Learn how to use Spanish transition words and phrases
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Fernando: It's Just that I Haven't Studied Spanish Today! I’m Fernando and I’m joined by JP. JP, how are you? |
| JP: I’m fine, Fernando. |
| Fernando: Wonderful. |
| JP: Tell us what we’re gonna learn in this lesson today? |
| Fernando: In this lesson, you will learn about transition words and phrases. This conversation takes place at the office and the conversation is between Belén and Esteban. The speakers will be using the familiar register. |
| JP: All right, let’s take a listen to this conversation. |
| DIALOGUES |
| Belén: Quiero ir a la playa. |
| Esteban: Pero tenemos mucho trabajo. |
| Belén: Es que estoy harta. |
| Esteban: Ni modo. |
| English Host: Let’s hear it again, dramatic speed. |
| Belén: Quiero ir a la playa. |
| Esteban: Pero tenemos mucho trabajo. |
| Belén: Es que estoy harta. |
| Esteban: Ni modo. |
| English Host: One more time with the translation. |
| Belén: Quiero ir a la playa. |
| JP: I want to go to the beach. |
| Esteban: Pero tenemos mucho trabajo. |
| JP: But we have a lot of work. |
| Belén: Es que estoy harta. |
| JP: It's just that I'm sick of it. |
| Esteban: Ni modo. |
| JP: There's nothing we can do about it. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| JP: All right, we’re back. Belén and Esteban don’t seem like they’re enjoying their time at work. |
| Fernando: Not all. Belén wants to get out now. She wants to go to the beach. Quiero ir a la playa. |
| JP: Quiero ir a la playa. All right, what’s the word for “beach”? |
| Fernando: playa |
| JP: Right. La playa is “the beach.” And Belén actually said “I want to go to the beach.” So, how do you say “I want.” |
| Fernando: quiero |
| JP: Quiero. Now, that’s the verb querer, which means “to want.” Okay, so let’s put it together. “I want to go to the beach.” |
| Fernando: Quiero ir a la playa. |
| JP: And Esteban comes right back saying, we got too much work to do. |
| Fernando: Pero tenemos mucho trabajo. He’s kind of a party popper. |
| JP: So, what’s the word for “work”? |
| Fernando: trabajo |
| JP: Trabajo. Right, now, “a lot of work”? |
| Fernando: mucho trabajo |
| JP: Mucho trabajo. Mucho means “a lot.” And the verb is “we have.” |
| Fernando: tenemos |
| JP: Tenemos. That’s the verb tener, right? |
| Fernando: Yes. |
| JP: So, to put it all together, he says, “But we have a lot of work.” |
| Fernando: Pero tenemos mucho trabajo. |
| JP: Okay, we’re gonna talk about that pero later, all right, but it means “but.” Now, how does Belén answer this? |
| Fernando: “It’s just that I’m sick of it.” Es que estoy harta. |
| JP: Que estoy harta, right? Now, Belén is a woman, so she said estoy harta. If it’s a dude, you’d say estoy harto, right? |
| Fernando: Mm-hmm. |
| JP: So, “I’m sick of it,” estoy harto. And then she starts the sentence with a transition phrase. |
| Fernando: Es que… |
| JP: Es que…, right. It means “It’s just that…” We’re gonna talk about transition phrases later. So, let’s put it together. “It’s just that I’m sick of it.” I’m fed up. I’m have it up to here. |
| Fernando: Es que estoy harta. |
| JP: And then Esteban has two little words in Spanish that mean like, ah, there’s nothing you can do about it, oh, well. |
| Fernando: Ni modo. |
| JP: Ni modo. Okay, we’re gonna talk about ni modo more in depth at the vocabulary section. |
| Fernando: So, speaking of vocabulary section, let’s move on. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Fernando: la playa [natural native speed] |
| JP: beach |
| Fernando: la playa [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Fernando: la playa [natural native speed] |
| Fernando: el trabajo [natural native speed] |
| JP: job, work |
| Fernando: el trabajo [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Fernando: el trabajo [natural native speed] |
| Fernando: harto [natural native speed] |
| JP: fed up |
| Fernando: harto [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Fernando: harto [natural native speed] |
| Fernando: ni modo [natural native speed] |
| JP: there's nothing anyone can do about it |
| Fernando: ni modo [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Fernando: ni modo [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| JP: All right, Fernando, let's have a closer look at some of these words and phrases. |
| Fernando: Let’s start with la playa. |
| JP: La playa, that means “the beach,” right? |
| Fernando: Yes. |
| JP: This is the place with sand and ocean and barbecues and beach balls and volleyballs and stuff. |
| Fernando: Yes, not the littered with cans or plastic bottles. |
| JP: Actually, that’s called the playa too, right? |
| Fernando: Yes. Well, it’s true. |
| JP: It’s just not as fun. |
| Fernando: That’s just not as fun. |
| JP: La playa. Okay, what’s next? |
| Fernando: el trabajo |
| JP: El trabajo. Now, literally, this is work. Now, “work” can mean a couple of things even in English, right? |
| Fernando: Voy al trabajo. |
| JP: Or you could say “I have a job for you.” |
| Fernando: Tengo un trabajo para tí. |
| JP: Okay, or we can say “I have a lot of work to do.” |
| Fernando: Tengo mucho trabajo. |
| JP: Okay. All of those words are trabajo and it’s all work, right? |
| Fernando: Mm-hmm. |
| JP: Or job. |
| Fernando: Yes. |
| JP: Okay. |
| Fernando: harto |
| JP: Harto is to be sick and tired of something, right? |
| Fernando: “fed up” |
| JP: Harto. And in our dialogue, we heard it in the feminine. |
| Fernando: Es que estoy harta. |
| JP: Harta. And the last one? |
| Fernando: Ni modo. |
| JP: Ni modo. Ni modo is always an interesting word to translate because there’s all kinds of ways we can translate it, right? |
| Fernando: It’s very versatile. |
| JP: Tough luck. Earlier, we’re saying like “Oh well.” |
| Fernando: In this dialogue, that’s what it mean, “Oh well.” |
| JP: Right, you have to shrug your shoulders, right? |
| Fernando: Right. |
| JP: Or throwing your hands up. |
| Fernando: Yes, or throwing your hands up. |
| JP: Ni modo. |
| Fernando: Or rolling your eyes. |
| JP: Okay. In the printed version of this lesson, I translated it as “nothing can be done.” |
| Fernando: There’s nothing that can be done. |
| JP: You’re right. There’s nothing you can do. And I wrote that because it’s really hard to write shrugging shoulders and rolling eyes and all that. |
| Fernando: Yeah, you bet. Of course. |
| JP: Okay. So, oh, well. Ni modo. |
| Fernando: Oh, well. |
| JP: Should we move on to the grammar section? |
| Fernando: Yes. |
| GRAMMAR POINT |
| Fernando: I know we talked about the focus of this lesson. |
| JP: The transition words. |
| Fernando: Yes. Let’s go ahead and delve into that. |
| JP: Okay. So, you know… |
| Fernando: Oh, I see what you’re doing. |
| JP: Yeah, I just included the transition word in English. |
| Fernando: Right. |
| JP: Transition words are some fluffy words that we use in colloquial conversation that don’t add a lot of meaning to the sentence. What they do is they tie the following sentence to whatever was happening in the past. |
| Fernando: Right. |
| JP: Or they link it somehow or they make a transition, which is why it’s called transitions. So in English, we often say “And so…” I know that I would say so or now. I will do that. Now (comma). |
| Fernando: Right. |
| JP: Right, that’s one of mine. Oh, “right” is another one of mine. |
| Fernando: Yes. |
| JP: Okay. Fernando knows because he edits the audio for this podcast. |
| Fernando: Oh, do I ever? |
| JP: All right. So, let’s talk about some in Spanish. Now, we heard a couple of the dialogue. One of them was the word for “but.” |
| Fernando: I’m sorry, JP? |
| JP: The however “but,” Fernando. |
| Fernando: Right, pero. |
| JP: Pero, right. It was, “But we have a lot of work.” |
| Fernando: Pero tenemos mucho trabajo. |
| JP: Pero tenemos mucho trabajo. Now, Esteban could have just said, “We have a lot of work.” |
| Fernando: Tenemos mucho trabajo. |
| JP: But that pero shows that he’s contrasting something, right? I wanna go to the beach but we have a lot of work, right? |
| Fernando: Mm-hmm, exactly. |
| JP: So he needs that transition with pero. Now, Belén also made a transition when she says, “It’s just that I’m fed up.” |
| Fernando: Es que estoy harta. |
| JP: Es que, there’s two words. That’s a transition phrase that you’re gonna hear a lot from Latinos. And in a lot of cases, it’s making an excuse or giving a justification, right? Es que estoy harta, it’s just that I’m fed up, right? Or maybe in English, we’d say, whoa. “Whoa, I’m fed up!” |
| Fernando: Yes. Do you have any other transition words, JP? |
| JP: Oh, you know I got a whole list of them right here, Fernando. |
| Fernando: So what are they? |
| JP: Well, let’s look at a couple. First of all, the word for “and” in Spanish. |
| Fernando: y |
| JP: Y. Now in English, in school, we’re taught that you don’t start a sentence with “and,” right? Of course, Spanish is not English, so Spanish has different rules, and you’ll hear Latinos all the time start sentences with y. |
| Fernando: ¿Y qué vas a hacer este fin de semana? |
| JP: And so, what are you gonna do this weekend? So when Fernando just said y there, he’s linking it to the last idea. And, right? And so, what are you gonna do? |
| Fernando: Mm-hmm. |
| JP: I translated it with and so, right? Which is kind of a transition to the next thing. When you hear y as a question, it means “what about.” So like when we say, “I’m fine, how are you?” |
| Fernando: Yo estoy bien, ¿y tú? |
| JP: ¿Y tú? “What about you?” ¿Y tú? |
| Fernando: Mm-hmm. |
| JP: I’m just gonna go down this list here. I already told you about pero. |
| Fernando: Es que. |
| JP: I already told you about es que. Entonces “sometimes” is a transition word. |
| Fernando: Entonces que vas a hacer este fin de semana. |
| JP: So, what are you gonna do this weekend? Entonces literally means “therefore,” but in conversation, you can just use it to progress with the conversation. |
| Fernando: Yes. |
| JP: Okay. One of my favorites, o sea. |
| Fernando: O sea, se prepara la comida de la siguiente forma. |
| JP: And so, the food is prepared in this manner or this is how you go about preparing this food. |
| Fernando: Mm-hmm. |
| JP: Or this dish. |
| Fernando: Yes. |
| JP: We started that sentence with o sea. Now, I just translated there like, “and so,” therefore, so, it’s another transition, another filler transition. Now, we often hear this transition phrase o sea in kind of an airheaded way, right, in Spanish? |
| Fernando: At times, yeah, definitely. |
| JP: Do you have an example? |
| Fernando: O sea, no tengo… |
| JP: It’s like, “I don’t have one.” |
| Fernando: Right. |
| JP: It sounds a little bit air-heady. |
| Fernando: Yes. |
| JP: Okay. You’ll hear that a lot especially if you have younger friends like teenage friends that speak Spanish. |
Outro |
|---|
| Fernando: JP? |
| JP: Yes, sir. |
| Fernando: I think we’re done. |
| JP: Okay, everyone, ¡hasta luego! |
| Fernando: ¡Adiós! |
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