Dialogue

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Vocabulary (Review)

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Lesson Notes

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Lesson Transcript

INTRODUCTION
Anna: Hola soy Anna.
Eric: Eric here! Using the Spanish Definite Articles, Part 1.
Anna: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to use the Spanish definite articles for masculine and feminine singular nouns.
Eric: This conversation takes place at a coffee shop in the morning.
Anna: It’s between Daniel and Paula.
Eric: The speakers are friends, so they'll be speaking casually.
Anna: Let's listen to the conversation.
DIALOGUE
Daniel: Me gusta el coche de Alfredo.
Paula: ¿Sí? Yo prefiero el coche de Marta, me gusta más el color.
Daniel: Es rojo, como la moto de Santiago, ¿verdad?
Paula: No. El coche de Marta es azul.
Eric: Now let's listen to the same conversation at a slow speed.
Daniel: Me gusta el coche de Alfredo.
Paula: ¿Sí? Yo prefiero el coche de Marta, me gusta más el color.
Daniel: Es rojo, como la moto de Santiago, ¿verdad?
Paula: No. El coche de Marta es azul.
Eric: Now let's listen to the conversation with English translation.
Daniel: Me gusta el coche de Alfredo.
Daniel: I like Alfredo's car.
Paula: ¿Sí? Yo prefiero el coche de Marta, me gusta más el color.
Paula: Really? I prefer Marta's car. I like the color better.
Daniel: Es rojo, como la moto de Santiago, ¿verdad?
Daniel: It's red like Santiago's motorbike, right?
Paula: No. El coche de Marta es azul.
Paula: No, Marta's car is blue.
POST CONVERSATION BANTER
Anna: So in lesson 4, we learned some grammatical rules in Spanish, but as you'll see from now on, there are no absolute rules in Spanish grammar.
Eric: That's right. Every time you study some new grammar at school, you'll almost always find that there's a last point that says "exceptions" or...
Anna: excepciones in Spanish. Because of this tendency, we commonly use the sentence la excepción que confirma la regla, which means something like, "the exception that proves the rule."
Eric: This sentence is used by Spanish speakers in many contexts, but Spanish grammar really has adopted this idiom. Every time you learn a new grammar rule, there will almost always be a little "but" that confirms or verifies that rule.
Anna: So it’s worth keeping that in mind, listeners. Okay, 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: el, la
Eric: the
Anna: el, la [slowly]
Anna: el, la
Eric: Next we have..
Anna: gustar
Eric: to like
Anna: gustar
Anna: gustar
Eric: Next we have..
Anna: coche
Eric: car
Anna: coche [slowly]
Anna: coche
Eric: Next we have..
Anna: de
Eric: from, of
Anna: de [slowly]
Anna: de
Eric: Next we have..
Anna: moto
Eric: motorbike
Anna: moto [slowly]
Anna: moto
Eric: Next we have..
Anna: más
Eric: more, plus
Anna: más [slowly]
Anna: más
Eric: Next we have..
Anna: color
Eric: color
Anna: color [slowly]
Anna: color
Eric: Next we have..
Anna: como
Eric: how, as, like, about (approximation)
Anna: como [slowly]
Anna: como
Eric: Next we have..
Anna: rojo
Eric: red
Anna: rojo [slowly]
Anna: rojo
Eric: And last..
Anna: azul
Eric: blue
Anna: azul [slowly]
Anna: azul
KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES
Anna: The first word we'll look at is gustar. The verb gustar is a regular -ar ending verb in Spanish.
Eric: Its translation into English is "to like."
Anna: We'll look at the conjugation later on, but the use of the verb gustar is similar to the uses in English.
Eric: Great. Could you give some examples?
Anna: Certainly. For example, you could say, Me gusta el fútbol, which means, "I like soccer." Or you could also say A él le gusta la comida tailandesa, which means, "He likes Thai food."
Eric: What's our next word?
Anna: The next word we'll look at is de. De in most cases is a preposition, but it can also indicate possession for the person who is the owner of something.
Eric: In English, the translation would be "of" or "from." So, how would you say "I'm from California?”
Anna: Soy de California.
Eric: And how would you say, "Anna's car?"
Anna: El coche de Anna.
Eric: Okay. So, what's our last word?
Anna: The last word we'll look at is rojo. Rojo means "red."
Eric: That's right. Now, this word can be used as either a noun or as an adjective. So you could say, "The red car."
Anna: El coche rojo.
Eric: Or talk about the color red as a noun.
Anna: Yes. That would be something like, El rojo es mi color favorito. which means "Red is my favorite color." But now let's move on to the grammar point.

Lesson focus
Eric: In this lesson, you’ll learn about the definite articles in Spanish, which are...
Anna: ...el, la, los, and las. In the dialogue, we heard the phrase, Yo prefiero el coche de Marta, me gusta más el color.
Eric: Which we translated as, "I prefer Marta's car. I like the color better."
Anna: So, in this lesson, we'll see how definite articles work in Spanish. Articles work mostly the same as they do in English, with a few exceptions. One of the biggest differences is that in Spanish, you have to pay attention to the gender and number of the noun, because the article will need to change depending on it. In other words, the article can change.
Eric: The definite article introduces the noun it precedes and, as we said, it agrees with it in gender and number.
Anna: In English, "the" is the equivalent of the four Spanish definite articles; el, la, los, and las. And in this lesson, we'll learn rules that can be applied to the singular and the plural articles – el, la, los, las.
Eric: Let's see some situations when we use the definite articles in Spanish. We'll see the others in the next lesson. So, when we're talking in general in English, we use phrases like "Mexican food is spicy." How do you say that in Spanish?
Anna: La comida mexicana es picante. Talking in general would also be something like El elefante es el animal más grande. Which means, "The elephant is the largest animal."
Eric: Spanish also uses articles with names referring to geographic places like rivers, mountains, and seas.
Anna: That's right. For example, el río Duero means "the Duero river," or El Everest es la montaña más alta, which means "Mt. Everest is the tallest mountain."
Eric: Then we also use articles when we talk about specific people or things.
Anna: Yes. For example, el coche de Santiago literally translates as "the car of Santiago," but it means "Santiago's car." Or you could also say la moto de Marta, which means "Marta's motorbike."
Eric: Spanish also uses articles when talking about the days of the week. This is a little different from English, because we use "on" instead of "the."
Anna: That's right. For example, El viernes iremos al cine literally translates as, "The Friday we will go to movies." But it means, "We'll go to the movies on Friday."
Eric: How about one more example?
Anna: Okay. How about Marta vuelve a España el martes. This means, "Marta returns to Spain on Tuesday."
HOMEWORK
Eric: Before we go, let’s find out the answer from the previous lesson’s homework.
Anna: Okay, here’s your answer to the tarea. Word #1, espacio or “space”, is masculine. Now, listeners, did you think that agua was masculine too?
Eric: If you did, don’t worry too much, because it’s a common mistake. But the word for “water” in Spanish,
Anna: ...agua, is a feminine noun.
Eric: Okay, let’s hear our next homework question.
Anna: One of these phrases needs a definite article before the noun. Which one?
comida para perros pequeños
tienda de ropa deportiva
ciudad más grande del mundo

Outro
Eric: Well, that just about does it for this lesson. Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time. Bye!
Anna: ¡Hasta luego!

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