Learn about expressing that something is missing or lacking
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Allan: Meet my relatives - 2. |
| Lizzie: Hi, friends around the globe. Bien qué pero estamos cada vez más cerca de nuestro aniversario patrio hace 187 años que somos libres e independientes. |
| Allan: That’s right. We’re just around the Corner of Peru’s Independence Day. That’s gonna be this long weekend, 187 years of the republic. Well, guys, Allan and Lizzie back for another edition of the Beginner Series. Well, Lizzie, last time we learned a lot of nouns that changed their meaning depending on their gender. |
| Lizzie: Ah right, like hermano and hermana. |
| Allan: Así es. And we also learned how to introduce someone to someone else using the verb presentar. |
| Lizzie: Ahora si recuerdo. Bueno, en la lección de hoy vamos a seguir con el mismo tema de los otros familiares o sea los valientes. |
| Allan: That’s right, today Marcos is going to be introduced to even more members of Rosana’s family. Again, I just can’t stress enough how common it is to find yourself in situations like this, especially when you’re new to a country because basically you have to meet everyone, don’t you? |
| Lizzie: Oh yes, very interesting topic. |
| Allan: Interesting yes, but ever so useful. And it’s really a great step to take in the learning process. |
| Lizzie: Sounds like it’s going to be another good one. |
| Allan: No doubt, Lizzie. Ok, Lizzie, it’s about that time. |
| Lizzie: Listen closely to the following conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Rosana: Laura, ven un ratito. Marcos, te presento a Laura, mi prima hermana. |
| MARCOS: Mucho gusto, Laura. |
| Laura: Igualmente, Marcos. |
| MARCOS: ¡Qué numerosa es tu familia! |
| Laura: Marcos, ¿has conocido a David? |
| MARCOS: Creo que él me falta todavía. ¿Quién es? |
| Laura: Es mi cuñado, el esposo de mi hermana, Susana. |
| Rosana: Laura, come here for a second. Marcos, meet Laura, my second cousin. |
| MARCOS: A pleasure, Laura. |
| Laura: For me too, Marcos. |
| MARCOS: What a big family you have! |
| Laura: Marcos, have ya' met David? |
| MARCOS: I don't think I have yet. Who is he? |
| Laura: He's my brother-in-law, my sister Susana's husband. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Allan: Alright, guys, here’s the situation that you shouldn’t be surprised to find yourself in. You’re at a family gathering and someone tries to hook you up with a relative. |
| Lizzie: Sí pero siempre no se hace enserio. |
| Allan: Ok, I’ll give you that but as a foreigner it can be a little uncomfortable because, of course, you don’t want to be rude and at the same time it’s kind of flattering, but it’s classic, you go to a party and it’s Ay te presento a mi sobrina Ubaldina. Me parece que ustedes tienen muchisimo en comun. And you’re like there Hola… Ubaldina… que gusto, que gusto… |
| Lizzie: No faltan las tías casamenteras, Allan. Esas que quieren unir a las personas a las personas así pero a la prepa o como se dice. |
| Allan: Las tías casamenteras, that would be like the “marrying aunts”. Ok, folks, onto the vocab. Here we’re going to break these words down syllable by syllable so that you can hear exactly how each word sounds. |
| Lizzie: Vamos. |
| Allan: So let’s begin with… |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Lizzie: ratito |
| Allan: Second. |
| Lizzie: ratito, ratito |
| Allan: Now we have… |
| Lizzie: igualmente |
| Allan: Likewise. |
| Lizzie: igualmente, igualmente |
| Allan: Next we’ll look at… |
| Lizzie: numeroso, numerosa |
| Allan: Numerous, big. |
| Lizzie: numeroso, numerosa, numeroso, numerosa |
| Allan: And then… |
| Lizzie: faltar |
| Allan: To lack, to be missing. |
| Lizzie: faltar, faltar |
| Allan: Next we’ll hear… |
| Lizzie: cuñado, cuñada |
| Allan: Brother-in-law, sister-in-law. |
| Lizzie: cuñado, cuñada, cuñado, cuñada |
| Allan: And finally… |
| Lizzie: todavía |
| Allan: Still, yet, nevertheless. |
| Lizzie: todavía, todavía |
| Allan: That was great, Lizzie. Como siempre, gracias. Ahora practiquemos la pronunciación. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Lizzie: Muy bien, ¿de qué palabra? |
| Allan: How about numeroso, spelled N-U-M-E-R-O-S-O. |
| Lizzie: Numeroso. So what’s so hard about this one? |
| Allan: Well, the thing is that this is a cognate. In English we say “numerous”. |
| Lizzie: So what’s your point? |
| Allan: Well, the letter E in the English word almost sounds like a U. It’s like saying “numuros”, and while sometimes you hear this leak into Spanish when a native English speaker pronounces this word. So it would be incorrect to say “numuroso”, and the correct form, in fact, then is numeroso. |
| Lizzie: Numeroso. |
| Allan: Muy bien Lizzie ahora pasemos al uso de los vocablos. |
| Lizzie: Como no maestro. |
| Allan: Alright, so let’s stick with this word numeroso, an adjective. And we just said that this means… |
| Lizzie: Numerous. |
| Allan: Asi es y usamos este adjetivo para describir una gran cantidad de algo. |
| Lizzie: Como por ejemplo, que numerosa es tu familia. |
| Allan: Exactly, that’s straight from the dialogue. ¡Qué numerosa es su familia!, “What a big family you have!” So here numerosa is modifying the noun familia. And, Lizzie, the gender of both of these is… |
| Lizzie: Feminino. |
| Allan: El numero. |
| Lizzie: Singular. |
| Allan: And what do we call this rule that causes adjectives to agree with the nouns they modify? |
| Lizzie: Se llama la concordancia. |
| Allan: That’s great. Now, guys, we’ve have to get this down. You just won’t be able to go very far in Spanish without recognizing this and, you know, there are lots of ways to get this done, to remember. For example, just drills. When you are learning new vocabulary, when you have a noun, put it together with an adjective and try to memorize both of those together. For example fiesta which is “party” and buena which means “good”, you would learn both of these together. es una buena fiesta So just over time you’ll start making that concordance. |
| Lizzie: Ay Allan, como siempre tan inteligente y tan ilustrativo. Voy a presentarte a mi prima Ubaldina. |
| Allan: “Oh, Allan, you’re so intelligent. I'm going to present you to my cousin, Ubaldina.” That’s a good one, Lizzie. Ok, friends, onto the next word. |
| Lizzie: Which is? |
| Allan: Igualmente. Now, this is a really interesting word. I mean, it’s an adverb and, as such, is going to be modifying the action of a verb. However, we often use this word on its own to express something like a reciprocal feeling. |
| Lizzie: I’d never thought about it that way. |
| Allan: Ok, guys, well, take a look on the PDF at where this came up. Marcos is introduced to Laura, and he says Mucho gusto, Laura. And then Laura responds Igualmente, Marcos.. |
| Lizzie: Ahora si veo por donde vas. |
| Allan: Aha, right on. So here we wouldn’t really translate igualmente as “equally”, which would be the literal translation. |
| Lizzie: ¿Entonces cómo? |
| Allan: Well, it would be more like “same here” or “likewise”. This is such a great word to know and it’s really common too. I mean this is one of those that you’d better bet you’re going to hear, and it would be a good one to start using as well. |
| Lizzie: ¿Proseguimos? |
| Allan: Sure. Next we have the verb faltar. |
| Lizzie: Faltar. |
| Allan: Alright, now this is one we’ve seen before but I don’t think we’ve seen this usage yet. Lizzie, could you show us where this came up in today’s conversation? |
| Lizzie: Sure. Laura le pregunta a Marcos, Marcos, ¿has conocido a David? Y creo que Marcos le responde: Creo que él me falta todavía. |
| Allan: Ok, so ¿has conocido a David?, “have you met David?” And then Creo que él me falta todavía. so el me falta literally means “I am lacking him” or “he is missing to me”. And, man, does that sound bad when we translate it literally. All the more reason not to use those online translators, guys. Now, I don’t want to go too far into depth here because we’ll cover the verb faltar in today’s grammar point, but let’s just note that we can use it to express an action that has yet to happen. |
| Lizzie: In this case, meeting David. |
| Allan: That’s right, Lizzie. “Marcos, have you met David?” And the response: “I don’t think I have yet.” Creo que él me falta todavía. |
| Lizzie: Ya llegamos a la última palabra que es cuñado. |
| Allan: Great word. Now, this is one of those nouns that has two separate meaning depending on the gender. So let’s start with the masculine form. |
| Lizzie: cuñado |
| Allan: That’s right, with an O, cuñado. This means “brother-in-law”. And then the feminine form? |
| Lizzie: cuñada |
| Allan: cuñada, with the A. And this simply means “sister-in-law”. Now, while these words are often used to describe a relationship within family, I’ve just got to mention one other usage that they have. |
| Lizzie: Which one’s that? |
| Allan: Well, this is a funny one. For example, a guy’s dating a girl, for example, and he’s over at her house, with her family. And one of her sibling, her brother for example, will say to him hola cuñado and this kind of has a twofold meaning. |
| Lizzie: This is really funny, it’s true. |
| Allan: On one hand, the brother is kind of trying to give the couple a hard time. It’s like he’s assuming that they’re already married, yet on the other hand, the brother is also showing that he likes the guy enough to consider him as part of the family. And, you know, it happens all the time. I also like the way people will say cuñado if they’re just referring to a really, really good friend. |
| Lizzie: Aja también se aplica el término cuñado a un amigo cercano… a un muy buen amigo, de hecho esto se usa más entre hombres. Oye cuñado ¿cómo estás? Oye cuñado ¿qué ha sido de tu vida? Porque entre mujeres no. Se escucha feo. |
| Allan: Yeah, that’s right. So with men, good friends will say Hola cuñado, if you’re very close, but women won’t use that same expression amongst themselves. It sounds not so nice. Y ahora la gramática. |
| Lizzie: Dijiste que vamos a estudiar el verbo faltar. ¿Cierto? |
| Allan: Claro es un verbo importantísimo. |
| Lizzie: ¿Y porqué? |
| Allan: Bueno eso vamos a ver. So today’s topic, the verb faltar. Now, guys, look this one up in your dictionaries. You’ll see some kind of definitions like “to lack” or “to be missing”, but there’s so much more to it than just that. |
| Lizzie: Claro tiene muchos matices. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Allan: So move on to the grammar section of your PDF and now we’ll see just how this works. Now, as we said in today’s lesson conversation, Laura le pregunta a Marcos: Marcos, ¿has conocido a David? Y Marcos le responde: Creo que él me falta todavía. |
| Lizzie: Where can we start? |
| Allan: Well, I would say that the word order. Check this out: el me falta. First we have the subject, el, then the indirect object, me, which is “me”, and then the verb falta, “is lacking”. Now, again, literally this is like saying “he is lacking to me”. |
| Lizzie: Bueno bueno pero ya dijimos que en este caso una traducción literal no es suficiente. |
| Allan: That’s right, Lizzie. Sometimes translating directly can get you into a lot of trouble. |
| Lizzie: ¿Entonces como traduciríamos el sentido figurativo? |
| Allan: Well, when we look at the context, Marcos is expressing that he has yet to meet David. Notice the word todavia at the end of Creo que él me falta todavia. So, from the beginning, Creo que él… |
| Lizzie: I think that. |
| Allan: Right. But then, with the rest of the sentence we get something like “I don’t think I have yet…” |
| Lizzie: Have what? |
| Allan: Great question. Here what we mean is “I don’t think that I have met him yet”, Creo que él me falta. |
| Lizzie: How about some more examples? |
| Allan: Claro. Let’s say we’re talking about a student who needs to practice. We could say le falta practica, “he or she needs to practice”, or in this negative sense that we see in today’s conversation. Let’s say that you’re going on a trip. |
| Lizzie:¡Ay que bueno! |
| Allan: Alright. But you haven’t packet yet, I could ask you: ¿Lizzie, te has empacado? |
| Lizzie: Todavia me falta. O me falta empacarme. |
| Allan: And again, that’s like saying “I haven’t yet” or “I need to pack”. |
| Lizzie: Anything else? |
| Allan: Well, just one more thing. In order to use this verb in this way, we need to use - ready? Here comes the grammatical term - indirect object pronouns. |
| Lizzie: Los objetos indirectos pronominales. |
| Allan: So let’s just go over these with the verb faltar in order to really make it clear. |
| Lizzie: Ok, ready? |
| Allan: Yeah, go for it. |
| Lizzie: me falta, te falta, le falta, nos falta, os falta y les falta. |
| Allan: That’s right. me falta, te falta, le falta, nos falta, os falta y les falta Now, guys, one good way to remember this list is by writing out some sentences and then translating them. |
Outro |
| Allan: And if you’d like someone to take a look at them, you can write them in the comment section of this lesson, get involved on the forum, people, it’s a lot of fun. Well, that’s just about all the time we have for today. |
| Lizzie: Un gustazo, Allan. Saludos a todos. |
| Allan: Ya nos vemos. |
| Lizzie: Chao. |
| Allan: Chao. |
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