Learn about talking about actions that are in progress or incomplete
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Lizzie: Buenos días, me llamo Lizzie. |
| Allan: Allan La Rue here. Beginner Series, Lesson number 20. “Rise and Shine - 4” Muy buenos días, Lizzie! |
| Lizzie: Allan, ¿cómo te va?? |
| Allan: Todo bien gracias. Great to be back for another beginner lesson. |
| Lizzie: Today we have Lesson 20. |
| Allan: Was there something in particular that you wanted to talk about? |
| Lizzie: Today I didn’t have anything planned. I thought I’d see what you wanted to cover. |
| Allan: Well, one of the things I think really comes through today’s lesson conversation is the distinction between “what happens” and “what’s happening.” |
| Lizzie: I’m not sure I follow you. |
| Allan: Well, as we’ll see in the conversation, sometimes we use the verb to express what we do, for example Soy un electricista.,” I am an electrician.” Does the verb soy express an essential characteristic or a continuous action that doesn’t have any indication of when it starts or when it stops? |
| Lizzie: A ver, Soy electricista. It expresses an essential characteristic - a profession. |
| Allan: Right. And if I say Estoy durmiendo., “I’m sleeping”, does this action seem continuous or is there some essential characteristic being expressed? |
| Lizzie: This time it’s the continuous action. |
| Allan: So, this is the kind of thing I was thinking might be interesting to discuss today. |
| Lizzie: Sounds like a great idea. |
| Allan: Now, in this conversation we are about to hear Felix, in Madrid, and Ximena, in Guayaquil who are talking on the phone. Today, in “Rise and Shine - 4” they catch up on what they’ve been up to lately. |
| Lizzie: Catching up, such a great conversation. |
| Allan: Right. It’s like learning how to give an update in Spanish. |
| Lizzie: No se olviden de hacer clik en el boton de sus iPods para ver la transcripción en la pantalla. ¿OK? |
| Allan: Don’t forget to click the center button of your IPod to see the lesson transcripts in the display. |
| Lizzie: Escuchemos la conversación de hoy. |
| DIALOGUE |
| FÉLIX: ¿Trabajas en el banco todavía? |
| JIMENA: No. Ahora trabajo en un colegio. |
| FÉLIX: ¿De verdad? ¡Qué bien! |
| JIMENA: ¿Qué haces tú? |
| FÉLIX: En este momento estoy buscando un nuevo trabajo. |
| JIMENA: Cuando no tengo trabajo, siempre busco en el periódico. |
| FÉLIX: ¡Es una buena idea! |
| FÉLIX: Do ya' still work in the bank? |
| JIMENA: No. Now I work in a school. |
| FÉLIX: Really? That's great! |
| JIMENA: What do you do? |
| FÉLIX: Right now I'm looking for a new job. |
| JIMENA: When I don't have a job, I always look in the newspaper. |
| FÉLIX: It's a good idea! |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Lizzie: Allan, do you read the newspaper here in Lima? |
| Allan: Yes, of course. |
| Lizzie: Which one do you read? |
| Allan: I read a few. I read El Comercio, I read Gestión and sometimes I’ll even read El Expresso. |
| Lizzie: And what do you think about tabloids? |
| Allan: Well, there are all kinds of tabloids here, some are good, and some aren’t so good, I mean if you look through them , some of them have no advertising. So, who’s paying for them? Some of those tabloids are sponsored points of view as far as I’m concerned. |
| Lizzie: I have to say that you’re right. And now let’s take a look at some of the vocabulary and phrases that we saw in today’s conversation. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Allan: Ok. So, first we have… |
| Lizzie: banco |
| Allan: Bank. |
| Lizzie: banco, banco |
| Allan: Next, we’ll hear… |
| Lizzie: colegio |
| Allan: “School” or “high school”. |
| Lizzie: colegio, colegio |
| Allan: Then, let’s listen to… |
| Lizzie: buscar |
| Allan: To search for, to look for. |
| Lizzie: buscar, buscar |
| Allan: And now, let’s hear… |
| Lizzie: buscando |
| Allan: Looking for, searching. |
| Lizzie: buscando, buscando |
| Allan: And now let’s hear… |
| Lizzie: periódico |
| Allan: Newspaper, periodical. |
| Lizzie: periódico, periódico |
| Allan: And finally… |
| Lizzie: idea |
| Allan: Idea. |
| Lizzie: idea, idea |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Lizzie: The word periódico makes me think of another word. |
| Allan: Which one? |
| Lizzie: periódista |
| Allan: Good one to point out. This ISTA ending usually refers to the person who carries out an action. |
| Lizzie: So, it’s a noun. |
| Allan: el periodista or la periodista, a noun. And it could be either feminine or masculine. |
| Lizzie: So, if a periódico is “a piece of journalism”, what do we call the person whose profession it is to carry out journalism? |
| Allan: A journalist. |
| Lizzie: So then un periódista is a journalist. |
| Allan: Now, what do you say we look at how some of these words are used? |
| Lizzie: Yeah, good idea. |
| Allan: Now, the word colegio. This is an easy one to pick up. |
| Lizzie: What kind of word is it? ¿Qué tipo de palabra es? |
| Allan: Es sustantivo. It’s a noun. |
| Lizzie: And is it singular or plural? |
| Allan: It’s singular. el colegio The plural would be los colegios. |
| Lizzie: And when someone continues their studies after high school, where do they often study? |
| Allan: In a college. |
| Lizzie: And people who work in a college regard their peers as what? |
| Allan: As colleagues. |
| Lizzie: So if I say ella estudia en el colegio, what do we mean by ella estudia? |
| Allan: It means “she studies”. |
| Lizzie: And what about the other part? What does en el colegio mean? |
| Allan: The word en el means “in the”. And then we have the word colegio, which means “school”. |
| Lizzie: There we go. Also colegio refers specifically to “high school”. |
| Allan: Next, let’s look at the verb buscar. |
| Lizzie: Another key term. buscar |
| Allan: So, this is an interesting word. We can say Eduardo busca su libro. |
| Lizzie: And what does this mean? |
| Allan: We can translate it in a number of ways. For example, we could say “Eduardo looks for his book”. |
| Lizzie: Right. |
| Allan: And when we translate it this way, we need to use the preposition “for”. |
| Lizzie: That doesn’t happen in Spanish, does it? |
| Allan: No, and this is why we can translate it in another way, too. We can say “Eduardo seeks the book”. |
| Lizzie: Well, now it sounds strange. |
| Allan: Sure. I mean we wouldn’t say this really but here we see how a verb like this is used with a preposition. |
| Lizzie: Right. And that’s how the verb buscar works in Spanish. Busco mis lentes. “I look for my glasses”. |
| Allan: Now, there’s just one more word that I’d like to cover today. |
| Lizzie: Ok. What is it? |
| Allan: Well, let me spell out a word for you. And then you can tell me how it’s pronounced in Spanish. |
| Lizzie: Ok. |
| Allan: I-D-E-A. |
| Lizzie: It would be idea. |
| Allan: And now, Lizzie, if you were to pronounce the same word, but this time in English, how might that sound? |
| Lizzie: I would say “idea”. |
| Allan: So, these two words mean the same thing. |
| Lizzie: Right. We could say Tengo una buena idea. or “I have a good idea”. |
| Allan: There is another word related to this that is worth mentioning. It’s the verb idear. |
| Lizzie: What does this mean? |
| Allan: It means “to conceive of” or “to design”. |
| Lizzie: It’s kind of a specific term, but it’s good to learn in order to see how idear, “to conceive of”, relates to idea, which is a kind of conception. |
| Allan: Speaking of ideas, a friend of mine told me about this idea he had. |
| Lizzie: What was it? |
| Allan: He said that to learn a language, you have to be like a sponge and just absorb everything that you can get your hands on. |
| Lizzie: It’s an interesting thought. |
| Allan: But I’m wondering if it’s really like this or if it would be better to be more like a faucet, constantly pouring out, practicing pronunciation, learning to write in Spanish and things like this. |
| Lizzie: Sounds like a dilemma. Which option are you leaning towards? |
| Allan: Probably there’s some truth in both of those. You should try to absorb everything you can. But again, if you don’t make mistakes, you don’t learn. |
| Lizzie: I agree with you, Allan. It’s very, very important to practice, and practice, and practice. |
| Allan: Now, it’s time to look at the distinction of actions that happen and those that are happening now. |
| Lizzie: This is such an interesting topic. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Allan: So, to start, let’s recap what we’ve been studying. |
| Lizzie: Ok. |
| Allan: In the example “I am working”, which word expresses continuous action? |
| Lizzie: Working. |
| Allan: Right. And what do we call this kind of word? |
| Lizzie: un gerundio A gerund. |
| Allan: Great. So if I say Estoy trabajando, “I’m working”, the word trabajando is the gerund, right? |
| Lizzie: Yeah. |
| Allan: And this gerund, trabajando, comes from which verb in the infinitive? |
| Lizzie: trabajar |
| Allan: Right. trabajar And where is the one place that we can always bet on finding the infinitive form? |
| Lizzie: In the dictionary. |
| Allan: Right again. The infinitive is the form we find in the dictionary. And what does trabajar mean? |
| Lizzie: It means “to work”. |
| Allan: And how do you say “I work in Lima”? |
| Lizzie: Trabajo en Lima. |
| Allan: Trabajo en Lima. |
| Lizzie: Trabajo en Lima. |
| Allan: Excellent. Does the verb trabajo “I work” express an habitual action or the continuous duration of the action? |
| Lizzie: Trabajo en Lima. “I work in Lima”. It expresses an habitual action. |
| Allan: And it’s the present tense where the gerund is used to express a habitual action. |
| Lizzie: The present tense. |
| Allan: We see an example of this in today’s conversation. Ximena says Ahora trabajo en un colegio., “Now, I work in a school.” |
| Lizzie: Again, you can see it that this action is habitual. |
| Allan: Right. “I work in a school.” |
| Lizzie: Trabajo en un colegio. |
| Allan: So, the verb trabajo, “I work”, is used in the present tense. |
| Lizzie: But later on, Felix says… |
| Allan: En este momento estoy buscando un nuevo trabajo. “Right now I’m looking for a new job.” |
| Lizzie: En este momento estoy buscando un nuevo trabajo. and does the action of looking in this example express a duration or is it habitual? |
| Allan: It’s a duration. estoy buscando “I am looking.” It’s what’s going on right now, what was going on before, and what continuous going on after now. |
| Lizzie: And do you know when it starts or stops? |
| Allan: No, we just see the continuity of the action. |
| Lizzie: So then, I could say Trabajo de profesora, pero estoy estudiando para ser abogada., “I work as a teacher, but I am studying to be a lawyer.” |
| Allan: So, again, the distinction between the habitual action, “I work as a teacher”, and the continuous action, ”studying”, is apparent. |
| Lizzie: Allan, can you think of another example with this distinction? |
| Allan: Well, for example, Yo toco la guitarra, pero estoy aprendiendo a tocar la batería. That means “I play the guitar, but I’m learning how to play the drums.” |
| Lizzie: Oh, it’s very interesting. |
Outro |
| Allan: Well, Lizzie, this has been a lot of fun. |
| Lizzie: Gracias a ti Thanks to you. |
| Allan: Have a good one. Chao! |
| Lizzie: Chao! |
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