Learn how to use the Spanish adjective that means "full"
Now Playing: Lesson Audio
Get a breakdown of the dialogue and translations instantly with the Premium line-by-line Audio. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Get this lesson’s key vocab, their translations and pronunciations. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.
| INTRODUCTION |
| Dylan: Hola, hola a todos. Habla Dylan, ¿cómo están? |
| Carlos: What’s going on, Pod101 world? My name is Carlo. In this lesson, you will learn about adjectives. |
| Dylan: The conversation takes place at a bar. |
| Carlos: The conversation is between Laura, Rodrigo, Juan Carlos and Lau. |
| Dylan: The speakers are friends, so they are speaking informally. |
| Carlos: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| LAURA: Chicos, ¿quién juega hoy? ¿Por qué el bar está lleno hoy? ¡Hay tanta gente! |
| RODRIGO: Laura, ¿no sabes? ¡Hoy juega nuestro equipo nacional! ¡Qué poco patriótica eres! JUAN CARLOS: Rodrigo, no te enojes con ella, recuerda que es mujer. |
| LAURA: Gracias amigo, mejor no me defiendas, ¡me hundes más! |
| RODRIGO: Bueno, Lau, mira, hoy es el partido final de la CONCACAF. |
| JUAN: Lau, la CONCACAF, es un campeonato de fútbol entre países de América del Norte, America Central y las islas del Caribe. |
| Laura: Guys, who's playing today? Why is the bar so full? There are so many people! |
| Rodrigo: Laura, you don't know? The national team plays today! You are so non-patriotic! |
| Juan Carlos: Rodrigo, don't get mad at her. Remember that she's a girl. |
| Laura: Thank you my friend. It's better if you don't stick up for me. You're sinking me more. |
| Rodrigo: Okay, Laura, look, today is the final game of the CONCACAF. |
| Juan Carlos: Laura, the CONCACAF is a football championship between the countries in North America, Central America, and the Caribbean Islands. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Dylan: Yay, football. |
| Carlos: Yay, soccer. |
| Dylan: Okay, soccer. |
| Carlos: Well, that’s right. |
| Dylan: Football! |
| Carlos: Football! See CONCACAF I had no idea what that was until about a week ago. |
| Dylan: Really? |
| Carlos: Me and my girlfriend used to CONCACAF, CONCACAF but I had no idea what it was and I just thought it was, I’m sorry, I’m completely ignorant about soccer, but apparently Costa Rica was playing in the CONCACAF and now they are eliminated already or something. |
| Dylan: Well, Costa Rica’s done pretty well in the CONCACAF in other years, I don’t think they are doing that well like this season. |
| Carlos: So that’s why she was cursing at the TV. |
| Dylan: Hmm. That’s why. |
| Carlos: And she’s “safa, safa, safa” when the other team gets the ball, it’s weird I don’t understand but you know, so I guess CONCACAF is like the league. |
| Dylan: CONCACAF! |
| Carlos: CONCACAF! |
| Dylan: I guess so. |
| Carlos: It’s a league. Okay guys, let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Dylan: “Jugar”. |
| Carlos: “To play.” |
| Dylan: “Ju-gar”, “jugar”. |
| Dylan: “Lleno, llena”. |
| Carlos: “Full.” |
| Dylan: “Lle-no, lle-na”, “lleno, llena”. |
| Dylan: “Tanto, tanta”. |
| Carlos: “So much”, “so many.” |
| Dylan: “Tan-to, tan-ta”, “tanto, tanta”. |
| Dylan: “Gente”. |
| Carlos: “People”. |
| Dylan: “Gen-te”, “gente”. |
| Dylan: “Defender”. |
| Carlos: “To defend.” |
| Dylan: “De-fen-der”, “defender”. |
| Dylan: “Hundirse”. |
| Carlos: “To sink”, “to devastate”, “to destroy.” |
| Dylan: “Hun-dir-se”, “hundirse”. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Carlos: Okay guys, let’s have a closer look at the use of some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Dylan: The first word we will look at is “jugar”. |
| Carlos: Life ain’t so serious. Everyone has to play. |
| Dylan: Either that or they just should make time. |
| Carlos: All work and no play makes Carlos a dull boy and all that. You know, well it seems like a lot of people are playing in the conversation. |
| Dylan: At least that’s what Laura comes across. “Chicos, ¿quién juega hoy?” |
| Carlos: “Guys, who’s playing today?” And if that question is asked, we know exactly what sport is being talked about. Correct? |
| Dylan: Yes. The one and only football! Or as Americans know it as… |
| Carlos: Soccer. |
| Dylan: You know, the United States has a pretty bad reputation when it comes to soccer. |
| Carlos: That’s understandable, it isn’t the most popular sport. |
| Dylan: But they are improving, from what I understand. |
| Carlos: So wait, you are a big fan? |
| Dylan: I wouldn’t say big, but living anywhere in Latin America, you are surrounded by soccer fanatics. So you pick up a thing or two. |
| Carlos: So I guess something like that would be inevitable. You know, I know I haven’t picked it up yet. |
| Dylan: Well, now the verb “jugar”, let’s get back to the point. |
| Carlos: Dylan, do we use the verb only in relation to sports? |
| Dylan: No, no, no. For example, a little girl could be seen “jugando con sus muñecas”. |
| Carlos: “Playing with dolls.” So it’s used in the sense that we would understand in English. |
| Dylan: Or “jugar cartas”. Like “to play cards.” Which, exactly, that would be understood. |
| Carlos: Now what about an instrument, you know we say “play an instrument”? |
| Dylan: Now that’s where things change a bit. To play an instrument, you use the verb “tocar”. |
| Carlos: Oooh, it’s like to touch. |
| Dylan: Right. |
| Carlos: I’ll keep that in mind then. |
| Dylan: You haven’t been invited to play soccer in the league yet? |
| Carlos: No, well yes kind of. But I think I have got to be the worst soccer player. I have never played. |
| Dylan: Mis amigos Luis y Mario juegan fútbol todos los días. |
| Carlos: It’s a little hardcore for me to play every day. |
| Dylan: Well, now we know audience. Carlos isn’t good at “el juego”. |
| Carlos: “The game.” That’s an easy related word. |
| Dylan: What about, “la jugada”? |
| Carlos: “Player”? |
| Dylan: No. That’s “jugador, jugadora”. |
| Carlos: So what’s “jugada”? |
| Dylan: “A move”, like a great move in sports. |
| Carlos: Aaah, okay. Well, that’s enough about sports. I am not comfortable with it. What’s next? |
| Dylan: A nice little adjective that never leaves you unsatisfied. |
| Carlos: Okay, I’ll bite. Which? |
| Dylan: “Lleno, llena”. “Full.” |
| Carlos: That is a satisfying adjective. |
| Dylan: But let’s not get too deep in this food metaphor. |
| Carlos: Okay, so in a conversation we heard, “¿Por qué el bar está lleno hoy?” |
| Dylan: “Why is the bar so full?” Do you have neighborhood bar hear yet? |
| Carlos: Well, I did recently move, but yes you know, I actually do have a neighborhood bar and I like it. Everybody knows my name. |
| Dylan: Can you tell the difference when someone is playing? |
| Carlos: Well, considering the fact that it’s right across from the soccer stadium, most definitely. I mean it really gets crowded and there are no fans, like local drunks soccer fans. |
| Dylan: So we have a full bar. What else can be full? |
| Carlos: Well, in this context we can think of an earlier lesson, “la clase de baile está llena”. |
| Dylan: Aaah right! The salsa classes. Couldn’t really have many conversations on that. |
| Carlos: Well, no. We really couldn’t. |
| Dylan: Now we have a verb that easily fits in. |
| Carlos: Now that would be “llenar”, “to fill.” |
| Dylan: “Tanto, tanta”. |
| Carlos: “So much”, “so many.” Not to be confused with “tonto” or “tonta” which means… |
| Dylan: It’s like calling someone an idiot and that’s not flattering at all. |
| Carlos: So keep that in mind or you might offend somebody without intending to. |
| Dylan: Well, here we are using the adjective in a very common way. |
| Carlos: “¡Hay tanta gente!” There are so many people. |
| Dylan: Now why did we say “tanta” and not “tanto”? |
| Carlos: Well, because “gente” is a feminine noun and not a masculine noun. |
| Dylan: Good call and good advance because we are covering “gente” later. |
| Carlos: No doubt. Hear that audience, we have a little preview. |
| Dylan: Let’s think about “tanto, tanta” using a masculine noun. |
| Carlos: “¡Tengo tantos libros que leer que no puedo dormir!” |
| Dylan: I know that’s true in your case. “I have so many books to read that I can’t sleep.” |
| Carlos: That’s what I call a luxury problem. |
| Dylan: Huh! |
| Carlos: Now couldn’t I say “tan libros”? |
| Dylan: No. Absolutely no. |
| Carlos: Okay, just checking. So what’s next? |
| Dylan: “Gente”. |
| Carlos: “La gente”. A feminine noun that means “people.” My people, our people, all people. |
| Dylan: Didn’t you try to sing like Hector Lavoe last time we covered this noun? |
| Carlos: I think we should focus on the word here, Dylan. But yes, the song “Mi gente” and that’s what I think about when I hear the word “gente”. |
| Dylan: Well, now we have a second round with the sentence “¡Hay tanta gente!” |
| Carlos: “There are so many people.” |
| Dylan: Give me another quick sentence. |
| Carlos: “No me gustan los bares con tanta gente”. |
| Dylan: “I don’t like bars with so many people.” So we know how to say people, how do we say “person”? |
| Carlos: “La persona”. |
| Dylan: Perfect. Now we have a fighting verb. |
| Carlos: A fighting verb? |
| Dylan: Well, less fighting verb than a reaction tool fighting verb. |
| Carlos: I don’t think that will make much sense to me until I hear what they are talking about. |
| Dylan: The verb “defender”, “to defend.” |
| Carlos: Well, I get it now. |
| Dylan: Well, hear we have nothing to do with a fight, but with a match and with our example, we are getting a little more insight to Latin Machismo. Which soccer definitely has. |
| Carlos: Right. Laura’s getting defended and she answers… |
| Dylan: “Gracias amigo, mejor no me defiendas, ¡me hundes más!” |
| Carlos: “Thank you my friend. Its better you don’t stick out for me. You are sinking me more.” |
| Dylan: She’s right too but I think I would answer the same way if my friend tried to stick up for me in such a way. “Oooh she’s just a girl.” I’ll show you just a girl! |
| Carlos: [Laughter] |
| Dylan: What? |
| Carlos: This reminded me of the time when I walked into my friend’s house and caught him singing the song “I’m just a girl”, it was pretty funny. |
| Dylan: How old were you? |
| Carlos: About sixteen, so you know all our friends heard about it. |
| Dylan: Okay. Back to “defender”. Let’s use it in a little more serious light. |
| Carlos: Okay. |
| Dylan: “Hay que defender los derechos humanos”. |
| Carlos: “One must defend human rights.” Costa Ricans don’t know human rights. |
| Dylan: Hey man, we are famous worldwide for keeping peace. |
| Carlos: True. Any country that can stave off the violence surrounding it in the eighties is something special. |
| Dylan: Do you know a related word, Mr. War mongering gringo? |
| Carlos: “La defensa”, “the defense”, but that can also be applied to football, in soccer. |
| Dylan: Yes Carlos, they have a defense. Man, you really are clueless. |
| Carlos: I won’t even try and defend myself. |
| Dylan: You’ll sink more. Which is the perfect lead to our last word of the day. Last but not least, the verb “hundirse”. |
| Carlos: That is an epic verb. |
| Dylan: And why do you say that? |
| Carlos: “To sink”, “to devastate”, “to destroy.” Those are all epic events. |
| Dylan: Well, now we have no phrase where we need someone to stop talking about us. |
| Carlos: And what’s that? |
| Dylan: “¡Me hundes más!” |
| Carlos: “You are sinking me more.” I’ve been in a situation. |
| Dylan: But Carlos, you’ve been thinking on an epic scale. |
| Carlos: Oh, yeah? |
| Dylan: So check this sample sentence out. |
| Carlos: Estoy escuchando. |
| Dylan: “El Titanic se hundió hace muchos años”. |
| Carlos: “The Titanic sunk many years ago.” Okay you are right. In terms of sinking, it does not get more epic than that. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Dylan: Now today we are all full of adjectives. |
| Carlos: Right and in Spanish, adjectives we know have gender and number. Then this means that they are either masculine or feminine and either singular or plural. |
| Dylan: The majority of adjectives, but not all of them, follow the same basic patterns. |
| Carlos: There’s always a pesky few that try to go against the grain. The function of an adjective is to modify a noun. For example, “a full stomach.” |
| Dylan: Notice how the adjective full, modifies the noun stomach. It tells us something about the quality or state of the stomach. |
| Carlos: In Spanish, the gender and the number of the adjective must, must agree with that of the noun which it modifies. But you know what guys, this takes a lot of time and mistakes will be made. I promise. |
| Dylan: If the noun is masculine and singular, then the adjective must be masculine and singular. If the noun is feminine and singular, then the noun must be feminine and singular and so on. |
| Carlos: The thing is, for the most part in Spanish, masculine nouns add an “o” when they are singular and “os” when they are plural. Feminine nouns for the most part end in “a” when they are singular and “as” when they are plural. |
| Dylan: Let’s take a closer look at how the endings of an adjective change in order to agree or concord with the nouns which they modify. |
| Carlos: So let’s check out the singular formation first. |
| Dylan: “Llen-” plus “o” masculine is “lleno”. |
| Carlos: “Full.” |
| Dylan: “Llen-” plus “a” feminine is “llena”. |
| Carlos: “Full.” Let’s go to plural now using the same verb “llenar”, “to fill.” |
| Dylan: “Llen-” plus “os” masculine, “llenos”. “Llen-” plus “as” feminine, “llenas”. |
| Carlos: Okay, let’s get this down in the light of sample sentences. |
| Dylan: “Estoy con la barriga llena”. |
| Carlos: “I’ve got a full belly.” |
| Dylan: “Mi estómago está lleno”. |
| Carlos: “My stomach is full.” |
| Dylan: “Marcos está lleno”. |
| Carlos: “Marcos is full.” |
| Dylan: “Lucía está llena”. |
| Carlos: “Lucia is full.” |
| Dylan: “Marcos y Felipe están llenos”. |
| Carlos: “Marcos and Felipe are full.” |
| Dylan: “Lucía y Juana están llenas”. |
| Carlos: “Lucía and Juana are full.” |
| Dylan: “Marcos y Lucía están llenos”. |
| Carlos: “Marcos and Lucía are full.” |
| Dylan: Let’s not confuse gender with sex. The examples make it clear. In the first example, the noun “barriga”, “belly”, is feminine and singular. So accordingly we use the adjective “llena”, also feminine and singular. |
| Carlos: In the same way in the second example, the noun “estómago”, “stomach”, is the masculine singular. Which means that we use the adjective “lleno”, also masculine and singular. |
| Dylan: In the third example however, we see that the noun is Marcos. This time we determine the gender of the adjective by the sex of the noun. That is because Marcos is one single male, then the adjective is masculine and singular. The same goes for the fourth example which we use Lucía. Here the sex of the noun, feminine, determines the gender of the adjective also feminine. |
| Carlos: In examples five and six, we see that the sex of the noun is the one that determines the gender of the adjectives and that this time, they are in the plural because in each example they are two people of the same sex. |
| Dylan: And in the lucky number seven example, the nouns are Marcos and Lucía. This is an important example. When there’s either mixed sex or mixed gender among the nouns the adjective is masculine and plural. |
| Carlos: “Machista” adjectives. |
| Dylan: Aaah, because a neuter form was not salvaged from the late Latin as the Spanish language was formed, the masculine plural is preferred to express mixed gender or sex subjects in the plural. |
| Carlos: Now while we can generally rely on noun endings to indicate their gender to us, we have got to remember guys, that they can fool us. Consider the following example... |
| Dylan: “Tengo un día lleno de citas”. |
| Carlos: “I have a day full of appointments.” |
| Dylan: See the word “día” is masculine and singular despite the fact that it ends with an “a”. Notice how the infinitive pronoun “un” and adjective “lleno”, both indicate that it’s masculine and singular even though the noun itself ends with “a”. |
Outro |
| Carlos: And if we consider this, then it becomes apparent that there are other words that can help us find the gender of a noun. You know what? We’ll save that for later guys. That just about does it for today. |
| Dylan: ¡Chao! |
| Carlos: Nos vemos guys, ¡chao! |
Easily master this lesson’s grammar points with in-depth explanations and examples. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Comments
Hide