Learn how the gender and number of Spanish nouns work
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Anna: Hola soy Anna. |
| Eric: Eric here! Using the Right Gender and Number of Spanish Nouns |
| Anna: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to use the masculine and feminine forms of Spanish definite articles. |
| Eric: This conversation takes place at a coffee shop in the morning. |
| Anna: And it’s between Daniel and Santiago, two friends. |
| Eric: They're friends who've known each other for a long time, so they are using informal language. |
| Anna: Let's listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Daniel: ¿Tienes la nueva PlayStation? |
| Santiago: Sí, y también tengo un juego de fútbol. |
| Daniel: ¿Por qué no jugamos? |
| Santiago: Es que no tengo otro mando. |
| Daniel: No pasa nada, yo tengo otro mando. |
| Eric: Now let's listen to the same conversation at a slow speed. |
| Daniel: ¿Tienes la nueva PlayStation? |
| Santiago: Sí, y también tengo un juego de fútbol. |
| Daniel: ¿Por qué no jugamos? |
| Santiago: Es que no tengo otro mando. |
| Daniel: No pasa nada, yo tengo otro mando. |
| Eric:Now let's listen to the conversation with the English translation. |
| Daniel: ¿Tienes la nueva PlayStation? |
| Daniel: Do you have the new PlayStation? |
| Santiago: Sí, y también tengo un juego de fútbol. |
| Santiago: Yes, and I also have a soccer game. |
| Daniel: ¿Por qué no jugamos? |
| Daniel: Why don't we play? |
| Santiago: Es que no tengo otro mando. |
| Santiago: Because I don't have another controller. |
| Daniel: No pasa nada, yo tengo otro mando. |
| Daniel: No problem, I have another controller. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Anna: Every country has a sport that's the most popular. The United States has American football. In Japan, it's baseball. |
| Eric: But in Spain, by far the most popular sport is soccer, and two teams are the most popular teams – FC Barcelona and Real Madrid. |
| Anna: That's right. These two teams have won more than eighty percent of La Liga, which is the Spanish League Championship. |
| Eric: Some of the small cities in Spain also have their team in the main league, but they normally don't get good scores and don't play in the European Championships. |
| Anna: That's why it's common to be a fan of your city team and a fan of either FC Barcelona or Real Madrid. |
| Eric: Watching a soccer match is alway fun and a great way to spend some time with your friends. |
| Anna: Make sure you go along if you get a chance, listeners! Now let’s move on to the vocab. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Eric: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary from this lesson. The first word is.. |
| Anna: tener |
| Eric: to have |
| Anna: tener [slowly] |
| Anna: tener |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Anna: nuevo, nueva |
| Eric: new |
| Anna: nuevo, nueva |
| Anna: nuevo, nueva |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Anna: la |
| Eric: the (feminine) |
| Anna: la[slowly] |
| Anna: la |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Anna: también |
| Eric: also, as well, too |
| Anna: también [slowly] |
| Anna: también |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Anna: un , una |
| Eric: a,an |
| Anna: un, una [slowly] |
| Anna: un, una |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Anna: juego |
| Eric: game |
| Anna: juego [slowly] |
| Anna: juego |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Anna: ¿por qué? |
| Eric: why? |
| Anna: ¿por qué?[slowly] |
| Anna: ¿por qué? |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Anna: jugar |
| Eric: to play |
| Anna: jugar [slowly] |
| Anna: jugar |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Anna: mando |
| Eric: controller |
| Anna: mando [slowly] |
| Anna: mando |
| Eric: And last.. |
| Anna: otro, otra |
| Eric: other, another, else |
| Anna: otro, otra[slowly] |
| Anna: otro, otra |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Anna: The first word were going to look at is nuevo and nueva. Nuevo is one of many Spanish adjectives, and it means "new." And just for clarification, we use nuevo when we describe a masculine noun and nueva when we describe a feminine noun. |
| Eric: Could you give us a few examples please? |
| Anna: Sure! One example would be mi coche nuevo, which translates as "my new car." Another example would be mi casa nueva which translates as "my new house." |
| Eric: The next word were going to look at is... |
| Anna: ...jugar. |
| Eric: This verb means "to play," and it's used in several of the same ways as the English verb "to play." |
| Anna: So, for example, you could say Yo juego fútbol which means "I play soccer." Or you could also say Ella juega baloncesto, which means "She plays basketball." |
| Eric: Next we have the word... |
| Anna: ¿Por qué? Well, technically this is not a single word, it's really two words. But, when translated to English, it becomes only one word. And in Spanish it's usually treated as if it were one word. |
| Eric: And what’s that word? |
| Anna: Well, we use ¿Por qué? with interrogative questions. Por is the preposition, and qué is an interrogative pronoun. Together, they mean "Why?" in English. |
| Eric: Excellent! Could you give us some examples? |
| Anna: Sure! ¿Por qué comes huevos para desayunar? This translates as, "Why do you eat eggs for breakfast?" |
| Eric: And how would you say something like, "Why don’t we dance?" |
| Anna: That would be ¿Por qué no bailamos? |
| Eric: Great! Let's move on to the grammar. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Eric: In this lesson, you’ll learn about nouns and how their gender and number work. |
| Anna: Right. In the dialogue we heard the phrase "Sí, y también tengo un juego de fútbol." |
| Eric: Which we translated as, "Yes, and I also have a soccer game." |
| Anna: Okay so, to start off this grammar point, we're going to talk a little bit about nouns. |
| Eric: As you know, nouns are a category of words used to identify or describe people, places, things, or ideas. What's nice is that this definition holds true for both English and Spanish. |
| Anna: indeed it does. There is one slight difference—or maybe addition. In Spanish, all nouns also have a masculine or feminine gender. |
| Eric: Their gender will affect the other words around the noun. So, for example, if you have a feminine noun, then the adjectives and articles that are connected to that noun also need to be feminine. |
| Anna: Now luckily, in Spanish, the endings of the nouns can help you know whether a noun is masculine or feminine. In this lesson, we'll go over some of the patterns for identifying masculine and feminine nouns. |
| Eric: Let's begin with the masculine noun. Nouns ending in -o will generally be masculine, but not always. |
| Anna: So, for example, el oso, meaning "the bear," and el armario which means "the wardrobe" are both masculine. |
| Eric: But this isn't really a rule, it's a pattern. |
| Anna: That’s right. For example, there's the exception la radio, which means "the radio." |
| Eric: Okay, so let's take a look at feminine nouns. The general pattern is that nouns ending in -a are feminine. |
| Anna: That's right. For example, we have la cama, meaning "the bed," and we also have la motocicleta which means "the motorcycle." Also, nouns ending in -ad, -ie, -ción, -sión, -ad, and -umbre are generally feminine nouns. |
| Eric: Could you give us some examples? |
| Anna: Certainly! We could say la amistad, which means "the friendship," or we could say la canción which means "the song." |
| Eric: The other thing we want to address in this lesson is plurality or numbers. Again, the rules for English and Spanish are mostly the same. In this lesson, we'll talk about two basic rules on how to form the plural noun in Spanish. |
| Anna: The first rule is that when a noun finishes in a vowel, we add an -s to make it plural. For example, teléfono - which means “telephone” - becomes teléfonos, which means “telephones.” |
| Eric: The other rule is that if the noun ends in a consonant, you add an -es at the end to form the plural. Could you give us some examples, ? |
| Anna: Sure. Let's look at papel which means "paper." To make that plural, you add -es at the end. That makes it papeles. Another example would be aviones which means "planes." Moving on, it’s now es tiempo de la tarea. |
| Eric: Last lesson’s correct answer for the homework is option number three. |
| Anna: Yo soy de veinte años, meaning “I’m 20 years old,” is incorrect. |
| HOMEWORK |
| Eric: This lesson’s homework seems easier than the others, but could be a bit tricky, so pay attention. |
| Anna: Which of these nouns is masculine? |
| 1) espacio |
| 2) agua |
| 3) amistad |
Outro |
| Eric: Well that just about does it for this lesson. Thanks for listening, everyone, and we’ll see you next time. |
| Anna: ¡Adiós! |
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