Learn about talking about past actions
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Lizzie: Que tal, soy Lizzie. |
| Allan: Hello, friends. I’m Allan. Listen to me with your eyes. So, in our last lesson we had the pleasure of talking about Mario Vargas Llosa and everybody got the sense of what large fans Lizzie and I are of this wonderful Peruvian author and we also had the opportunity to let you know that Peru is still waiting for Mario Vargas Llosa to receive his Nobel Prize. |
| Lizzie: Claro y también como construir oraciones impersonales con se, como por ejemplo “se nota”. |
| Allan: Right. Like “one notices” or “it’s noticeable”. Now, today we’re going to continue with the topic of literature but we’re going to go way back, I mean way back to the mid-1600s and talk about perhaps one of the most celebrated poets of the Americas, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. |
| Lizzie: ¿Fue monja no? |
| Allan: Yeah, she was a nun. In fact, today’s lesson title comes right out of one of her poems Óyeme con los ojos, ya que están tan distantes los oídos which means. “Listen to me with your eyes, as your ears are already so far away”. Sor Juana transcended the boundaries of literary expression in her time and that was the Baroque era, by the way. And we should also mention that as a woman she was really breaking the mold, swimming against a stream, I mean she really set a path. |
| Lizzie: Completamente de acuerdo, Allan. Algunos sugieren que si no se puede hablar de Sor Juana la primera feminista se puede decir que ella señaló el camino hacia el desarrollo de la perspectiva feminista. |
| Allan: Yeah, that’s right. So, she wasn’t perhaps the first feminist you could certainly say that she opened the road to the feminist perspective and her “feminist poetry” really is amazing and when you recall that she was reciting it in the Royal Court in Mexico. |
| Lizzie: Como estos famosos versos que dicen “Hombres necios que acusáis a la mujer sin razón. Sin ver que sois la ocasión de lo mismo que culpais”. |
| Allan: And we can translate that roughly as “You stupid man who reprehend women for no reason at all without seeing you’re much as fault as the same thing that you condemn”. |
| Lizzie: Esto va a ser muy divertido. ¿Y para la gramática? |
| Allan: Well, for today’s grammar, we’re going to learn how to distinguish the Absolute preterit from The preterit perfect in terms of its usage. |
| Lizzie: Excelente. |
| Allan: Alright. Let’s get into today’s conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| ANA: ¡Uf, qué atrevido eres! Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz... ¿Te gusta la poesía barroca? |
| JOSÉ: ¡Sí pues! Estoy enamorado de ella. ¿Has leído el soneto 145...? Aquí va la primera estrofa... 'Éste que ves, engaño colorido que, del arte ostentando los primores, con falsos silogismos de colores es cauteloso engaño del sentido...' |
| ANA: ¡Ay, qué precioso! Ella escribió este poema imitando a Góngora, ¿cierto? |
| JOSÉ: Así es. A mi parecer, éste es un verdadero ejemplo de las bellas artes... |
| ANA: ¡Es increíble que ella fuese monja! |
| JOSÉ: Y que haya escrito toda su obra enclaustrada... |
| ANA: Wow! You're so daring! Sister Juana Inés de la Cruz... Do you like Baroque poetry? |
| JOSÉ: I sure do! I'm in love with it! Have you read sonnet 145...? Here goes the first stanza... 'This that you see, colored deceit, which, from brandishing art with pulchritude, with false syllogisms of color, is a wary deception of the sense...' |
| ANA: Oh, that's beautiful! She wrote that imitating Góngora, right? |
| JOSÉ: That's right. The way I see it, this is a true example of the fine arts... |
| ANA: It's incredible that was a nun! |
| JOSÉ: And that she wrote all of her work in a convent... |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Allan: Well, you know, Lizzie, this in fact is a writer I don’t know that much about, grown up in Canada it wasn’t one of the writers we studied, but you can tell us a thing or two about la buena monja. |
| Lizzie: Sí..Si es que realmente, este... yo aprendí un poco de ella en el colegio y me llamó mucho la atención. Juana Inés de Asbaje y Ramírez de Santillana, mexicana, religiosa católica, poeta y dramaturga. Por la importancia de su obra, recibió los sobrenombres de el fénix de América y la décima musa. Saben, saben amigos que sor Juana aparece en los billetes mexicanos de alta denominación y fue una niña precoz. De joven ella estuvo en la corte virreinal mexicana. Que quizo ir a la universidad y en algún momento le pasó por la cabeza vestirse de hombre pero decidió que era menos descabellado meterse a monja. |
| Allan: What a tremendous story, but again, a woman really going against the grain and if you didn’t catch all of that, you can look for her face on some of the higher currency bills in Mexico and before going into the sisterhood she first tried dressing up as a man and thought: Well, maybe going to the sisterhood isn’t quite as crazy as that. |
| Lizzie: Si. |
| Allan: Ok, so keep those PDFs open because now we’re going to go over the vocab. Here we’re going to break down these words syllable by syllable, so that you can hear exactly how each word sounds. |
| Lizzie: Vamos! |
| Allan: So, let’s begin with… |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Lizzie: atrevido, atrevida |
| Allan: Daring. |
| Lizzie: atrevido, atrevida, atrevido, atrevida |
| Allan: Ok. Next, we’ll hear… |
| Lizzie: barroco, barroca |
| Allan: Baroque. |
| Lizzie: barroco, barroca, barroco, barroca |
| Allan: Alright, now we have… |
| Lizzie: soneto |
| Allan: Sonnet. |
| Lizzie: soneto, soneto |
| Allan: Ok, and then… |
| Lizzie: estrofa |
| Allan: Stanza, strophe. |
| Lizzie: estrofa, estrofa |
| Allan: Ok, good, now we’ll listen to… |
| Lizzie: ostentar |
| Allan: To flaunt. |
| Lizzie: ostentar, ostentar |
| Allan: Alright, and finally… |
| Lizzie: primor |
| Allan: Beauty, delicateness. |
| Lizzie: primor, primor |
| Allan: Alright. Now, before we move on and look on these words that we viewed, let’s focus on the pronunciation of the word atrevido. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Lizzie: atrevido |
| Allan: Which is spelled A-T-R-E-V-I-D-O. |
| Lizzie: atrevido |
| Allan: Now, remember guys, in Spanish there are only five vowel sounds a e i o u. |
| Lizzie: a e i o u |
| Allan: So, in this word atrevido we have the a e i o, so you’ve got to make sure that you are pronouncing this with Spanish sounds. |
| Lizzie: atrevido |
| Allan: Alright. Now the same with this adjective atrevido which of course it’s the masculine singular form and atrevida which is the feminine singular. Lizzie, let me ask you, where did this come up into today’s conversation? |
| Lizzie: Bueno Ana está impresionada por que José está leyendo la poesía de Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz y por eso le dice: ¡qué atrevido eres! Osea que bravo eres. |
| Allan: Claro por que es obvio que la poesía barroca no es nada fácil. |
| Lizzie: Por supuesto que no. |
| Allan: So, in this sense the word atrevido means “daring” because it’s, guys, risky to read it, but it’s not easy literature. So, Lizzie, let’s connect this with some other words. |
| Lizzie: Ok. There is the verb atrever |
| Allan: Which means… |
| Lizzie: competir o rivalizar |
| Allan: So, “to compete” or “to rival”. |
| Lizzie: Prosigamos a la próxima palabra. |
| Allan: barroco |
| Lizzie: Aquí tenemos una palabra que se emplea como adjetivo y sustantivo también. |
| Allan: So, this word barroco is used as an adjective and a noun as well. In today’s lesson we saw it as an adjective when Anna asks Jose ¿ti gusta la poesía barroca? |
| Lizzie: Allan, ¿a ti gusta la poesía barroca?? |
| Allan: Uf, para nada. Para mi es un estilo excesivamente recargado de adornos. Give me simple. |
| Lizzie: Pero así es. Los poetas del periodo barroco realmente sabían cómo usar bien el castellano osea que manejo del idioma y de los conceptos. |
| Allan: Well, I’ll give you that. But when you read a Baroque poem you can really see the potential of the Spanish language, I mean even though many of the words used there are probably not very common nowadays, it’s really cool to see the richness of the language. |
| Lizzie: Y bueno un soneto barroco te hace pensar no solo en el idioma sino también en los conceptos y en la belleza expresada. |
| Allan: Yeah, right you are. Now, this brings us to the next word soneto, |
| Lizzie: soneto |
| Allan: Now, un soneto is simply a sonnet. Alright, so here is an interesting etymology for you, guys. The word soneto comes from the Italian sonetto, the same as Spanish except of two T. But in Italian it means “little song” and this comes from the Latin sonus which simply means “sound”. |
| Lizzie: Anda, mira esta conexión. Soneto, sonido. |
| Allan: Exactly. So un soneto is a very refined literary composition with a defined rhythm, scheme and meter. |
| Lizzie: Claro por ejemplo en castellano un soneto usualmente consiste en dos cuartetos en cuales el primer verso y el cuarto riman y también el segundo y el tercero riman. Después tiene dos tercetos en los cuales riman el primer verso con el tercero. |
| Allan: Right. And of course, there are a number of variations of the scheme but you’ll see a lot of this with just a little exploration and this scheme is kind of interesting because it’s quite a bit different from the Shakespearean sonnet which has three quartets and a final couplet which is that two line at the end that Shakespeare made so famous. |
| Lizzie: Muy bien, solo falta una palabra. |
| Allan: One last word. |
| Lizzie: ostentar |
| Allan: Now this, guys, is a verb ostentar and now we can tell that because it has an [a r] ending. But look closely at the root. What is it? Lizzie, help them out. |
| Lizzie: It’s ostent |
| Allan: So, here, we need to start thinking: What other words can I relate to this word based solely on its root ostent ? |
| Lizzie: ostentoso |
| Allan: Exactly. So, ostentoso means “ostentatious” and the verb ostentar |
| would mean something like “to flaunt” or “to show off”. |
| Lizzie: Por ejemplo el chico que acaba de ganar la loteria ostentó su nuevo auto. |
| Allan: Right. The guy who just won the Lottery is showing off his new car. Now, Lizzie, in today’s conversation we’ve got just a little taste of this famous poem by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz but I was wondering: Could you read the whole thing for us? Slowly, just we can really appreciate the richness of language and sound here. |
| Lizzie: Con mucho pero mucho gusto. |
| Este, que ves, engaño colorido, |
| que del arte ostentando los primores, |
| con falsos silogismos de colores |
| es cauteloso engaño del sentido: |
| éste, en quien la lisonja ha pretendido |
| excusar de los años los horrores, |
| y venciendo del tiempo los rigores, |
| triunfar de la vejez y del olvido, |
| es un vano artificio del cuidado, |
| es una flor al viento delicada, |
| es un resguardo inútil para el hado: |
| es una necia diligencia errada, |
| es un afán caduco y, bien mirado, |
| es cadáver, es polvo, es sombra, es nada. |
| Allan: Wow. What a visual visual poem. I mean that just really comes alive, it uses a vocabulary that’s so rich; you know, that hasn’t lost any strength in the last four hundred years. Amazing. |
| Lizzie: Oh, yes. It’s very emotional just reading. |
| Allan: Now, big shift of gears here, dear friends, but now we’re going to go to the grammar. |
| Lizzie: El tema de hoy es cómo diferenciar el uso del pretérito absoluto del preterito perfecto. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Allan: That’s right. How to differentiate the usage of the Absolute preterit from the preterit perfect. |
| Lizzie: En la conversación de hoy escuchamos lo siguiente: ¿Has leído el soneto 145...? |
| Allan: Right. And that means: Have you read sonnet 145? So, a couple of things to notice here. First, this action happened in the past and second, this past action kind of reaches the present moment. |
| Lizzie: ¿Cómo es eso? |
| Allan: Well, in this case, I know that you’re reading Sor Juana’s sonnets and so I’m asking you: Have you got on 145 yet? I assume that you’re still reading them but again has leido is a past action. |
| Lizzie: Ahora comparemoslo con el pretérito absoluto. |
| Allan: ¿Y donde escuchamos un verbo conjugado en tiempo pretérito absoluto? |
| Lizzie: Cuando Ana supone: Ella escribió este poema imitando a Góngora, ¿cierto? |
| Allan: So, here the verb in the Absolute preterit is escribio “wrote”. In this case, guys, we use the Absolute preterit because this action does not continue on to the present. It took place in the past. It started and it finished. punto |
| Lizzie: Es una acción terminada sin ninguna relación sintáctica con el presente. |
| Allan: Now if we were to say Ella la ha escrito. it would suggest that she is alive and still writing but unfortunately Sor Juana passed away many hundreds of years ago. So it wouldn’t make sense to say it this way. |
| Lizzie: ¿Por qué no les damos otros ejemplos para que se les pegue el conocimiento? |
| Allan: Suena excelente. |
| Lizzie: Ok. Por ejemplo: he tenido un día difícil. |
| Allan: Ok. That means “I have had a tough day”; now this suggests that your tough day is not over yet. He tenido un día difícil. |
| Lizzie: El tiempo. |
| Allan: Es el tiempo pretérito perfecto. |
| Lizzie: Bien y ahora: Ayer tuve un día difícil. |
| Allan: So, that’s different. This time it means: Yesterday I had a tough day. Notice how the action of the verb here is not linked to the present. Yesterday was tough but that doesn’t necessarily suggest that today is tough, too. |
| Lizzie: O también: Comí mucho en el desayuno. |
| Allan: I ate a lot at breakfast. |
| Lizzie: He comido mucho hoy día. |
| Allan: I have eaten a lot today. So, notice again that when we use the preterit absolute we’re referring to a finished action that took place prior to the moment of speech. Now, while we use the preterit perfect we’re talking about a past action that kind of flows into the present. |
| Lizzie: Ahora la tarea. |
Outro |
| Allan: That’s right. La tarea. You guys didn’t think that you were going to get off that easy, did you? So, it’s time for your homework assignment. Today, we’re going to review what we just covered in today’s conversation. We’ll give you five verbs conjugated to the present tense of the indicative mood. What you have to do is conjugate them to preterit absolute and the preterit providing English translations as well. |
| Lizzie: Yo hago, nosotros decimos, vosotros salís, tú comes, ellos hablan. |
| Allan: And don’t forget to check out the premium audio track called Tarea to get the answers to today’s assignments. |
| Lizzie: Atrevanse. |
| Allan: That’s right. Well, Lizzie, this has been a lot of fun. |
| Lizzie: Si de verdad. Tocar un tema así me hace recordar cuan rico es el castellano. Así es, SpanishPod les da una gran guia pero ustedes tienen que hacer el resto, tienen que practicar, tienen que relacionarse en el forum con gente que hable español y practicar practicar practicar. |
| Allan: I couldn’t say it better myself, Lizzie. Guys, practice. |
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