Learn about asking where something is
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Lizzie: Buenos días, me llamo Lizzie. |
| Allan: Hi, everybody. I’m Allan. |
| Lizzie: Beginner Series Lesson number 5. |
| Allan: “Where is the market?” |
| Lizzie: Muy bienvenidos sean todos ustedes. |
| Allan: Yeah. Hi, everybody and a special welcome to those of you who are here for the first time. |
| Lizzie: What did we look at in the last lesson, Allan? |
| Allan: Oh, last lesson we looked at some of the uses of the Imperative with expressions of pardon. |
| Lizzie: How could I forget? What about today? |
| Allan: Well, today we’re going to learn how to use the question word dónde. |
| Lizzie: How so? |
| Allan: Well, Gustavo is on the streets of Cuzco which is probably the most famous highland city in Peru. And here he runs into Christina and asks her for directions. |
| Lizzie: Ok. Now I know. We pride ourselves on practicality but this goes above and beyond. |
| Allan: I know what you’re going to say before you say it. |
| Lizzie: Just think, audience. If you are in a Spanish speaking country and you’re lost. |
| Allan: Which has been known to happen to tourists from time to time when they are on vacation. |
| Lizzie: You’re going to ask these questions word for word. |
| Allan: That’s right. As a matter of fact, write them down in your guidebook now. |
| Lizzie: But only if you’re looking for the market. |
| Allan: Well hey Lizz they could replace the destination easily enough. |
| Lizzie: You know what, comment on the lessons and tell us where you want to go and we will tell you how to ask directions. |
| Allan: That’s a great idea, Lizzie. Good advice. Get on to the forms and ask. Alright, now let’s get into today’s conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| GUSTAVO: Disculpe una consulta, señora. |
| CRISTINA: Claro, adelante. |
| GUSTAVO: ¿Dónde está el mercado? |
| CRISTINA: ¿El supermercado o el mercado de artesanías? |
| GUSTAVO: El mercado de artesanías. |
| CRISTINA: Está cerca de aquí. Camine cuatro cuadras de frente y doble a la derecha. |
| GUSTAVO: May I ask you a question, ma'am? |
| CRISTINA: Of course, go ahead. |
| GUSTAVO: Where is the market? |
| CRISTINA: The supermarket or the artisan market? |
| GUSTAVO: The artisan market. |
| CRISTINA: It is nearby. Walk four blocks straight ahead and turn right. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Allan: So, Lizzie, Peru is absolutely full of some of the best artisan markets in the world, but probably a lot of our listeners have never seen them. Give us a brief description, what do they look like, what do they sell. |
| Lizzie: Claro que si Allan. hay un montón de cosas muy muy lindas. Como ponchos, chalinas, cerámica, platería, pulseras, collares. Entre los que están los famosos huayruros negros y rojos que dicen son para la suerte. |
| Allan: That’s right. The markets are just full of textiles, ceramics and even small little amulets that will bring you good luck and hopefully love. 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: Consulta. |
| Allan: Advice, question, opinion. |
| Lizzie: Consulta, consulta. |
| Allan: Next, we will look at… |
| Lizzie: Adelantar. |
| Allan: To go ahead, to come in. |
| Lizzie: Adelantar, adelantar. |
| Allan: Now, we have… |
| Lizzie: Mercado. |
| Allan: Market. |
| Lizzie: Mercado, mercado. |
| Allan: And then… |
| Lizzie: Artesanía. |
| Allan: Artisanship. |
| Lizzie: Artesanía, artesanía. |
| Allan: Next, we have… |
| Lizzie: Caminar. |
| Allan: To walk. |
| Lizzie: Caminar, caminar. |
| Allan: And finally… |
| Lizzie: Doblar. |
| Allan: To turn, to fold, to double. |
| Lizzie: Doblar, doblar. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Allan: Now, Lizzie, we have the word “consult” in English which looks an awful lot like the Spanish word consulta. ¿Cómo se diferencia la pronunciación de estas palabras? How does the pronunciation of these words differ? |
| Lizzie: sobre todo la diferencia consiste en la pronunciación de las vocales. |
| Allan: In the pronunciation of the vowels. Let’s hear the Spanish word again. |
| Lizzie: Consulta. Notice that the o is closed like in the English word “cone”. |
| Allan: I see. And what about the “u” sound? |
| Lizzie: Consulta. It sounds a lot like the double “o” in English like in “boots”. |
| Allan: Right. Consulta. |
| Lizzie: Consulta. |
| Allan: My dear, Lizzie, I think some questioning is in order. |
| Lizzie: Why is that ? |
| Allan: Well, because the first word we will look at is consulta. |
| Lizzie: Ok, like Disculpe, tengo una consulta. |
| Allan: Excuse me, I have a question. |
| Lizzie: The word consulta means “question”, “advice or opinion”. |
| Allan: Notice how similar these words sound to the English words “consult” and “consultation”. |
| Lizzie: That it’s important to remember that this word implies an opinion. |
| Allan: I mean you can go up to someone and say that you have una pregunta which is a question. But if you tell someone that you have una consulta, now you’re letting them know that you’re asking for advice or something like that. |
| Lizzie: Should we move on? |
| Allan: Yeah. Our next word is adelantar. |
| Lizzie: This is one that you can’t escape from. |
| Allan: You can’t escape from that one at all, guys. You’re going to hear this all the time and especially in the markets where everyone wants you to go to their kiosks. Lizzie, what would they say? |
| Lizzie: Adelante. |
| Allan: Right. And that means: Come on in. |
| Lizzie: This is one of the most popular ways to use this word. |
| Allan: Here it’s a formal command. |
| Lizzie: In Latin America this form of adelantar is used not only when speaking formally, but informally, too. |
| Allan: So, anyone going to the famous galerias of stores will hear people say this as they try to corral you into their shop. Lizzie, for foreigners it can be a little surprising how forthcoming these vendors can be and I know it took me a little while to get used to it. But you know, deep down, I think sometimes they are counterproductive, you know the vendor goes out there and really tries to rope you in, but at the end he scares some people away. |
| Lizzie: Esque te explico lo que pasas es que aquí por lo general la gente es muy negociante y todos ansían tener su propio negocio. |
| Allan: I guess. I guess it’s just they want to make that dream of success come true, but again I think sometimes it scares people away when they are that insistent. But, look, getting back to what we were really talking about here is “the market”. |
| Lizzie: El mercado. |
| Allan: That’s it. A masculine noun. Here we see it in the singular form el mercado. |
| Lizzie: En el mercado hay cosas muy lindas. |
| Allan: In the market there are really nice things. So, guys, again, the Spanish word here mercado sounds an awful lot like the English word “market”. And that’s got to make it easy to remember. |
| Lizzie: Also, we remember from the conversation that supermercado is “supermarket”. I love walking through the markets. |
| Allan: Why doesn’t that surprise me, Liz? But, you know, good, because our next word is caminar |
| . Lizzie, give us an example please with caminar. |
| Lizzie: Ella camina todo el día. |
| Allan: She walks all day long. Well, good for her, that’s good for her legs. |
| Lizzie: The word caminar means “to walk”. |
| Allan: It’s a regular first conjugation verb and it’s a really good one to practise your conjugations with. Also, there are a number of words associated with caminar, like the noun camino which means “road or way” and the noun caminata… |
| Lizzie: …which means “a walk” like “to go for a walk”. |
| Allan: Ir de caminata. Walking around the city like Lima it’s really interesting, just pay attention because you’ll go around many twists and turns. |
| Lizzie: That’s a perfect opportunity to discuss our last word which is doblar. |
| Allan: As in … |
| Lizzie: Dobla a la derecha en la esquina. |
| Allan: Turn right at the corner. |
| Lizzie: So, the verb doblar means “to turn”, in the sense of “turning a corner”. |
| Allan: Aside from this meaning, it also means “to fold, to bend, to double” and even “to dub” as in “to dub a movie”. But don’t worry, guys, for this lesson, we’ll just be looking at the first meaning which is “to turn”. Now, this verb is really essential for directions. And, Lizzie, speaking of directions una preguntita. |
| Lizzie: A ver... |
| Allan: Would you say the Peruvians are very precise in their directions? Or maybe are you a little bit more vague than one might expect? |
| Lizzie: No siempre, Allan. Hay bastante gente que no sabe dónde estan las calles. Y a veces no lo admiten por orgullo. Osea te hacen ir a otra parte. |
| Allan: You know, I can’t tell you how often that’s happened to me. And I couldn’t agree with you more. Sometimes people just don’t want to admit that they don’t know where something is. So, instead of saying: Hey, I don’t know where it is, they’ll say: Ah, it’s that way, go down a couple of blocks and then turn to your right. And, boy you’re on the way and circles and circles and it can be so frustrating. Now, on to the grammar. Today’s topic: figure it out how to get where you need to go, in other words… |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Lizzie: In other words we’re going to have a look at some prepositions that are used in answering the question “where”. |
| Allan: Ok. So with the adverb dónde what are we talking about exactly? |
| Lizzie: Place and location. Allan, how would you say this adverb is used most often? |
| Allan: Well, I could say that it is very very often used to begin a question. When it’s used this way we can call it a question word or an interrogative adverb. Lizzie, I think it would help if we saw where this occurred in the conversation. |
| Lizzie: ¿Dónde está el mercado? |
| Allan: Where is the market? |
| Lizzie: So, here first the adverb dónde is used meaning “where”. |
| Allan: Right. Then we have a form of the verb estar which means “to be” and then use another one we are looking for, in this case el mercado, the market. Lizzie, how could we categorize this question? |
| Lizzie: Now, this question can be called singular. |
| Allan: Now, why is that? |
| Lizzie: Because what we are looking for is only one thing. |
| Allan: Right. And what is that thing? |
| Lizzie: El mercado. |
| Allan: The market. Lizzie, what form is the verb estar taking here? |
| Lizzie: Estar is in the third person singular form. Está. |
| Allan: And if we wanted to make it a plural question? |
| Lizzie: We would have to change the verb and the noun. |
| Allan: Go ahead, Lizzie. Break it on down. |
| Lizzie: ¿Dónde están las posadas? |
| Allan: Where are the inns? |
| Lizzie: We see that the adverb dónde comes first and now the verb estar is used in the plural form of the third person which is están with an “n” at the end. And this means “are”. Finally the noun posadas meaning “inns” is used in the plural which we saw in Beginner Lesson 4. Thus, we form the question. ¿Dónde están las posadas? |
| Allan: Wow. That was some explanation, Liz. Where are the inns? Of course, guys, here we’re talking about lodging when referring to “inns”. Ok. So, all you have to do is follow this word order and if the noun is plural you use… |
| Lizzie: Están. |
| Allan: And if it’s singular you use… |
| Lizzie: Está. |
| Allan: Plural…. |
| Lizzie: Están. |
| Allan: Singular… |
| Lizzie: Está. I think they get it. |
| Allan: How is this question answered in the conversation, guys? |
| Lizzie: Está cerca de aquí. Camine cuatro cuadras de frente y doble a la derecha. |
| Allan: It is nearby. Walk four blocks straight ahead and turn right. |
| Lizzie: First, we see the preposition cerca which means “close” or “nearby”. |
| Allan: There are two other prepositions in this answer as well. |
| Lizzie: Así es. Notice the de frente and a la derecha. The preposition de frente means “straight ahead”. |
| Allan: Notice how the word frente resembles the English word “front”. That’s got to make it easier to remember. |
| Lizzie: The preposition a la derecha means “on the right” or “to the right”. |
| Allan: Prepositions are really important in Spanish, just as they are in any language. |
| Lizzie: And there are a lot of them. So, don’t feel overwhelmed. You’ll learn them over time. Be patient. |
| Allan: It’s an alphabet soup over there guys, but you will eat it all, just little by little, a bite at a time. But for now, let’s try to keep these in mind and also remember that prepositions are indeclinable. |
| Lizzie: Indeclinable? |
| Allan: That means that they never change form. |
| Lizzie: Ah. Ok. |
| Allan: They will always look the same. So, let’s make things clear. Lizzie, ¿Dónde están tus amigas? Where are your friends? |
| Lizzie: Están en la casa de Mariela. Vive cerca de aquí. |
| Allan: They’re at Mariella’s house. She lives nearby. |
| Allan: Now, that wasn’t so tough, was it? But see how important the word order is as well as the intonation. |
| Lizzie: Yeah, if you change the word order or the intonation, your question could end up sounding like an affirmation and would probably just be confusing. |
Outro |
| Allan: Alright. That’s all the time we had for today. |
| Lizzie: Gracias Allan! Ha sido super divertido. |
| Allan: It’s been blessed, Lizzie. |
| Lizzie: Thanks for joining us today. Hasta la próxima lección. Till next lesson. |
| Allan: That’s right, guys. Have fun. |
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