast, some are used to be more exacting when we speak, or they help us to include, or exclude certain things from our sentences.

If they are not so commonly used, should I bother with them?

Absolutely! As we have said, although they are not so common in spoken, day to day Spanish, they do appear very widely in every other medium of communication. What is more, as a student of Spanish you are sure to find yourself in more formal situations, whether that be in an examination at school, college or university, in a job interview, or simply listening to a discourse or presentation by someone really ‘brainy’. hehe.

As we stated earlier, the helpsheets will help to clarify what the podcast doesn’t and we have designed it with yourselves in mind.

Buena suerte, Gordon y Cynthia.

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 11:06 — 25.4MB)

Early Intermediate Spanish Podcast 22 – The Weather in Spanish Present and Past

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blinds resizedThe Weather in Spanish.

The weather in Spanish is an interesting subject to learn. That’s not to say that Spanish speakers are as obsessed about it as the English, for example. It is, however, a very nice conversation piece to use when you want to instigate a chat or just pass the time of day with someone.

In fact, it’s pretty much an international language in itself. No matter who you are with, or where you are, being able to pull out a few little expressions about the weather can ingratiate you with most folk.

The issue is, of course, that the weather in Spanish is not spoken about in the same way as English. Or at least, not all the time.

The use of HACE,

It has to be said that Spanish speakers do use the verb HACER a lot, in many aspects of their spoken and written Spanish. And none more than when they are talking about the weather in Spanish.

Rather than saying “It’s sunny.”, they say, “It makes sun.” and when it’s hot, for them, “It makes heat.”

Ceratinly, in my experience as a Spanish teacher, I have noticed that talking about the weather in Spanish has a tremendous amount of pitfalls.  There are two verbs that seem to catch so many people out.

The first is LLOVER = TO RAIN

Firstly, this is irregular and the O becomes UE. To add insult to injury, students have to learn the noun, “LA LLUVIA” = THE RAIN, the indicative, “LLUEVE”= IT RAINS/IT’S RAINING and the present continuous, “ESTÁ LLOVIENDO” = IT’S RAINING (RIGHT NOW).

No wonder things get mixed up!

The second confusing verb is NEVAR = TO SNOW

This, too, is irregular and the E becomes IE. This also has the noun, “LA NIEVE” = THE SNOW, the indicative, “NIEVA” = IT SNOWS/ IT’S SNOWING and the present continuous, “ESTÁ NEVANDO” = IT’S SNOWING (RIGHT NOW)

Take that mix of options and then try to talk about the weather in the past and you find it getting wrapped around your neck like a winter scarf. lol.

It’s not all bad.

Fear not, however, talking about the weather in Spanish isn’t so bad once you have understood the main structure of how they make their sentences.  Practice makes perfect, too, and we recommend that you watch this video a number of times to really grasp the structures. The helpsheets are also  filled with great help and advice as well as tests to help you to get it right first time.

And, of course, if you make a point of going to countries in which it’s sunny all the time, you can save yourself a lot of trouble and only have to learn:

Hoy hace calor y sol, ayer hizo sol y calor y mañana va a hacer sol y calor. jeje

 

Buena suerte,

Gordon y Cynthia 🙂

 

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 9:56 — 22.7MB)

Beginners Spanish Podcast 26 – Spanish Adverbs

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slowly

An Adverb?

Before we look at what a Spanish adverb is, we had better examine just what an adverb is.

These are probably one of the little understood parts of English grammar. In fact, so misunderstood are they that they are often omitted from spoken language.

An ADVERB is, as it’s name implies, an ADJECTIVE (describing word) that pretends to be a VERB (doing word). How it does that is by tagging LY to its end.

 

So, for example, let’s think of the adjective HAPPY. We know we use it to say things like, “I am happy”. However, if we want to make that into an action, we have to change it to:

“I do the work happily.”

 

I’m Doing Good!

One adverb which is very much misunderstood is the word “WELL” and its opposite number “BADLY”.

If you want to be grammatically correct in English, then when someone asks you the question:

“How are you, today?”

You should answer with:

“I’m WELL” or “I’m doing WELL.” or “I’m not doing too BADLY.”

Unfortunately, more and more the answer is heard:

“I’m doing GOOD.” or “I’m doing BAD.”

In itself, this isn’t a problem except when you are learning another language, such as Spanish. The fact is that we simply cannot mess about with the Spanish adverbs such as BIEN and MAL as much as we do with the English ones.

You see, GOOD and BAD are ADJECTIVES, not ADVERBS.

So, when you say, “I’M GOOD“, or SOY BUENO in Spanish, you are referring to the type of person that you are. You are saying: “I’M A GOOD PERSON.” and not actually commenting on your state of being, as you do when you say “ESTOY BIEN” which means “I’M FINE/WELL.”

 

A Big Mistake!

Even worse, if you mix up the verb with the adjective and say: “ESTOY BUENO”, you are actually saying, “I’M SEXY“.

Now, that might be true, but it isn’t something that you want to go around telling people. Better that you let them make their own mind up on that, don’t you think? lol

The same applies with the words, MAL and MALO.

You use MAL when you want to say that you are feeling bad. “ESTOY MAL” whereas MALO means bad in another way, like a bad person. So, if you say, “SOY MALO” you are saying that you are intrinsically BAD/WICKED/EVIL.

The correct version is to say: “ESTOY MAL“, which describes your current state: “I’M POORLY/ILL“.

Of all the Spanish adverbs, these are probably the ones that create most problems, however, in this podcast we help you understand how to construct all the adverbs and what their job is.

It’s really worth becoming familiar with them, and when you do, your Spanish, as well as your Spanish Adverbs,  will move forward to a new level of excellence.

 

Buena suerte,

Gordon y Cynthia 🙂

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 11:43 — 26.8MB)

Beginners Spanish Podcast 27 – The Spanish Conditional Tense

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possibleWhat is the Spanish Conditional Tense?

The Spanish Conditional tense is a frequently used and important part of Spanish grammar. Its job, in essence, is to give a sense of what could be, what should be, or what would be possible.

An old English teacher of mine called it the EXCUSE tense. He said that if he could, he would ban it from use. His reasoning was that when people used it, it more than often was their way of saying they weren’t going to do something. Most often, it’s followed by the word BUT, which is an acronym for Behold the Underlying Truth. lol

Example:

I would eat more vegetables BUT I don’t like them. (And so I’m not eating them.)

Comería más verduras PERO no me gustan.

We would have arrived earlier BUT… (We didn’t arrive earlier.)

Habríamos llegado más temprano PERO…

I would study more Spanish BUT I just haven’t got the time. ( I can’t be bothered to study more Spanish.)

Estudiaría más español PERO simplemente no tengo tiempo.

So, as you can see, the Spanish conditional works very much in the same way as does the English version.

 

It’s not always an excuse tense.

Of course, the conditional can be used for other things such as talking about possibilities and desires.

You can use it to talk about what you would like by using GUSTAR.

Me gustaría tomar un café. = I would like to have a coffee.

Or what you could do:

Podría hacerlo. = I could do it.

 

Spanish Conditional with the dreaded IMPERFECT SUBJUNCTIVE.

Maybe you have already seen a construction with the Spanish conditional along with the imperfect subjunctive, like this:

Si tuviera más tiempo  lo pasaría estudiando el español. = If I had more time I’d spend it studying Spanish.

As this podcast is for beginners, then this particular construction will not be covered here. However, to know more you could always watch our Subjunctive range found on Youtube.  

So, join us to find out how to make the Spanish Conditional tense and to hear how it is used. Of course, our Helpsheets available on our website will guide and assist you to really grasp this tense and use it like a true native speaker.

Hasta pronto,

Gordon y Cynthia 🙂

 

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 11:07 — 25.5MB)

Early Intermediate Spanish Podcast 23 – Saying Morning in Spanish and other Time Markers.

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morning earl inter 23Morning in Spanish.

Knowing how to say morning in Spanish is absolutely vital for any student of the Spanish language along with all of the other words that allow you to mark time within your sentences.

The reason that it’s so important has been brought home to me loudly and clearly during the English classes that I teach here in the UK.

What I have noticed is that, for beginners and intermediate learners, being able to be quite specific about time frames is vital if they want to be understood.

You see, if you are a beginner or an intermediate speaker, there’s a high chance that when you speak Spanish you get your tenses a little mixed up. Perhaps you think you are talking about an event in the past when in fact you are using the present tense.

And, of course, the same thing could apply when you are talking in the present or the future and you inadvertently use a past tense conjugation.

What saves your bacon every time is if you use the correct time marker in your sentence.

Mixing up tenses.

Consider this sentence, which is very commonly heard pouring from the mouth of many a beginner in any language.

Yesterday morning I am going to the town centre. = Ayer, por la mañana, voy al centro.

Now, we know that this doesn’t really make a lot of sense. The key is, however, that because the sentence mentions yesterday morning, then as a listener we can make the appropriate tense adjustments in our head.

e.g.

I went to the town centre = fui al centro

If the speaker got the time marker wrong, however, or left it out, we as a listener would have absolutely no idea whether the speaker was going to go or had already gone to the town centre.

And that’s why it’s important to be able to say morning in Spanish, as well as afternoon, evening, tomorrow, yesterday, next week, last week and so on and so forth.

By having this vocabulary, which isn’t at all difficult, you can worry far less about your tenses and still let people know whether you are talking about the future or the past.

The truth is, if you are not confident about any tense other than present, you can still talk in the past. Many people do! (Believe me.)

How to get round weak conjugation.

Look at these examples:

Mañana por la tarde estoy en la casa de mi madre. = Tomorrow afternoon I’m in my mum’s house.

Ayer por la mañana estoy en el trabajo. = Yesterday morning I’m in work.

Now, there are better ways of saying this but because of the time markers, we as readers and listeners know when these things happened or are going to happen.

In this podcast we talk you through the most important ways of identifying time frames in your conversation. Join us and start taking your Spanish to new levels of clarity and understanding.

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 11:56 — 27.3MB)