Learn about asking where someone is from
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Lizzie: Buenos días. Soy Lizzie Stolear. Hola todos, hola Allan. |
| Allan: Hi, my name is Allan. Beginner, Lesson 2 - “Where are you from?” How’s it going out there? My name is Allan Le Rue, and as always I’m joined by the illustrious Lizzie Stolear. ¿Qué tal Lizzie? |
| Lizzie: Illustrious. Oh, what an honor. You’re always a gentleman with me, Allan. I am very happy this rainy morning. |
| Allan: Así es. Now here, in our Beginner Series, we’re going to bring that Spanish that you learned a while back to the front of your mind and I bet for a lot of you, you’re going to be saying things like, “Oh, yeah, I remember when we covered that back in high school”, for example. |
| Lizzie: Claro pero también vamos a hablar un poco más en español. |
| Allan: Good point. We’re also going to speak a little bit more in Spanish. You see, this is a place where you need to get comfortable listening to Spanish. And don’t worry, we’ll be sure to include English translations but the goal here is really for you to expand your comfort zone. So if you haven’t already gotten your feet wet with a Newbie Series, dive right in with us in the Beginner Series. |
| Lizzie: And join us for this lesson of SpanishPod101.com. Allan, what did we look at in the last lesson? |
| Allan: We had a first look at introductions, focusing on the phrase me llamo, meaning “My name is”. |
| Lizzie: And today? |
| Allan: Well, today we’re going to continue with introductions, Lizzie, and learn how to ask the question: “Where are you from?” |
| Lizzie: Always a useful question when traveling. Who are we meeting today, Allan? |
| Allan: Well, today we meet Lucia and Marcos, who introduce themselves to each other in an office in Bogota. |
| Lizzie: Ay que bonito es Colombia. |
| Allan: Yeah. I’ve heard really nice things about Columbia too, especially Cartagena. |
| Lizzie: There are so many great places in Latin America to visit. |
| Allan: Definitely. And if you’re looking to visit Peru and to improve your Spanish, I invite all of you to come and study at my own school, El Sol, here in Lima. I guarantee that after one of our immersion courses you will be speaking and understanding Spanish as you could never have imagined. |
| Lizzie: I really like the neighborhood where your school is too. Me encanta Miraflores. |
| Allan: Yeah, I love Miraflores too. It has something for everybody and that’s why I’ve called it home for so many years. Alright, Lizzie, let’s get at it. |
| Lizzie: Here comes another conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| LUCÍA: ¡Buenas tardes, señor! Me llamo Lucía. |
| MARCOS: ¡Buenas tardes, Lucía! Soy Marcos. |
| LUCÍA: Es un gusto. |
| MARCOS: Encantado. |
| LUCÍA: ¿De dónde es usted? |
| MARCOS: Yo soy de Argentina. |
| LUCÍA: Good afternoon, Sir. My name is Lucía. |
| MARCOS: Good afternoon, Lucía. I am Marcos. |
| LUCÍA: It is a pleasure. |
| MARCOS: Delighted. |
| LUCÍA: Where are you from, Sir? |
| MARCOS: I am from Argentina. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Allan: So, Lizzie, here we have an archetype introduction, the kind of introduction that anyone can expect to have when they’re meeting a Spanish speaker. |
| Lizzie: Claro es muy pero muy común. |
| Allan: Bueno, Lizzie, dejame preguntarte let me ask you. ¿Qué es lo que dices cuando conoces a alguien por primera vez? What do you say when you meet someone for the first time? For example, if I say, Buenos días Lizzie! Yo soy Allan., how would you respond? |
| Lizzie: Mm encantada de conocerte, Allan. Un gusto. Mucho gusto. |
| Allan: And so by that you mean? “I’m enchanted to meet you. It’s a pleasure, it’s a real pleasure.” Thank you, Lizzie. |
| Lizzie: You’re welcome, Allan. |
| Allan: Now, that we’ve gone through the conversation, what do you say if we run through some of the vocabulary? |
| Lizzie: Sounds like a good idea. |
| Allan: So, let’s begin with… |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Lizzie: Señor, señora. |
| Allan: Sir, Mister, Madam, Mrs. |
| Lizzie: Señor, señora. Señor, señora. |
| Allan: Next we’ll hear… |
| Lizzie: Tarde. |
| Allan: Afternoon, evening, late. |
| Lizzie: Tarde, tarde. |
| Allan: Now we’ll hear… |
| Lizzie: Ser. |
| Allan: To be. |
| Lizzie: Ser, ser. |
| Allan: Now let’s listen to… |
| Lizzie: Gusto. |
| Allan: Pleasure. |
| Lizzie: Gusto, gusto. |
| Allan: Next, we’ll listen to… |
| Lizzie: Encantado, encantada. |
| Allan: Enchanted, delighted, haunted. |
| Lizzie: Encantado, encantada. Encantado, encantada. |
| Allan: And finally… |
| Lizzie: De dónde. |
| Allan: From where. |
| Lizzie: De dónde, de dónde. |
| Allan: Let’s focus for just a second on the pronunciation of one of these words. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Lizzie: Which one? |
| Allan: How about señor? |
| Lizzie: Muy bien. Señor. |
| Allan: Señor. Now, in this word we have what we call all the eñe which is a letter “N” with a tilde over, that’s that squiggly line. Señor. |
| Lizzie: Señor. |
| Allan: Now, if we were to pronounce it incorrectly and just with an “N”, Lizzie, what it would sound like? |
| Lizzie: Senor. |
| Allan: That would be wrong. But we need to say like this, señor, with the eñe. |
| Lizzie: Señor. |
| Allan: Let’s have a look at the usage for some of the words. The first word we will look at is señor. Lizzie, can you give us an example, please? |
| Lizzie: ¿Cómo está señor? |
| Allan: How are you, sir? The word señor means “sir”. |
| Lizzie: But it can also mean “mister” when it comes before a last name. |
| Allan: And how does this word change when made plural? |
| Lizzie: When it’s in the plural, señores it means “gentlemen”. Also, if you add an A to the end of the word, then it becomes a feminine and accordingly it means “madam” or “mrs.” when it comes before a last name. |
| Allan: And in the plural señoras it means “ladies”. |
| Lizzie: Right. This is an easy one to remember. Allan, what’s our next word? |
| Allan: The next word we’re going to look at today is tarde. Lizzie, how about an example with tarde? |
| Lizzie: Buenas tardes. |
| Allan: Good afternoon. Now, hey, we saw this phrase in the conversation. Lizzie, how could we translate the word tarde? |
| Lizzie: We could translate tarde as a noun which refers to the afternoon or the evening. |
| Allan: Ok. Now, what about the other uses? |
| Lizzie: When we use it as a greeting it’s always in the plural. Tardes, like we see here in Buenas tardes. When it is used as an adjective, it means “late” or “too late”. In this lesson though, we’ll be looking at it in the first sense here. |
| Allan: Sounds good, Liz. Ok, the next vocabulary word is gusto Lizzie, an example please. |
| Lizzie: Almorzar es un gusto. |
| Allan: “Eating lunch is a pleasure.” The word gusto means pleasure. |
| Lizzie: And if you remember, we looked at the verb gustar in Lesson 14 of the Newbie Series. We saw that it means “to be pleasing”. |
| Allan: You know, with that in mind, it comes as no surprise that the noun gusto means “pleasure”. This phrase es un gusto or mucho gusto is really common when you meet someone for the first time. |
| Lizzie: Very common. Allan, what’s our next word? |
| Allan: Ok. The next word is encantado. Lizzie. |
| Lizzie: Estoy encantada de estar acá. |
| Allan: I am delighted to be here. Hey, guys, that’s just another translation of “I really like being here”. |
| Lizzie: Yo tambien. |
| Allan: Yo tambien. Ah, look back at Newbie Lesson number 2. Ok, now back to encantado. |
| Lizzie: The word encantado means “enchanted” or “delighted”. And just like the English word, there is a double meaning. |
| Allan: So, you’re saying that encantado can be “enchanted” in either the sense of “bewitched” or “delighted”. |
| Lizzie: Right. And here ,of course, it means ”delighted”. |
| Allan: Ok. That brings us to the last vocabulary phrase today which is de dónde. Lizzie, how about one more example? |
| Lizzie: ¿De dónde es usted? |
| Allan: Where are you from? Again, this example comes from the conversation. Lizzie, could you tell us a little bit about the adverb dónde? |
| Lizzie: The adverb dónde means “where”, “in which place”. In fact, you can simply ask ¿Dónde? to ask “where”. But when we add the preposition de before it, we get ¿De dónde? meaning “from where”. |
| Allan: Right. And when we ask about where something is from, we’ll want to remember that the verb ser is used. Now, we said that the word gusto means “pleasure”, but doesn’t placer mean “pleasure” too? |
| Lizzie: Sí, esque las palabras gusto y placer son muy parecidas en este sentido. |
| Allan: So, the words gusto and placer are very similar in this sense. Yeah, in another sense, gusto can mean “taste”. |
| Lizzie: As in the example Tienes buen gusto. |
| Allan: “You have good taste.” Wait, are you complimenting me? Why thank you, Lizzie. And you should thank my wife. She chooses all of my clothes and dresses me every morning. |
| -- |
| Allan: Ok. Let’s have a more thorough look at the grammar used in this lesson. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Lizzie: Sounds good to me, Allan. Where would you like to start? |
| Allan: Today we’re going to look at the adverb dónde which means “where”. |
| Lizzie: Adverbs? |
| Allan: Yeah, adverbs in general describe the actions of verbs. |
| Lizzie: Ok. |
| Allan: The adverb dónde, in particular, describes the action of verbs in terms of space. Now, when you learn how to use this word, you learn how to talk about the location of things. Lizzie, can you take us back to where dónde appeared in the conversation? |
| Lizzie: ¿De dónde es usted? |
| Allan: “Where are you from, sir?” Now, in this question, you’ll notice that the adverb dónde is preceded by the preposition de, which means “of” or “from” depending on the context. Here, we’re going to take de as “from”. |
| Lizzie: So, the phrase ¿De dónde? means “from where”. |
| Allan: Right. Now, when we ask the question ¿De dónde es usted?, we’re literally asking “From where are you?” But, of course, this word order isn’t really how it’s said in English. But if we translate the word order word for word from Spanish, that’s what it looks like, “From where are you?” ¿De dónde es usted? |
| Lizzie: Now, this is the formal way to ask the question. We know this by the use of “S”, the third person singular of the verb ser and by the personal pronoun usted,which we know is always a formal way to say “you”. |
| Allan: Good point. Lizzie, could you show us how to answer questions in an informal way? |
| Lizzie: ¿De dónde eres tú? |
| Allan: “Where are you from?” Notice how the de dónde phrase doesn’t change. It’s the same in both the formal and the informal. |
| Lizzie: What does change, however, is the form of ser. To ask the question informally, we use the second person singular eres which is a two form. |
| Allan: I think we should also point out that the verb ser is used with this question in both the formal and informal. Lizzie, could you help explain why? |
| Lizzie: We use ser to talk about the origin of things because this is a permanent kind of thing. So, in order to ask this question about people other than two, you simply need to change the conjugation and the personal pronoun. |
| Allan: Ok. Can you show us how this is done? |
| Lizzie: ¿De dónde son ellos? |
| Allan: “Where are they from?” So, in this case, we’re asking about ellos. This is the third person plural, which means the “they” form in the masculine. |
| Lizzie: I think it’s also good to point out that the form ser also changes to son which also is in the third person plural form, but again we see that the verb ser is always used. |
| Allan: Lizzie, ¿que tan comun es el pronombre interrogativo dónde? I’m asking how common is the interrogative pronoun dónde? |
| Lizzie: Es tan común como el pronombre why en ingles. |
| Allan: It’s as common as the pronoun “why” in English. So, we see that this is fundamental for anyone learning Spanish. |
| Lizzie: Definitely, just this morning I asked someone, ¿Dónde está el café IT? when I was looking for a place to have a coffee. |
| Allan: That’s a great example. And that question in English means “Where is the Coffee IT?” Speaking of which, I could use a coffee. Liz, what about you? |
| Lizzie: ¡Vamos pues! |
Outro |
| Allan: Alright. We’re just about out of time and well, and we’re really in the mood for un café. |
| Lizzie: Un cafesito. |
| Allan: Un Café Cortadito. |
| Lizzie: Mm que rico. Bueno nada mas por ahora nos encontramos en la próxima lección. Chao. |
| Allan: It’s been great, guys. Bye. |
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