Learn about how to express obligation
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Lizzie: Buenos días, me llamo Lizzie Stolear. |
| Allan: Allan La Rue here. Do you know the speed limit? In Beginner Lesson 25 we looked at possessive adjectives and possessive pronouns, and compared and contrasted both of these. |
| Lizzie: And, Allan, is there something in particular that you’d like to look at? |
| Allan: Yeah, let’s look at how we can use the verb tener, “to have”, along with the verb in the infinitive, in order to show something that one has to do. |
| Lizzie: A new topic sounds great. |
| Allan: Now, today’s conversation is really interesting. Javier has been caught driving a little too fast. And we’ll hear his initial interaction with the policeman who’s pulled him over. |
| Lizzie: Do you drive here in Lima, Allan? |
| Allan: Yes, I do, Lizzie. |
| Lizzie: What do you think about esta selva? |
| Allan: It’s a jungle, yet it’s survival of the fittest, laws are sometimes guidelines. |
| Lizzie: A veces es desesperante, frustrante, sobre todo en las hora punta. |
| Allan: In rush hour it’s the worst, very, very frustrating. Hey, let’s get into today’s conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| OFICIAL: Documento, por favor. |
| JAVIER: Aquí tiene. |
| OFICIAL: ¿Usted sabe cuál es el límite de velocidad en esta carretera? |
| JAVIER: Disculpe, oficial. Es de 50 kilómetros por hora. |
| OFICIAL: Entonces, ¿por qué cree usted que puede conducir a 70 kilómetros por hora? |
| JAVIER: Es que el lindo paisaje de estas partes me distrajo. |
| OFICIAL: Bueno, señor, parece que tenemos que ir a la comisaría para resolver el asunto. |
| OFICIAL: Document, please |
| JAVIER: Here you go. |
| OFICIAL: Sir, do you know what the speed limit is on this highway? |
| JAVIER: I'm sorry, Officer. It's 50 kilometers per hour. |
| OFICIAL: So then, why, Sir, do you think that you can do 70 kilometers per hour? |
| JAVIER: The thing is that the beautiful landscape of these parts distracted me. |
| OFICIAL: Well, Sir, it looks like we've got to go down to the station to resolve this matter. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Allan: Ouch, down to the station for driving 20 km over the speed limit. Lizzie that’s a little harsh, don’t you think? |
| Lizzie: Sí, por supuesto. Yes, of course. Allan, have you ever gotten a speeding ticket in Lima? |
| Allan: Never gotten a speeding ticket. I’ve been pulled over a few times, Lizzie. But I found that, you know, if you speak nicely and if the rest of your papers are in order,your insurance etcetera, you know at least I’ve been lucky, they’ve let me go. What about you? |
| Lizzie: No. no tengo auto. No, no, I don’t have a car. |
| 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: documento |
| Allan: Document. |
| Lizzie: documento, documento |
| Allan: Next… |
| Lizzie: límite |
| Allan: Limit. |
| Lizzie: límite, límite |
| Allan: Now we’ll hear… |
| Lizzie: velocidad |
| Allan: Speed, velocity. |
| Lizzie: velocidad, velocidad |
| Allan: Now... |
| Lizzie: carretera |
| Allan: Road, highway. |
| Lizzie: carretera, carretera |
| Allan: Let’s hear… |
| Lizzie: conducir |
| Allan: To drive, to conduct. |
| Lizzie: conducir, conducir |
| Allan: And finally… |
| Lizzie: comisaría |
| Allan: Police station. |
| Lizzie: comisaría, comisaría |
| Allan: Alright, before we move on and see how some of these words are used, I just want to point out something. |
| Lizzie: Go right ahead, Allan. |
| Allan: Well, look at the word velocidad. |
| Lizzie: Looks a lot like the English word “velocity”. |
| Allan: Right. And seeing that it means speed, this shouldn’t be too big of a surprise. However, let’s note that we can also use the adjective veloz to mean “fast”. |
| Lizzie: As in? |
| Allan: As in, pidio una botella de vino con un gesto veloz. And that mean something like “he ordered a bottle of wine with a quick gesture”. |
| Lizzie: Muy bien. |
| Allan: Now let’s delve into some of the usage for some of the words. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Lizzie: Where would you like to begin? |
| Allan: With the word documento. Lizzie, how was documento used in our conversation? |
| Lizzie: Documento, por favor. |
| Allan: Document please. So in this sense the word “document” is used to denote something official or it’s like a driver's’ licence. |
| Lizzie: Right. |
| Allan: Now, in English, the word “document” can be used to describe any written item, for example, a book, an article, or a letter etcetera. And the same goes for Spanish, as well. |
| Lizzie: Right, for example, in an office a boss may ask her employee es al listo documento? |
| Allan: Right and that means “is the document ready?” Now the next word on our list is límite. |
| Lizzie: Límite. |
| Allan: Yes, limit. |
| Lizzie: The two versions of the words are very similar. |
| Allan: Very. Most people learning Spanish don’t realise that they already have an extensive Spanish vocabulary. They just have to recognise it. |
| Lizzie: What is the term for words that have common etymologies? |
| Allan: That would be cognates. We’ve just dealt with three. |
| Lizzie: documento, límite and… |
| Allan: Comment. |
| Lizzie: That’s right. |
| Allan: So, Lizzie, how is límite used in our conversation? |
| Lizzie: ¿Usted sabe cuál es el límite de velocidad en esta carretera? |
| Allan: “Ma’am, do you know what the speed limit is on this highway?” Man, I guess it doesn’t matter what country you are in. The cop will always ask you the same question after they pull you over for speeding. |
| Lizzie: That and “Do you know how fast you were going”? |
| Allan: That true. Lizzie, could you provide us with another example where límite could be used? |
| Lizzie: Tengo mis límites. |
| Allan: “I have my limits.” Well, I will be sure not to cross those. |
| Lizzie: I think we are getting the rhythm. |
| Allan: I couldn’t agree more. What’s our next word? |
| Lizzie: Velocidad. |
| Allan: Ah, “speed”. This is another cognate. |
| Lizzie: How so? |
| Allan: Well, the translation of velocidad is “speed”. But someone who speaks English natively could see that and think that it means “velocity”. |
| Lizzie: I can see that. |
| Allan: Right. And it helps that “velocity” is a synonym of “speed”. This vocab will be easy for any English speaker to absorb. However, you do need to be careful of what we call amigos falsos – “the false friends”. And these are words that would seem like it is cognate, but really aren’t. |
| Lizzie: For example… |
| Allan: Well the classic example is embarazada. It looks like “embarrassed” but it actually means “pregnant”. |
| Lizzie: I get your point. So we’ll need to be careful. |
| Allan: Next up at that, the verb conducir. |
| Lizzie: Amigo o amigo falso? |
| Allan: Amigo. This is a cognate. I mean it can be translated as “to conduct”. But in Spanish we also use it to mean “to drive”. And Lizzie, there is another word that’s very common in Latin America for this too. Do you know what I’m thinking of? |
| Lizzie: Claro, manejar. |
| Allan: Right. And manejar is like to handle or to operate. But we can say conduzco el auto or manejo el auto. And both of these mean “I drive the car”. |
| Lizzie: Allan, what’s the craziest thing that’s happened to you while driving in Lima? |
| Allan: I’ve seen a lot of crazy things, but the craziest thing that happened to me… And you know it’s really not that crazy. But I’ve been in an accident about two months ago and interestingly someone just blew right through the stop sign and right into my passenger door. |
| Allan: But, you know. she had insurance and the whole thing was actually civilized and simple. |
| Lizzie: Oh, you were very fortunate Allan. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| A: Now onto the grammar |
| Allan: Alright, we’ve got a great topic today. One you just have to learn. |
| Lizzie: Sounds a bit intimidating. |
| Allan: You’ve got to see what I mean before you say that. |
| Lizzie: Allan, what’s with all the obligations? |
| Allan: That’s the topic, Lizzie. We’re going to learn how to express obligations. |
| Lizzie: I’m not totally convinced. |
| Allan: its bark is worse than its bite. So the verb tener means what? |
| Lizzie: It means “to have”. |
| Allan: Right as in Tengo tiempo. – “I have time|. |
| Lizzie: Easy enough. |
| Allan: Now Lizzie, give me a verb in the infinitive… any verb. |
| Lizzie: How about estudiar? |
| Allan: Now all we have to do is use the verb tener and after it add the word que and then the verb estudiar in the infinitive in order to express the obligations of studying. So we can say yo tengo que estudiar – “I have to study”. |
| Lizzie: Right, this is a really common construction… great, great example. |
| Allan: Thanks, but one good example deserves another, Lizzie. |
| Lizzie: Tu tienes que comer menos. |
| Allan: What do you mean I have to eat less? |
| Lizzie: Es un ejemplo nomás, Allan tranquilo. |
| Allan: Oh sure, just an example. You’re concerned about the spare tyre I’m starting to develop here, around my waist. Well, I figured if we are talking about traffic, I’m permitted to have a spare tyre, Lizzie. So, hey look, in the conversation the police officer says to Javier tenemos que ir a la comisaría para resolver el asunto. – “We’ve got to go down to the station to resolve this matter”. |
| Lizzie: Right. So here we see tenemos que ir – “we have to go” or “we’ve got to go”. |
| Allan: Let’s go a step further. |
| Lizzie: Sure. |
| Allan: How about an example in the imperfect tense? |
| Lizzie: tenia que ir |
| Allan: So here “I have” becomes “I had to”. |
| Lizzie: That’s right. |
| Allan: How about another example. Let’s say in the first person plural of the imperfect. |
| Lizzie: teníamos que regresar temprano |
| Allan: We had to come back early. Now we’re just about out of time. But this is the perfect moment. to offer just one more example - an expression that you can always use when you need to leave. |
| Lizzie: What’s that? |
| Allan: Well, in English, we often say “I’ve got to go.” |
| Lizzie: And in Spanish… |
| Allan: Mi tengo que ir. |
Outro |
| Lizzie: Thanks for another great lesson, Allan. |
| Allan: Hey, Lizzie, it was a pleasure. |
| Lizzie: So thanks for joining us and we’ll see you soon. |
| Allan: Ya nos vemos. |
| Lizzie: Chao! |
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