Learn about using the subjunctive tense
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Natalia: ¿Qué tal? Soy Natalia. |
| Carlos: What’s going on? My name is Carlos. |
| Natalia: “Let’s Breed!” |
| Carlos:What’s going on pod101world? Welcome to Spanishpod101.com. The fastest easiest and most fun way, excellent, amazing and just overall a good time to learn Spanish. |
| Natalia: Are you done? |
| Carlos: Yes, I’m done. |
| Natalia: Okay, so I’m Natalia. Thanks again for being here with us for this beginner series season two, lesson… |
| Carlos: Sorry, I didn’t introduce her that’s why she got a little antsy. |
| Natalia: Yes. |
| Carlos: What’s on our plate today, Naty? |
| Natalia: Oh well, we have a specific class of irregular verbs. Gabriela is fumblish, funny this time too again. |
| Carlos: Man, she really must be learning a lot. |
| Natalia: We all learn through our mistakes. |
| Carlos: So are they speaking informally? |
| Natalia: Yes, they are. |
| Carlos: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| GABRIELA: Tenemos que cruzar, ¿no? |
| ALEJANDRO: Sí… a ver… debe ser la hora del tráfico. |
| GABRIELA: Así parece… Ahora sí, ¡crucémonos! |
| ALEJANDRO: ¡Jejeje! Creo que quieres decir ¡crucemos! |
| GABRIELA: ¿Qué quiere decir “crucémonos”? |
| ALEJANDRO: Es como decir ¡reproduzcámonos! Jeje… |
| GABRIELA: We have got to cross, right? |
| ALEJANDRO: Yes... let's see... it must be rush hour. |
| GABRIELA: It seems so. OK now, let's breed! |
| ALEJANDRO: Hehehe! I think you mean to say 'let's cross'. |
| GABRIELA: What does 'crúcemonos' mean? |
| ALEJANDRO: It is like saying 'let's reproduce' Hehe… |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Carlos: Naty, really how many mistaken sexual innuendos are there in Spanish? I mean we just have to warn everybody. |
| Natalia: There are so many, think twice about what you are going to say before saying it. |
| Carlos: Okay, give us an example. |
| Natalia: Okay. For example, let’s say if you step on somebody’s toe and the person goes “¡Ay, me pisaste!” |
| Carlos: What does that mean in English? |
| Natalia: So it’s like “pisar” is “stepping on something” but in here we say like somebody is stepping on another person. |
| Carlos: Oh, so there’s like a sexual connotation to that. |
| Natalia: Yes. |
| Carlos: Okay, that’s how you can say it. |
| Natalia: See a person can be like “¡Ay, me pisaste!” |
| Carlos: My God! |
| Natalia: And the other one would just stare like what?! |
| Carlos: Either with a big smile or like a frown. Okay, now that the conversation is under our belt, let’s turn to the vocabulary page of our pdf lesson guide. Here we are going to break these words down and give you some key points to help you remember them. We’ll start off with a verb. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Natalia: “Cruzar”. |
| Carlos: “To cross.” |
| Natalia: “Cru-zar”, “cruzar”. |
| Carlos: Un ejemplito, Naty. |
| Natalia: “¿Cruzamos la calle?” |
| Carlos: “Should we cross the street?” To continue we have a masculine noun. |
| Natalia: “Tráfico”. |
| Carlos: “Traffic.” |
| Natalia: “Trá-fi-co”, “tráfico”. |
| Carlos: Como por ejemplo... |
| Natalia: “Lo que a ella le fastidia es la bulla del tráfico”. |
| Carlos: “What annoys here is the noise of the traffic.” Next up we have a verb phrase. |
| Natalia: “Tener que”. |
| Carlos: “To have to.” |
| Natalia: “Te-ner que”, “tener que”. |
| Carlos: Which we hear in the example... |
| Natalia: “Tengo que hacer mi tarea”. |
| Carlos: “I have to do my homework.” Ahora sigamos al verbo... |
| Natalia: “Parecer”. |
| Carlos: “To seem”, “to resemble.” |
| Natalia: “Pa-re-cer”, “parecer”. |
| Carlos: Escuchemos otro ejemplo. |
| Natalia: “Parece que ya quieren salir”. |
| Carlos: “It seems like they want to leave now.” And again another verb. |
| Natalia: “Reproducir”. |
| Carlos: “To reproduce”, “to repeat”, “to recur.” |
| Natalia: “Re-pro-du-cir”, “reproducir”. |
| Carlos: Como por ejemplo... |
| Natalia: “Las moscas nacen, crecen, se reproducen y mueren en muy poco tiempo”. |
| Carlos: “Flies are born, grow up, reproduce and die in a very short time.” And we wrap up with a word that can be an adverb, conjunction or a preposition. |
| Natalia: “Como”. |
| Carlos: “How as”, “like”, “about.” |
| Natalia: “Co-mo”, “como”. |
| Carlos: Como por ejemplo... |
| Natalia: “Tu hermana es como tú”. |
| Carlos: “Your sister is just like you.” |
| Natalia: Carlos, which of these do you think is the most challenging? |
| Carlos: Well, as an “anglohablante”, “English speaker”, I’d say that “cruzar” could be tricky. |
| Natalia: Why? |
| Carlos: Well, because I’m tempted to pronounce the “z” as in buzz and say “cruzar” instead of pronouncing it like an “s” as it should be “cruzar”. |
| Natalia: You see, you are going to hold them and there is nothing, “cruzar”. |
| Carlos: Anymore. |
| Natalia: Anymore. |
| Carlos: “Cruzar”, anymore. |
| Natalia: Exactly. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Carlos: Okay, let’s have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Natalia: The first word, “cruzar”. |
| Carlos: “Cruzar”, “to cross.” |
| Natalia: So the lesson conversation is centered around this verb. |
| Carlos: How so? |
| Natalia: The main meaning here is “to cross.” “Cruzar la calle”. |
| Carlos: Right, “to cross the street.” |
| Natalia: But listen, “cruzar” can also mean “to bread” or “reproduce.” |
| Carlos: Okay, now that makes sense. |
| Natalia: Exactly, so in the conversation Gabriela tries to suggest to Alejandro that they should cross the street but instead she says “Ahora sí, ¡crucémonos!”, “Okay now let’s breed.” |
| Carlos: I bet you she blushed. |
| Natalia: I’m sure. |
| Carlos: Are there any other words we should learn while we are going over “cruzar”. |
| Natalia: It might be a good idea to learn “cruz”. |
| Carlos: Like the Christian cross. |
| Natalia: The masculine noun “cruce” which mean “crossbreeding.” Okay, let’s move on. |
| Carlos: Sure. |
| Natalia: “Tráfico”. |
| Carlos: I think I got this one. “Tráfico”, “traffic.” |
| Natalia: Yes. Well, it’s easy but what do you notice? |
| Carlos: Well, that this masculine noun only has one “f” and that the “a” receives an accent which we have to pronounce “tráfico”. How did this come up today in the conversation? |
| Natalia: Alejandro sugiere, “debe ser la hora del tráfico”. |
| Carlos: “It must be rush hour.” |
| Natalia: Literally it would be “the hour of traffic.” |
| Carlos: But in English we tend to say rush hour. |
| Natalia: Also we should know that the word “tráfico” means “trade” as in “el tráfico de drogas”, “drug trade”. |
| Carlos: Next up. |
| Natalia: “Reproducir”. |
| Carlos: “Reproducir”, “to reproduce.” Should come as no surprise since they look so similar. |
| Natalia: It’s like saying “let’s reproduce.” |
| Carlos: Do you still think we should point out? |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Natalia: Well, if we remove the prefix “re” we see the word “producir” this means that these two verbs are conjugated the exact same way. The same thing goes for the feminine nouns, “producción”, “production” and “reproducción”, “reproduction.” We’ll look more at that verb before the student takes grammar. |
| Carlos: I can hardly wait. |
| Natalia: I sense you are being sarcastic once more. Carlos, it’s so old I want to cry. |
| Carlos: Naty, I’m not being that sort of….. |
| Natalia: It’s old. |
| Carlos: Grammar’s good. What’s up next? |
| Natalia: So today we have something that’s a little difficult. One class of irregular verbs in the present subjunctive is made up of those that have an irregular first person singular form in the present indicative. |
| Carlos: Okay. |
| Natalia: Wait, it gets worse. |
| Carlos: Of course it does. |
| Natalia: In the present subjunctive, all of the forms are based on irregularity. So of these irregular forms we can divide them into two groups. First, those who first person singular form of the present indicative has a “g” in the ending and two, those who the first person singular form of the present indicative has a “-zco” in the ending. |
| Carlos: Well, you know what Naty, that makes it a little easier. |
| Natalia: Well, it does and today we are only going to focus on the second group. |
| Carlos: Perfect, babysteps. But since you are already in such a giving mood Naty, how about some examples. |
| Natalia: “Espero que este hecho no se reproduzca”. |
| Carlos: “I hope that this may not happen again.” |
| Natalia: Now “conocer”, Carlos. |
| Carlos: “Conocer”, “to know”, “to get to know.” |
| Natalia: “No me imagino que los conozcas”. |
| Carlos: “I don’t imagine that you know them.” |
| Natalia: As you can see from the examples, the present tense of the subjunctive mood is translated in a number of ways into English. |
| Carlos: Yes, I got that. |
| Natalia: Sometimes it looks like the present indicative sometimes like the future indicative and sometimes it really uses the model verb “may.” We include “may” in the initial translations to highlight the subjunctive usage but as you can see, it’s often made from the English usage today. |
| Carlos: Do you have any tricks to understand this topic? |
| Natalia: Sure if you are having a hard time understanding what this mood is, simply think of the funeral, “may he rest in peace.” Which in Spanish is rendered as “descanse en paz”, a form which takes the present subjunctive. |
| Carlos: That’s a neat little trick. |
| Natalia: Remember, in Spanish this form is not as antiquated rather is used all the time and therefore should be learned by anyone wishing to speak in modern Spanish. Like you, Carlos. |
| Carlos: And I will. |
| Natalia: You will right now Carlos. Tarea. In today’s grammar point we studied the verb formation for a group of irregular verbs in the present tense of the subjunctive mood. We defined this group as in those whose first person singular form the present indicative has a “-zco” in the ending like “conozco”, “I know”, from “conocer”, “to know.” Now we are going to give you five sentences in Spanish and what you have to do is locate the irregular verb in the present tense of the subjunctive mood giving its person and number. Ready? Here we go. Número uno, “espero que obedezcas a tu mamá cuando yo esté de viaje”. Número dos,”me extraña que no conozcas más personas aquí” . Número tres, “dudo que el país produzca todo lo que necesite”. Número cuatro, “si deseas un aumento de salario es necesario que produzcas más”. Número cinco, “¿nos conocemos? Conozcámonos entonces”. |
Outro |
| Carlos: Damas y caballeros, you can pick up the questions, answers and comments to the answers of today’s assignment by downloading the premium audio track labelled “tarea”, homework. I’m sure you’ll like it. That just about does it for today. Gracias por escuchar, ¡chao! |
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