Learn about using personal pronouns
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Allan: Meet my relatives – 1. Allan and Lizzie back for Beginner Lesson 33. ¡Habla amiga! Today we start what we believe is going to be another stellar group of lessons. In today’s “Meet my relatives - 1” we’ll hear Marcos, who’s being invited over to Rosana’s house for a Sunday meal. And this means that a lot of her family’s there. |
| Lizzie: So Rosana wants to make sure that she introduces him to her relatives. |
| Allan: Right. You Latinos sure know how to make someone feel at home. What great formality. |
| Lizzie: De acuerdo. ¿Y para la gramática de hoy? |
| Allan: Para la gramática vamos a estudiar el tiempo pretérito perfecto con el verbo presentar. The preterite perfect with the verb presentar. |
| Lizzie: Sounds like the kind of thing that can really help you socialize, no? |
| Allan: Definitely. Now, what is so valuable about learning how to introduce people is that you make connections, friends meet friends. And before you know it, you have varios círculos de amigos. |
| Lizzie: What has your experience been like socializing in Lima, Allan? |
| Allan: Lizzie, I have to tell you, it’s really been great. Peruvians are so very open and friendly people, and particularly with foreigners. I mean they’re so welcoming. It’s kind of embarrassing to me to think that back home we don’t always give foreign visitors the same welcome. |
| Lizzie: Sometimes you have to travel to have your eyes opened. |
| Allan: That’s for sure, Liz. So, guys, we’ve got our work cut out for us today. |
| Lizzie: In that case, let’s get right into today’s conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| ROSANA: Marcos, ¿te he presentado a mi prima, Laura? |
| MARCOS: No, no creo. ¿Quién es ella? |
| ROSANA: Es la hija de mi tío Victor, el hermano de mi mamá. |
| MARCOS: O sea, ¿ustedes son primas hermanas? |
| ROSANA: Claro. Su papá y mi mamá son hermanos. Déjame presentarte. |
| ROSANA: Marcos, have I introduced ya' to my cousin, Laura? |
| MARCOS: No, no I don't believe so. Who is she? |
| ROSANA: She's the daughter of my Uncle Victor, my mom's brother. |
| MARCOS: So then, you guys are first cousins? |
| ROSANA: Right. Her dad and my mom are siblings. Let me introduce ya'. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Allan: That’s a classic situation, not just meeting people, but being introduced to relatives. |
| Lizzie: Sí, la familia es muy importante en la cultura latina. |
| Allan: Sin duda. Lizzie, ¿tienes una familia grande o chica? |
| Lizzie: Pequeñita. Solo vivo con mi mamá. |
| Allan: It’s pretty small, Lizzie. A wife, two kids, a dog, a hamster, and of course, the in-laws. |
| Lizzie: A hamster? |
| Allan: Now that we’ve gone through the conversation, what do you say we run through some of the vocabulary? |
| Lizzie: Sounds like a good idea. |
| Allan: So let’s begin with… |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Lizzie: presentar |
| Allan: To introduce. |
| Lizzie: presentar, presentar |
| Allan: Next we have… |
| Lizzie: presentado |
| Allan: Introduced. |
| Lizzie: presentado, presentado |
| Allan: Next we have… |
| Lizzie: primo, prima |
| Allan: Cousin. |
| Lizzie: primo, prima. primo, prima |
| Allan: Next we’ll hear… |
| Lizzie: hijo, hija |
| Allan: Son, daughter, children. |
| Lizzie: hijo, hija. hijo, hija |
| Allan: Now let’s hear… |
| Lizzie: tío, tía |
| Allan: Uncle, aunt. |
| Lizzie: tío, tía. tío, tía |
| Allan: And finally… |
| Lizzie: hermano, hermana |
| Allan: Brother, sister, siblings. |
| Lizzie: hermano, hermana, hermano, hermana |
| Allan: And now, guys, a quick tip to keep your Spanish nice and crisp. The word presentado. |
| Lizzie: presentado |
| Allan: In Spanish, you’ll find that many words end in ADO, A-D-O, and IDO, I-D-O, just like we see here in presentado. |
| Lizzie: Or like hablado and comido. |
| Allan: Exactly. Now, the thing is when we’re speaking quickly, it’s not uncommon to kind of drop that letter D in the ending and say presentao. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Lizzie: presentao |
| Allan: But it’s probably something you should get in the habit of hearing more than saying. |
| Lizzie: Ahora estudiemos como se empleaban algunos de estos vocablos en la conversación de hoy. |
| Allan: ¿Por dónde deseas empezar? |
| Lizzie: Empecemos con el sustantivo hermano. |
| Allan: Alright, and this noun can be either masculine, hermano, or feminine, hermana. |
| Lizzie: Y como sustantivo masculino, ‘qué significa? |
| Allan: As a masculine noun, it means “brother” in the singular, that is. In the plural it has two meanings. |
| Lizzie: ¿Y cuáles son? |
| Allan: Well, it can mean “brothers”, which should come as no surprise, but it can also mean siblings since in Spanish the masculine plural is preferred to make up for the lack of a neutral form. So when we’re talking about a group of males and females, we’ll use the masculine plural form. |
| Lizzie: ¿Y el sustantivo femenino? |
| Allan: That just means “sister” in the singular and “sisters” in the plural. |
| Lizzie: Hermano, hermanos, hermana, hermanas. |
| Allan: Lizzie, ¿Cómo se llama el hijo de tu tío? |
| Lizzie: Se llama Pablo. |
| Allan: ¿Enserio? |
| Lizzie: Es mi primo. |
| Allan: So the son of your uncle is your primo, your cousin. This is a great word. Aside from referring to someone in your family, it’s also used to refer to what we might call in English a family friend or extended family. |
| Lizzie: Right. Like if you’re invited over to my house and my cousins meet you. They might start calling you primo to make you feel like you’re part of the family. |
| Allan: Right. That’s so nice. And with this one, too, we can use it as a masculine or feminine noun, even though we’ll always translate it as “cousin”. |
| Lizzie: Primo, primos, prima, primas. |
| Allan: So, moving on, what’s another way to refer to the son of your uncle? |
| Lizzie: es el hijo de mi tío. |
| Allan: Hey, we’re on a roll. Another noun that can be either masculine or feminine. And this one, like hermano, has two different translations depending on the gender. |
| Lizzie: La forma masculina hijo. |
| Allan: So in the masculine singular this means “son”, and in the feminine, Lizzie? |
| Lizzie: Hija. |
| Allan: “Daughter”. But, again, when we’re talking about sons and daughters, we’re going to need to use the masculine plural form hijos, and this means “children”. |
| Lizzie: Alright, last word. |
| Allan: Let’s go for four in a row. |
| Lizzie: ¡Cómo no! |
| Allan: Tio y tia. |
| Lizzie: Pues, no es nada más que “uncle” and “aunt”. |
| Allan: And your tios. How do you say tios in English? |
| Lizzie: I prefer not to answer. Can we talk about something else? |
| Allan: Come on. No, it’s an unfair question. There’s no clean translation for the word tios. We have to describe it and say “aunts and uncles”. |
| Lizzie: Prosigamos con la gramática. . |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Allan: Me parece muy bien. So today’s grammar topic is twofold. We’re going to learn a little more about how to conjugate a verb in the preterit perfect tense, and we’re going to see how the verb presentar is used to introduce someone to someone else. |
| Lizzie: Sounds challenging. |
| Allan: Well, Liz, it’s supposed to be challenging. I mean the main goal of this Beginner Series is to prepare our listeners for the Lower Intermediate Series, where you basically study Spanish in Spanish. So it’s our job to make them ready. |
| Lizzie: Entonces vamos de una vez. |
| Allan: So let’s start by grounding this in the conversation. Rosana asks Marcos ¿te he presentado a mi prima, Laura?. |
| Lizzie: Let me guess, you want to know what the verb is? |
| Allan: You read my mind. |
| Lizzie: Well, I can't tell you which one it is because there are two. |
| Allan: Alright, cuáles son? |
| Lizzie: Son haber y presentar. |
| Allan: Sure, catch me on a technicality, Lizzie. But as we’ve said before, in order to express what has happened, we use the verb haver conjugated in the present tense and then the past participle of the main verb. So here, he presentado, “I have introduced” - as a statement, and “have I introduced?” as a question. |
| Lizzie: But there’s also the pronoun te. She asks ¿te he presentado a mi prima, Laura? |
| Allan: The thing is in Spanish we introduce someone to someone else, so te presento a mi prima, “I introduce you to my cousin”. And in the preterit perfect, te he presentado a mi prima. |
| Lizzie: It sounds a little strange in English. |
| Allan: Yeah, I don’t think anyone would really put it this way. |
| Lizzie: How would you put it? |
| Allan: Well, it’s common to say something like “I’d like you to meet my cousin” or simply “Marcos, this is my cousin, Laura.” |
| Lizzie: I see. |
| Allan: So let’s say I'm talking about my cousin who I’ve recently introduced to my friend, I can say le he presentado a mi amiga. |
| Lizzie: Right. And I could say pero no me has presentado a él. |
| Allan: And that means? |
| Lizzie: But you haven’t introduced me to him. |
| Allan: Well, I will introduce you right now. |
Outro |
| Alright, guys, that’s all she wrote. |
| Lizzie: Creo que ha sido una lección muy exitosa. |
| Allan: Chao, people! |
| Lizzie: Chao todos. |
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