Learn about talking about actions in the past
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Natalia: Buenos días, soy Natalia. |
| Carlos: What’s going on? My name is Carlos. |
| Natalia: “Good God in heaven and all the angels.” |
| Carlos: What’s going on and welcome to beginner series season two at spanishpod101.com where we study modern Spanish in a fun and educational format. |
| Natalia: So brush up on the Spanish that you started learning long ago and start learning today. |
| Carlos: Thanks for being here with us for this lesson. Naty, what are we looking at today? |
| Natalia: Verb formation. |
| Carlos: Verb formation, fun yet practical. |
| Natalia: Well, the preterit tense of the indicative mood. |
| Carlos: So I assume it’s being used in the conversation with… |
| Natalia: Mariana and the guy selling lottery. |
| Carlos: So it’s formal, right? |
| Natalia: Yes. |
| Carlos: Let’s get into today’s conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| PRESENTADOR: Damas y caballeros, ¡llegó el gran día del sorteo! |
| MARIANA: ¡Al fin llegó el día! |
| PRESENTADOR: El número ganador de seiscientos millones de colones es... |
| MARIANA: Veintidós… ¡vamos veintidós! |
| PRESENTADOR: ¡El número Veintidós! ¡Felicidades al nuevo millonario! |
| MARIANA: ¡¡Santo Dios del cielo y todos los ángeles!! ¿Dijo veintidós de verdad...? ¿mi veintidós? |
| PRESENTADOR: Repito… el número veintidós. |
| MARIANA: ¡Ay, no puede ser! ¡Gané, gané, gané! |
| ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, the big day of the lottery has arrived! |
| MARIANA: The day has finally come! |
| ANNOUNCER: The winning number for the six-hundred million Colones is… |
| MARIANA: Twenty two …come on twenty two! |
| ANNOUNCER: Number twenty two ! Congratulations to the new millionaire! |
| MARIANA: Good God in Heaven and all the angels!!! Did he say twenty-two? My twenty-two? |
| ANNOUNCER: I repeat… number twenty-two. |
| MARIANA: Ah, this can’t be! I won, I won, I won! |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Carlos: Naty, what would you do if you won the lottery? |
| Natalia: Oh my God! What would I not do? I would get a massive workshop, I will get a new house, I would travel, I would probably give money to my family, I would buy you a pen... |
| Carlos: A pen? |
| Natalia: I would buy you a journal. You said you needed a journal. |
| Carlos: Yes. |
| Natalia: What would you do if you won the lottery? |
| Carlos: Tell nobody. |
| Natalia: Tell nobody, they would know, Carlos. |
| Carlos: No, they wouldn’t. |
| Natalia: Yes, like “why Carlos…?” |
| Carlos: I would live exactly the same way I live now. |
| Natalia: Yes, I would like to see you with sixty million dollars to see if you would live the same way. |
| Carlos: I would exactly, no one would know a thing. I would just be calm about life. |
| Natalia: Oh sure, sure, sure. |
| Carlos: I walk around with no problems, yes, yes, yes. |
| Natalia: Hello, I can see you like imagine the house you would get. Carlos, how are you able to afford seventy thousand books in just one amazon visit? |
| Carlos: They are on loan. And pay no attention to the villa over there it’s not mine, I just happen to sleep there sometimes. |
| Natalia: It just says Carlos’ villa but that’s another Carlos. |
| Carlos: It’s like my restaurant “Donde Carlos”. Alright, you know what? It’s time to move on to the vocabulary list in your pdf lesson guide. Hoy vamos a empezar con un sustantivo que puede ser masculino o femenino y también puede ser adjetivo. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Natalia: “Ganador, ganadora”. |
| Carlos: “Winner.” |
| Natalia: “Ga-na-dor, ga-na-do-ra”, “ganador, ganadora”. |
| Carlos: Y un ejemplo sería... |
| Natalia: “¿Quién fue el ganador del sorteo?” |
| Carlos: “Who was the winner of the lottery?” La próxima palabra que vamos a estudiar es otro sustantivo femenino. |
| Natalia: “Felicidad”. |
| Carlos: “Happiness”, “congratulations.” |
| Natalia: “Fe-li-ci-dad”, “felicidad”. |
| Carlos: Como por ejemplo... |
| Natalia: “El vicio es un error de cálculo en la búsqueda de la felicidad”. |
| Carlos: “Vice is a miscalculation in the search for happiness.” Esta vez tenemos un adjetivo que puede usarse también como sustantivo masculino o femenino. |
| Natalia: “Santo, santa”. |
| Carlos: “Holy Saint.” |
| Natalia: “San-to, san-ta”, “santo, santa”. |
| Carlos: Contextualicemoslo. |
| Natalia: Contextualicemoslo así. “Eres un santo por todo lo que has hecho por mí”. |
| Carlos: “You are a saint for doing everything that you have for me.” Sigamos al verbo... |
| Natalia: “Repetir”. |
| Carlos: “To repeat.” |
| Natalia: “Re-pe-tir”, “repetir”. |
| Carlos: A ver otro ejemplo... |
| Natalia: “¿Puedes repetirlo, por favor?” |
| Carlos: “Can you repeat that please?” La penúltima palabra de hoy es un sustantivo masculino. |
| Natalia: “Ángel”. |
| Carlos: Angel. |
| Natalia: “Án-gel”, “ángel”. |
| Carlos: Como por ejemplo... |
| Natalia: “No me vayas a decir que eres un ángel”. |
| Carlos: “Don’t go telling me that you are an angel.” La última palabra de hoy es el verbo... |
| Natalia: “Ganar”. |
| Carlos: “To win”, “to earn”, “to gain.” |
| Natalia: “Ga-nar”, “ganar”. |
| Carlos: Y un ejemplo más. |
| Natalia: “Las colonias ganaron su libertad de España”. |
| Carlos: “The colonies want their freedom from Spain.” |
| Natalia: Carlos, time for today’s pronunciation tip. Let’s focus on pronouncing multiple syllables in a single word like “felicidades”. |
| Carlos: “Felicidades”. |
| Natalia: Right now, notice where the stress falls on the second to last syllable, “felicidades”. |
| Carlos: “Felicidades”. That’s not so hard. |
| Natalia: Did I say it was going to be? |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Carlos: No, but you know, whatever. Well look, look, let’s take a closer look at some of the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Natalia: The first word phrase we’ll look at is “ganar”. |
| Carlos: “Ganar”. |
| Natalia: This “ar” verb has a few different meanings. “To earn”, “to win”, “to beat”, “to gain.” |
| Carlos: But which meaning was used in today’s conversation? |
| Natalia: “¡Ay, no puede ser! ¡Gané, gané, gané!” |
| Carlos: “Ah this can’t be! I won, I won, I won!” What about a related word? |
| Natalia: “Ganancias”, “earnings”, “income.” |
| Carlos: Next up? |
| Natalia: “Ganador”. Check this out, someone who “gana” is a “ganador” hence a “winner.” |
| Carlos: Makes sense. |
| Natalia: So this can be the masculine noun “ganador” or the feminine noun “ganadora” or it can be used as an adjective as we saw in today’s conversation. |
| Carlos: Okay. |
| Natalia: “El número ganador de seiscientos millones de colones es…” |
| Carlos: “The winning number for the six hundred million colones is…” |
| Natalia: “Ganador” can also be related to the verb “ganar”, “to win.” |
| Carlos: And then? |
| Natalia: “Felicidad”. |
| Carlos: “Felicidad”. |
| Natalia: Now a feminine noun which means “happiness.” But when we use it in the plural, it becomes “congratulations.” |
| Carlos: Wait, wait. So does this mean that when we congratulate someone in Spanish we are saying “happiness’s”? |
| Natalia: Maybe in your mind, Carlos. |
| Carlos: And in today’s conversation? |
| Natalia: Well, “¡Felicidades al nuevo millonario!” |
| Carlos: “Congratulations to the new millionaire.” You know that’s something I’ve always wanted to hear and not say. |
| Natalia: Carlos, I can understand that but you know well. The adjective “feliz”, “happy”, the adverb “felizmente”, “happily”, the adjective “infeliz”, “unhappy”, are related words. |
| Carlos: You know I’ve heard the next word. |
| Natalia: “Santo”. |
| Carlos: Yes, “santo”, that’s it. |
| Natalia: Well, this word can be used as either an adjective or a noun. Masculine “santo” or feminine “santa”. |
| Carlos: You know I imagine it has a lot of meanings. |
| Natalia: Well, there’s a couple you know. “Perfecto y libre de toda culpa” or “sagrado e inviolable”. |
| Carlos: Okay and how was it used in today’s conversation? |
| Natalia: “¡¡Santo Dios del cielo y todos los ángeles!!” |
| Carlos: “Good God in heaven and all the angels!” And the related words? |
| Natalia: The masculine noun “santuario”, “sanctuary”, or the feminine noun which you might not feel free to address me by “santidad”, “holiness.” |
| Carlos: Wow. |
| Natalia: Carlos, let me be. An Angel, “ángel”. |
| Carlos: “Ángel”, you mean like Los Angeles? |
| Natalia: Los Angeles. |
| Carlos: Los Angeles. That’s a good way to remember it. The city of angels. |
| Natalia: Don’t forget to accent the “a” or else the grammar goddess will frown up on you and you’ll have a lot worse than a joke. |
| Carlos: Listen, you heard her, learn how to accent. She’s really a stickler on this. |
| Natalia: Okay you know, back to the conversation. “¡¡Santo Dios del cielo y todos los ángeles!!” |
| Carlos: “Good God in heaven and all the angels.” |
| Natalia: That sounds like my grandmother. Something my grandmother would say. But you know in our related words, adjective “angélico” or “evangelio”, “gospel.” |
| Carlos: Alright, be sure to stick around for today’s grammar point coming up next. Naty, I’m hungry, what’s on our grammar plate today? |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Natalia: Verb formation. |
| Carlos: My favorite, but what about verb formation specifically? |
| Natalia: The preterit tense of the indicative mood for regular verbs. |
| Carlos: Now do we have a verb that we are focusing on? |
| Natalia: “Ganar” and in this sense “gané”. |
| Carlos: “Gané”. |
| Natalia: “Gané”. |
| Carlos: “Gané”. |
| Natalia: That’s what you just said. |
| Carlos: Okay, I know I was just practicing my accent. I told you about her being a stickler on that. |
| Natalia: Carlos, where would you like to start? |
| Carlos: Well Naty, just how do we use the preterit tense? |
| Natalia: Well, the preterit tense expresses an action prior to the present or to another action. |
| Carlos: So an action completed before the present moment. |
| Natalia: Exactly, like “I saw him two days ago.” |
| Carlos: Or “I spoke with her while you were working.” Now how do we form the preterit tense for regular verbs? |
| Natalia: To form the preterit tense for regular verbs, we first must move the “ar”, “er” or “ir” ending to get to the root of the verb. And then we add one of the correct preterit endings. The preterit endings were all regular “er” and “ir” verbs are identical. |
| Carlos: Well, that makes things a little easier. |
| Natalia: A little bit but let’s go over the singular preterit formation of “ganar” first. Actually no Carlos, you should do it. |
| Carlos: Okay wait, wait. Well, first “ganar” is an “ar” verb so we’d already looked at that and we said that the preterit endings are the same for the “ir” and “er” verbs. So let’s see if we can get the “ar” verbs out of there. So that would be “yo gané”, “I won”, “tú ganaste”, “you won”, “él ganó”, “he won.” |
| Natalia: And the plural? |
| Carlos: “Nosotros ganamos”, “we won”, “vosotros ganasteis”, “you all won” and “ellos ganaron”, “they won.” How is that? |
| Natalia: It was good. |
| Carlos: Okay, how about some examples? |
| Natalia: “¿Cuánto ganaste ayer?” |
| Carlos: “How much did you earn yesterday?” |
| Natalia: Let’s try another verb. |
| Carlos: Okay, which? |
| Natalia: “Aprender”. |
| Carlos: “To learn”, got that. |
| Natalia: So conjugate, man. |
| Carlos: “Yo aprendí”, “I learned”, “tú aprendiste”, “you learned”, “él aprendió”, “he learned.” |
| Natalia: Do you think they’ll let me bring a ruler? That would be cool. Carlos, conjugate! |
| Carlos: Wow. |
| Natalia: How about plural? |
| Carlos: “Nosotros aprendimos”, “we learned”, “vosotros aprendisteis”, “you all learned”, “ellos aprendieron”, “they learned.” And how about you contribute some examples, miss? |
| Natalia: “Aprendisteis a tomar el metro hace tiempo”. |
| Carlos: “You all learned to take the subway al while back.” |
| Natalia: “Y tú, hijito, ¿de quién aprendió esas vulgaridades?” |
| Carlos: “And where did you, little boy, learn all those expletives?” |
| Natalia: Okay, so we’ve done first conjugation “ganar”, “to win”, second conjugation “aprender” and now we are missing one more third conjugation, a regular “ir” verb. “I pick”, “decidir”. |
| Carlos: “Decide”. “Yo decidí”, “I decided”, “tú decidiste”, “you decided”, “él decidió”, “he decided.” |
| Natalia: And plural? |
| Carlos: “Nosotros decidimos”, “we decided”, “vosotros decidisteis”, “you all decided”, “ellos decidieron”, “they decided.” Good? |
| Natalia: Perfect. |
| Carlos: Oh well, now your turn. |
| Natalia: “Decidieron ir a la playa a pesar de las inclemencias del tiempo”. |
| Carlos: “They decided to go to the beach despite the inclement weather.” |
| Natalia: “¿Cuándo decidiste mudarte a Costa Rica?” |
| Carlos: “When did you decide to move to Costa Rica?” |
| Natalia: So in today’s grammar point, we studied that the preterit tense of the indicative mood and learned how it’s used and how it’s formed. Now we are going to give you five sentences in Spanish. Each will contain a verb, but this verb will not be conjugated to the preterit tense. What you have to do is change it to the preterit tense while maintaining the person and number. Ready? |
| Carlos: Let’s do this! |
| Natalia: Número uno, “¿a qué hora anunciarán el número ganador?”. Número dos, “tienes que decidir”. Número tres, “te llamo a la misma hora que siempre”. Número cuatro, “¿cuántas veces has cometido el mismo error?”. Número cinco, “trabajáis todo el día preparando la propuesta”. |
| Carlos: And remember hotshots, you can always pick up the questions, answers and comments on the answers by downloading the premium audio track labeled “tarea”. |
| Natalia: The homework. |
Outro |
| Carlos: You know what, that just about does it for today. Gracias por escucharnos, suerte con los estudios. ¡Chao! |
| Natalia: Que les vaya bien. Adiós. |
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