Learn all about the eight principal ways we can use the Spanish preposition para
Now Playing: Lesson Audio
Get a breakdown of the dialogue and translations instantly with the Premium line-by-line Audio. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Get this lesson’s key vocab, their translations and pronunciations. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.
| INTRODUCTION |
| Natalia: Buenos días, me llamo Natalia. |
| Carlos: What’s going on? My name is Carlos. Beginner - “But that’s as easy as it gets.” |
| Natalia: Carlos. |
| Carlos: Yes. |
| Natalia: Was it easy to get used to your Mac? |
| Carlos: You know what, Nati? I’ll admit it wasn’t easy at first, but after a couple of days I absolutely loved it. |
| Natalia: Well and you still do, you say that every day, but it looks like Nadia is going through those same growing pains. |
| Carlos: Why? |
| Natalia: Because she can install a program and it’s driving her crazy. |
| Carlos: You know, I do remember that, installing programs in Macs are completely different but who is she complaining to? |
| Natalia: Her cousin. |
| Carlos: So I guess that would make things informal, right? |
| Natalia: Yes. |
| Carlos: Alright, Let’s listen to today’s conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| NADIA: ¡Ay, prima! Tengo un dolor de cabeza. |
| OLIVIA: ¿Qué le pasa, Nadia? |
| NADIA: Acabo de comprar una Macbook y tengo dos horas tratando de bajar Skype. |
| OLIVIA: ¡Pero eso es de lo más fácil! |
| NADIA: Claro, para usted que la ha usado por tanto tiempo. |
| OLIVIA: Mire, usted sólo va a www.skype.com y hace click en instalar. |
| NADIA: I have a headache. |
| OLIVIA: What is going on, Nadia? |
| NADIA: I've just bought a Macbook and I have spent two hours trying to download Skype. |
| OLIVIA: But that is as easy as it gets! |
| NADIA: Sure, for you who has used a Macbook for so long. |
| OLIVIA: Look, you just go to www.skype.com and click on install. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Natalia: Oh, you haven’t used one in so long? No, it’s pretty simple. It’s the same thing, but you know the whole Mac, the way it looks, you’re so used to Windows or you’re so used to everything that you just feel absolutely different. |
| Carlos: No, that’s true. But in Mac one of the biggest things I had to get used to, and people don’t really understand, is that when you download the program an icon appears and you actually have to drag that icon to your application folder. |
| Natalia: Yeah, the applications. Well, you see, that’s what she’s having trouble with. |
| Carlos: You can understand the headache, but she can just call somebody. She could go on Mac.com and they would explain everything. |
| Natalia: I know. |
| Carlos: They’re really good with it. |
| Natalia: Well, it’s easier when you have a person to help you out. |
| Carlos: That’s always true. |
| Natalia: Ok. |
| Carlos: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. First up we have a noun phrase. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Natalia: “Dolor de cabeza”. |
| Carlos: “Headache.” |
| Natalia: “Do-lor de ca-be-za”, “dolor de cabeza”. Por ejemplo, “¡Ay! ,tengo un dolor de cabeza terrible”. |
| Carlos: “Ah, I have a horrible headache.” Next up we have a verb phrase. |
| Natalia: “Acabar de”. |
| Carlos: “To have just.” |
| Natalia: “A-ca-bar de”, “acabar de”. Por ejemplo, “ella acaba de comprar nuevos anteojos”. |
| Carlos: “She has just bought new glasses.” Next up, another verb phrase. |
| Natalia: “Tratar de”. |
| Carlos: “To try to.” |
| Natalia: “Tra-tar de”, “tratar de”. Por ejemplo, “todos vamos a tratar de hacerlo bien”. |
| Carlos: “We are all going to try to do it right.” Next up we have a verb. |
| Natalia: “Bajar”. |
| Carlos: “To come down”, “to go down”, “to download.” |
| Natalia: “Ba-jar”, “bajar”. Por ejemplo, “ellos están bajando por las escaleras”. |
| Carlos: “They are coming down the stairs.” Next up, we have an adjective. |
| Natalia: “Fácil”. |
| Carlos: “Easy.” |
| Natalia: “Fá-cil”, “fácil”. Por ejemplo, “aprender otro idioma es fácil”. |
| Carlos: “It is easy to learn another language.” And last but not least, we have an adverb. |
| Natalia: “Tanto, tanta”. |
| Carlos: “So much, so many.” |
| Natalia: “Tan-to, tan-ta”, “tanto, tanta”. Por ejemplo, “ella tiene tanto y no lo sabe”. |
| Carlos: “She has so much and doesn’t know it.” Alright, Nati. Let’s take a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Natalia: The first phrase we'll look at is “dolor de cabeza”. |
| Carlos: “Headache.” This is one of those phrases that I remember from highschool. |
| Natalia: Why? |
| Carlos: Well because I couldn’t and, you know what, I still don’t know if I can wrap my head around the idea of how “dolor de cabeza” means “headache.” |
| Natalia: Well, I can see that. It translates to “pain in the head” but you just happen to have a word for it. |
| Carlos: And how was it used in the conversation today? |
| Natalia: “¡Ay, prima!, tengo un dolor de cabeza…” |
| Carlos: “Ay, coz, I have a headache.” |
| Natalia: Carlos, could you think of a sample sentence with this? |
| Carlos: How? |
| Natalia: You speak like a body part. |
| Carlos: Ok. “Tengo dolor de estómago”, “I have a stomach ache.” |
| Natalia: Ok, here is a related word, “molestar”. |
| Carlos: “To bother”, right? |
| Natalia: Right, but apply it to your example. |
| Carlos: “Me molesta el estómago”. |
| Natalia: So that could also mean that you have a stomach ache. |
| Carlos: Nice. You see the relation, audience? You got that? |
| Natalia: Well, get this verbal phrase, “acabar de”. |
| Carlos: Which means… |
| Natalia: “To have just.” |
| Carlos: Ok, like in the conversation “acabo de comprar una Mac”. |
| Natalia: “I’ve just bought a Mac.” |
| Carlos: Let me think of an example. “Me acabo de acordar que no tengo dinero”, “I just remembered that I do not have money.” |
| Natalia: How could you forget that? |
| Carlos: You know, Nati, it does happen. I forget I had money, I forget I don’t have money. |
| Natalia: Unlucky you. |
| Carlos: Did you forget to think of overlated work? |
| Natalia: No, never think of the phrase “en este momento”. |
| Carlos: “In this moment.” |
| Natalia: Right. |
| Carlos: “I have just”, “in this moment.” Think I got the link. |
| Natalia: Good. Today is turning out to be a day of phrases, you see. |
| Carlos: Why do you say that? |
| Natalia: Because our next book of entry is also a phrase. |
| Carlos: Which is…? |
| Natalia: “Tratar de”. |
| Carlos: So this one is a verbal phrase. “Tratar de”. I know I’ve heard that before. |
| Natalia: So then what does it mean? |
| Carlos: “To try”. Like in the conversation when Nadia says a continuation of our last example, “tengo dos horas tratando de bajar Skype”. |
| Natalia: “I’ve just spent two hours trying to download Skype.” I get so frustrated with computers sometimes. |
| Carlos: Yes, and we’ve already established that you hold an irrational hatred towards Macs. |
| Natalia: Not really, just that I have two other computers and I can’t get a Mac, so it’s not irrational, Carlos. |
| Carlos: Ok, that’s true. Sorry about that. How about another example sentence, Nati? |
| Natalia: “Voy a tratar de ser más puntual”. |
| Carlos: “I'm going to try to be more punctual.” And next on our list? |
| Natalia: “Bajar”. |
| Carlos: “Bajar”. Look, we finally have a verb. |
| Natalia: “Bajar” means “to come down”, “to go down”, “to download”. |
| Carlos: Which would make sense with the conversation where she says in our last example, “tengo dos horas tratando de bajar Skype”. “I just spent two hours trying to download Skype.” So that is really a verb from the computer age. |
| Natalia: Not completely, for example I could also say “Cristina tiene que bajar de peso”. |
| Carlos: Which means? |
| Natalia: “Christine has to lose weight.” We have a verb that also relates, “disminuir”, which can be translated as “to go down” or “diminish”. |
| Carlos: I see the relationship, you know what, that is simple. |
| Natalia: No, it’s easy. |
| Carlos: “Fácil” the next word, isn’t it? |
| Natalia: What made you guess? |
| Carlos: Well, I said “simple” and you said “easy”. |
| Natalia: Well, you see, you got it. So then you already know what the adjective “fácil” means. It means “easy”. |
| Carlos: You know that I do, Nati. In our example from the conversation, in my opinion, also comes up with this topic. |
| Natalia: What do you mean? |
| Carlos: “Pero eso es de lo más fácil”. “But that’s as easy as it gets.” |
| Natalia: You know, Carlos, you also stumbled on one of the related words. |
| Carlos: What, “simple”? |
| Natalia: Yes, “sencillo”, “simple”. |
| Carlos: Simple and easy, kind of like learning Spanish on SpanishPod101.com. |
| Natalia: You never stop the advertising, do you? |
| Carlos: No, can’t stop, won’t stop. Can't say that I do. |
| Natalia: Bueno, Carlos, last but certainly not least we have “tanto” y “tanta”. |
| Carlos: “Tanto, tanta”, adjective, right? |
| Natalia: That’s right. “Tanto, tanta”, can be an adjective, an adverb, masculine noun. |
| Carlos: Wow, that word is quite a punch. |
| Natalia: Well, you see in the example from the conversation, “claro, para ti que lo has usado por tanto tiempo”. |
| Carlos: “Sure, for you who’s used a Mac for so long…” So here “tanto” is being translated as “so”, as in “so long”. |
| Natalia: Right. “Tanto, tanta” means “so much”. So many like you could say “tengo tanto calor”, “I'm so hot”. |
| Carlos: And what about some related words? |
| Natalia: I think that you can come up with one. |
| Carlos: Off the top of my head? Alright, sure. “Muchos, muchas”. |
| Natalia: Which means. |
| Carlos: “A lot.” |
| Natalia: Good, because “tengo tanta gramática ahora”. |
| Carlos: Great because I love grammar. |
| Natalia: Ok. Today we’re continuing our conversation on prepositions. Which have we covered so far, Carlos? |
| Carlos: Well, in Beginner Series Season 3 Lesson number 1 we covered the preposition “de”, and in Beginner Series Season 3 Lesson number 2 we checked out the seven used of the preposition “por”. In Beginner Series Season 3 Lesson number 3 we took a look at the preposition “a”, and now in Beginner Series Season 3 Lesson number 4 we are looking at… |
| Natalia: The preposition “para”. |
| Carlos: One of my favorites. |
| Natalia: So what are prepositions again? |
| Carlos: You’re a [inaudible 00:07:38] for the idea that practice makes perfect, Nati. |
| Natalia: I know, I know, and I keep going and going. Ok, tell me. |
| Carlos: Prepositions are invariable words that introduce nouns, noun phrases or subordinate clauses, making them depend on a verb that is previously given. |
| Natalia: Right, in Spanish there are so many prepositions and even more prepositional phrases. In this grammar point we’ll focus on the preposition “para” and take a look at the eight principal ways that the preposition “para” can be used. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Carlos: Ok, so we are set on eight ways. But don’t you think we could explain the preposition a little more? |
| Natalia: Well, that’s a good point. “Para” is one of the most useful and common prepositions in Spanish. |
| Carlos: That it is. |
| Natalia: But tell me, Carlos, can it be a little bit confusing? |
| Carlos: Oh no, most definitely. I still get it wrong sometimes. I mean but why do you think it’s confusing. |
| Natalia: Well, because most people try to translate “para” as “for”. |
| Carlos: Like “por”. |
| Natalia: Sí, but we’ll see that they aren’t interchangeable really. |
| Carlos: I see. |
| Natalia: So think of the best way to learn “para” is not thinking of it as a translation of “for”, but learning its functions. |
| Carlos: Ok, there’s eight of them, right? |
| Natalia: Ok, “utility”, “utilidad”, “¿para qué tanto esfuerzo?”. |
| Carlos: “What’s all this effort for?” |
| Natalia: “Motive”, “motivo”, “lo dijo para molestarme”. |
| Carlos: “She said it to annoy me.” |
| Natalia: “Destination”, “destinatario”, “es para mamá”. |
| Carlos: “It’s for mom.” |
| Natalia: “Opinion”, “opinión”, “para Jorge todas las mujeres son guapas”. |
| Carlos: “All women are pretty to George.” |
| Natalia: “Comparisons”, “comparaciones”, “para ser tan joven tiene ideas muy sensatas”. |
| Carlos: “He has very sensible ideas for his age.” |
| Natalia: “Time”, “tiempo”, “estará listo para las cinco”. |
| Carlos: “It’ll be ready by five.” |
| Natalia: “Imminence”, “inminencia”, “está listo para salir”. |
| Carlos: “He’s about to leave.” |
| Natalia: “Direction”, “dirección”, “el tren para Sevilla acaba de salir”. |
| Carlos: “The train has just left for Seville.” |
| Natalia: Now, there is something to remember. |
| Carlos: What’s that? |
| Natalia: Because of the inherent indeterminacy associated with “para”, it cannot be used with verbs that imply the end of a movement or a final destination. |
| Carlos: What? |
| Natalia: Carlos, it’s easy. Focus, look. Let’s say we say “llegaremos a Caracas”, “we will arrive in Caracas” using “a” rather than “para”. This preposition is also employed in relation to time. “Para” denotes approximate time rather than the exact time. |
| Carlos: I get it but I don’t get it. |
| Natalia: Ok, you will get it at the end of this lesson. Look, “la fiesta ha sido aplazada para el jueves”. “The party has been set for Thursday.” Or another one, “para Navidad nos reuniremos”. “We will get together for Christmas.” Note that the times expressed in these examples are general days rather than precise moments. |
Outro |
| Carlos: General days, not precise moments. Note taken. Alright, Nati, that just about does it for today. Okay, nos vemos. |
| Natalia: Chao! |
Easily master this lesson’s grammar points with in-depth explanations and examples. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Comments
Hide