Review the Spanish interrogative pronouns that you can use to ask a question
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Fernando: What a Kind Thing to Say in Spanish. JP, I think this summarizes me all the time when I speak in Spanish. |
| JP: That’s right, Fernando. |
| Fernando: How are you? |
| JP: I’m great. How are you? |
| Fernando: I’m good. Thanks. |
| JP: Why don’t you tell us what the objectives are for this lesson. |
| Fernando: In this lesson, you’ll learn about making exclamations with interrogative pronouns. This conversation takes place at the office. The conversation is between Miguel and Ángela. The speakers will be using the familiar register. |
| JP: All right, let’s take a listen to this dialogue. |
| DIALOGUES |
| Miguel: Oye, ¡qué bonita te ves! Te cortaste el pelo. |
| Ángela: Sí, ¿no es muy corto? |
| Miguel: No, te queda perfecto. |
| Ángela: Ay, qué lindo. |
| English Host: Let’s hear it again, dramatic speed. |
| Miguel: Oye, ¡qué bonita te ves! Te cortaste el pelo. |
| Ángela: Sí, ¿no es muy corto? |
| Miguel: No, te queda perfecto. |
| Ángela: Ay, qué lindo. |
| English Host: One more time with the translation. |
| Miguel: Oye, ¡qué bonita te ves! Te cortaste el pelo. |
| JP: Hey, you look so nice! You cut your hair. |
| Ángela: Sí, ¿no es muy corto? |
| JP: It's not too short, is it? |
| Miguel: No, te queda perfecto. |
| JP: No, it's perfect on you. |
| Ángela: Ay, qué lindo. |
| JP: Oh, how nice. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| JP: All right, we’re back and Ángela has a new hairdo. And Miguel is gentleman enough to have noticed it. |
| Fernando: Right. |
| JP: Which is something I can never to. I think I have an affliction. |
| Fernando: That’s another conversation. |
| JP: I have haircut blindness. All right, let’s go on with this dialogue. |
| Fernando: Oye, ¡qué bonita te ves! Te cortaste el pelo. |
| JP: All right, Miguel has two senses here. And we’re going to break them down. Let’s listen to the first part where he says, “Hey, you look great.” |
| Fernando: Oye ¡qué bonita te ves! |
| JP: So first he gets her attention, right? By saying. |
| Fernando: Oye |
| JP: Oye, okay, this is an attention-getting word. And then he says, “How lovely you look.” |
| Fernando: Qué bonita te ves. |
| JP: Qué bonita te ves. Now, the content word in this phrase, the main word is the word for “lovely” or “pretty.” |
| Fernando: bonita |
| JP: Bonita, okay. You can call a woman “bonita” if you think that she’s attractive. |
| Fernando: You can do that. |
| JP: Visually appealing, yes. He’s exclaiming, he’s not just describing her. He’s exclaiming this description, so he’s gonna say, “How lovely you look!” |
| Fernando: ¡Qué bonita te ves! |
| JP: ¡Qué bonita! This “qué” is an interrogative pronoun, it means “what.” We can probably translate it as how, “How pretty you look!” This is gonna be the topic of our grammar section later on. So, ¡qué bonita te ves! The verb here is “ver” which means “to see.” And in this structure “te ves” how lovely you see yourself basically after several layers of translation, it means “how lovely you look. You look so lovely.” |
| Fernando: Oye, ¡qué bonita te ves! |
| JP: Okay. And then he names what exactly it is. |
| Fernando: Te cortaste el pelo. |
| JP: Te cortaste el pelo. You cut your hair. The word for “hair”? |
| Fernando: pelo |
| JP: Pelo, okay. And you cut? |
| Fernando: te cortaste |
| JP: “You cut your hair.” We’re gonna talk about this more in the vocabulary section. Let’s put it all together. Hey, you look so good, you cut your hair. |
| Fernando: Oye, ¡qué bonita te ves! Te cortaste el pelo. |
| JP: And she says, “Yes, it’s not too short, is it?” |
| Fernando: Sí, ¿no es muy corto? |
| JP: ¿No es muy corto? This question, she’s wondering a little vainly, I think. She’s wondering if the haircut is a little too short. |
| Fernando: ¿No es muy corto? |
| JP: That word for short is “corto.” And too short. |
| Fernando: Muy corto. |
| JP: Muy, usually means “very,” but sometimes, it can also mean too. So too short or very short. Now, to ask a question she says, “Is it not very short?” |
| Fernando: ¿No es muy corto? |
| JP: ¿No es muy corto? If I were to gloss the sentence, it would be, “It is not very short?” In English, the least awkward translation we decided is, “It’s not too short, is it?” All right? ¿No es muy corto? |
| Fernando: That would be the translation because obviously, you take into account the cultural aspect of people asking questions in that manner. |
| JP: Sí, ¿no es muy corto? And Miguel says. |
| Fernando: No, te queda perfecto. |
| JP: Te queda perfecto. Here, the operative word is “perfecto,” which means perfect. |
| Fernando: Mm-hmm. |
| JP: And we have this verb “quedar,” which often we use to talk about the result of a haircut or the result of an outfit choice. |
| Fernando: Or of a cuisine if someone is cooking. |
| JP: Yes, “te queda perfecto.” No, it looks great on you. |
| Fernando: Te queda perfecto. |
| JP: Mm-hmm. And then Ángela takes a moment to reflect on how nice Miguel is. |
| Fernando: Ay, qué lindo. |
| JP: Ay, qué lindo. This is another exclamation using an interrogative pronoun, which we’ll talk about in the grammar section. Right now, I’d like to move to the vocabulary section. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Fernando: corto [natural native speed] |
| JP: short, small, meager |
| Fernando: corto [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Fernando: corto [natural native speed] |
| Fernando: lindo [natural native speed] |
| JP: pretty, nice, lovely |
| Fernando: lindo [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Fernando: lindo [natural native speed] |
| Fernando: bonito [natural native speed] |
| JP: pretty |
| Fernando: bonito [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Fernando: bonito [natural native speed] |
| Fernando: perfecto [natural native speed] |
| JP: perfect |
| Fernando: perfecto [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Fernando: perfecto [natural native speed] |
| Fernando: cortaste el pelo [natural native speed] |
| JP: to get a haircut |
| Fernando: cortaste el pelo [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Fernando: cortaste el pelo [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| JP: All right, Fernando, we’re back. We’ve got a bunch of adjectives and one action phrase. What do you wanna start with? |
| Fernando: Let’s start with bonito. |
| JP: Okay, this is “pretty” or “lovely.” Bonito is a masculine form. The feminine form, of course, would be… |
| Fernando: bonita |
| JP: Bonita, all right. Bonito is used to describe something that’s visually appealing or nice. |
| Fernando: And here’s the action verb, cortarse el pelo. |
| JP: Cortarse el pelo “to get a haircut.” Literally, these words all put together mean to cut one’s hair. |
| Fernando: But you never do that. |
| JP: Yeah. |
| Fernando: You don’t cut your own hair. |
| JP: I never cut my own hair, no. I get a haircut. |
| Fernando: You get a haircut. |
| JP: Right, cortarse el pelo. |
| Fernando: Right. |
| JP: What’s next? |
| Fernando: corto |
| JP: This is the word for short, but be careful because this means short in length. So... |
| Fernando: Not short in size. |
| JP: Not short in size, not a short length of time, but just a short length of, for example, a short length of hair: pelo corto, corto. |
| Fernando: Next word is perfecto. |
| JP: Perfecto, this is almost a perfect cognate with English, right? Almost perfect. Perfecto. |
| Fernando: Perfecto, just add the “O.” Last one, lindo. |
| JP: Lindo, this is “pretty” or “lovely.” Lindo can also talk about abstract things like ideas or situations or if you wanna compliment Miguel on being so nice, you could say “ay, qué lindo.” |
| Fernando: Qué lindo. And if you wanna compliment a woman, qué linda. |
| JP: Qué linda. You know, I know some women named Linda. |
| Fernando: Yes, that’s very common. |
| JP: Let’s move on to the grammar section, Fernando. |
| GRAMMAR POINT |
| Fernando: All right, JP, apparently, we’re going to make exclamation. |
| JP: Absolutely. |
| Fernando: These exclamations. |
| JP: Exclamations. Aren’t you excited? How exciting! |
| Fernando: How exciting! |
| JP: And those exactly are the kind of exclamations we’re gonna make. We’re gonna use interrogative pronouns. Now, if you remember from grammar school, interrogative pronouns are the WH words, so who, what, which, where, why, how much, how many, these are the question words. It turns out that we can take some of these words in their Spanish equivalents and make exclamations with them, which is something that I don’t often do in English but I do all the time in Spanish. And so, there’s Angela, for example, when she says, “Miguel is so nice!” |
| Fernando: Ay, ¡qué lindo! |
| JP: She’s exclaiming his niceness. |
| Fernando: Miguel also does that. |
| JP: What does he say? |
| Fernando: ¡Qué bonita! |
| JP: ¡Qué bonita te ves!, verdad. You look so nice! How lovely you look! |
| Fernando: How lovely you look. |
| JP: So, as you can see, it’s relatively easy to make an exclamation. One of the most common kinds is to take an adjective like “bonita” or “lindo” and preface it with the word “qué,” which means what or in our translations, it can mean how, okay? |
| Fernando: I think the best thing to do, maybe is show our listeners some example? |
| JP: All right. For example, if you’re eating something delicious and you wanna exclaim how delicious it is, you can use the adjective for delicious which is “rico,” right? |
| Fernando: You can use, rico. |
| JP: Okay, so I would use... |
| Fernando: You can use delicioso. |
| JP: So let’s make an exclamation. |
| Fernando: ¡Qué delicioso! |
| JP: ¡Qué delicioso! ¡Qué rico! |
| Fernando: ¡Qué rico! |
| JP: What if it’s terrible, Fernando? What if it doesn’t taste good at all? |
| Fernando: ¡Qué malo! |
| JP: ¡Qué malo! So we have that adjective “malo” and then we exclaim it with “qué.” You can also use qué with a noun like ¡Qué asco! That’s awful, you know? ¡Qué asco! But I wanna move on to some of the other interrogative pronouns. How about the word “cuánto?” If you wanna talk about a quantity of something, you can also exclaim using ¡cuánto! Do you have an example, Fernando? |
| Fernando: Let’s say, it’s your first month with your girlfriend. |
| JP: Okay. |
| Fernando: And you see them coming over and they’re all PDA on you. |
| JP: Okay, if it’s getting very physical. |
| Fernando: Yeah, physical in a good way, in a PG way. |
| JP: Okay. So what are we going to exclaim? |
| Fernando: ¡Cuánto amor! |
| JP: ¡Cuánto amor! So much love. |
| Fernando: Right. |
| JP: So that’s the first month. |
| Fernando: That’s the first month. |
| JP: The second month, it’s gonna be like ¡Cuánto dinero! |
| Fernando: ¡Cuánto dinero! or it’s going to be like... |
| JP: How much money? |
| Fernando: Cuánto amor… ¡Cuánto amor! |
| JP: ¡Cuánto amor! I would usually say, ¡Cuánto te quiero! How much I love you. I love you so much. And of course, the lady’s heart would melt and I would say ¡Cuánto te quiero!, poco… Not very much. |
| Fernando: Yeah. Okay. And you’ve been single, how long? |
| JP: Yeah, I used to get in a lot of trouble for that one. |
| Fernando: Okay. |
| JP: I thought it was funny. |
| Fernando: I think it’s funny, too. |
| JP: Okay. We can also make exclamations with the interrogative pronoun, cómo. |
| Fernando: ¡Cómo! let’s see. |
| JP: Like you’re so irritating. |
| Fernando: ¡Cómo molestas! |
| JP: ¡Cómo molestas! Molestar is like bug. So you bug. How you bug! ¡Cómo molestas! |
| Fernando: ¡Cómo molestas!... ¡Cómo te extraño! |
| JP: Oh, how much I miss you. I miss you so much ¡Cómo te extraño! |
Outro |
|---|
| JP: It’s time to say, ¡hasta luego!. |
| Fernando: ¡Adiós! |
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