Learn all about how to use the Spanish adverbs of manner
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Natalia: Buenos días, me llamo Natalia. |
| Carlos: What’s going on? My name is Carlos. |
| Natalia: Name, password. Got it. |
| Carlos: In this lesson we learn about adverbs. |
| Natalia: Practicality is best. |
| Carlos: Now who’s talking today? |
| Natalia: We’re still with Olivia and Nadia. |
| Carlos: The cousins who are still at it? |
| Natalia: Yeah, they installed the program but now they have to start it up. |
| Carlos: We know they are still speaking informally cause they’re family. |
| Natalia: Well, that we do. |
| Carlos: You know what, let’s listen to today’s conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| OLIVIA: Listo, ya puede hablar con sus contactos. |
| NADIA: Y ¿cómo hago eso? |
| OLIVIA : Es aun más fácil, mire, ponga su nombre y contraseña. |
| NADIA : Nombre… contraseña... ¡ya! |
| OLIVIA: Ahora, haga click en el nombre de la persona con quien quiere hablar. |
| NADIA : OK... click en el nombre…¿Hola?... ¿José?... Soy Nadia! |
| OLIVIA: ¿Ve? No es tan difícil como se imaginaba. |
| NADIA: ¡Gracias, Prima! ¡Ya entendí! |
| OLIVIA: All set, now you can speak with your contacts. |
| NADIA: How do I do that? |
| OLIVIA: It's even easier. Look, put in your name and password. |
| NADIA: Name...password...got it! |
| OLIVIA: Now, click on the name of the person you want to speak with. |
| NADIA: Okay...click on the name... Hello? José? It's Nadia! |
| OLIVIA: Ya' see? It's not as hard as you thought. |
| NADIA: Thanks, cuz'! Now I get it! |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Natalia: What do you think of that? |
| Carlos: What I think of what? I mean it’s pretty easy. |
| Natalia: It’s so easy, isn’t it? |
| Carlos: It is so easy. |
| Natalia: Ok, is this the last one we have or you think they’re said already? |
| Carlos: Unless she [inaudible 00:01:05] know how to restart her computer. I don't know what else could possibly be… |
| Natalia: You want to hear something funny? |
| Carlos: Tell me. |
| Natalia: Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, one of my first jobs I was giving like some customer service to a lady, and then I go and I give her an explanation [inaudible 00:01:18] you just have to click over here. And then you know what she asked me? |
| Carlos: What? |
| Natalia: With which button in the mouse. |
| Carlos: Well, isn’t there more than one button on the mouse. |
| Natalia: Well, I know there is. But I was like, “Well, you click on it and then the page comes out.” And she is like, “What button?” And I'm like, “Well, you click the one”, and then she’s like, “Ok, but there’s one in the middle”. I'm like, “That’s actually to scroll up and down.” And then she’s like, “Ok. How do I…?” Well, whatever, Carlos. Let’s cut all that because it’s dumb. Anyways, yeah but it was really lame. |
| Carlos: Ok. Well let’s take a look at the vocabulary for today’s lesson, Nati, cause first we have a masculine noun. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Natalia: “Contacto”. |
| Carlos: “Contact.” |
| Natalia: “Con-tac-to”, “contacto”. Por ejemplo, “¿tienes un correo para guardar contacto?” |
| Carlos: “Do you have an email account to keep contact?” And then we have an adverb. |
| Natalia: “Aun”. |
| Carlos: “Even.” |
| Natalia: “Aun”, “a-un”. Por ejemplo, “aun los tontos lo saben”. |
| Carlos: “Even a fool knows that.” Coming up, a feminine noun. |
| Natalia: “Contraseña”. |
| Carlos: “Password”, “watchword”, “countersign.” |
| Natalia: “Con-tra-se-ña”, “contraseña”. Por ejemplo, “siempre olvido la contraseña de mi cuenta de banco”. |
| Carlos: “I always forget the password from my bank account.” And then a verb. |
| Natalia: “Hablar”. |
| Carlos: “To speak” or “to talk”. |
| Natalia: “Ha-blar”, “hablar”. Por ejemplo, “hablas bien”. |
| Carlos: “You speak well.” And another verb? |
| Natalia: “Imaginar”. |
| Carlos: “To imagine”, “to assume.” |
| Natalia: “I-ma-gi-nar”, “imaginar”. Por ejemplo, “imaginé que hubiera sido más fácil”. |
| Carlos: “I imagined it would be easier.” And last but not least, a masculine or feminine noun. |
| Natalia: “Primo, prima”. |
| Carlos: “Cousin.” |
| Natalia: “Pri-mo, pri-ma”, “primo, prima”. Por ejemplo, “mi prima se llama Erica”. |
| Carlos: “My cousin’s name is Erica.” Ok, let’s have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Natalia: The first word we'll look at is… |
| Carlos: “Contacto”. |
| Natalia: Well, we actually have a lot of cognates here. |
| Carlos: You know it’s a good way to learn. People will be really surprised just how much Spanish they already know. “Contacto”, “contact”. |
| Natalia: It’s pretty straight forward. If you don’t know any Spanish and you heard that example from our conversation, “listo, ya puedes hablar con tus contactos”. You could figure out what’s being said. |
| Carlos: I think so. I mean that sentence is pretty solid. All set, “now you can speak with your contacts.” |
| Natalia: And from that being said, I think that the definition is pretty easy to understand. |
| Carlos: And what is the definition. |
| Natalia: “Relación o trato que se establece entre dos o más personas o entidades”. How many cognates do you hear there? |
| Carlos: Three off the top of my head: “relación”, “relation”, “personas”, “person”, and “entidades”, “entities.” |
| Natalia: Look at that. Well, Carlos, Carlos, we have “contacto”. Can you think of a related word? |
| Carlos: That’s a pretty easy question, Nati. The verb “contactar”, “to contact”. |
| Natalia: Now the next word can get a little confusing. |
| Carlos: Why is that? |
| Natalia: Well, the other “aun” means “even”. |
| Carlos: Right, I got that from the conversation. “Es aun más fácil. Mira, pon tu nombre y contraseña”. |
| Natalia: “It’s even easier. Look, put your name and password.” But before I get to why it’s confusing, let’s look at the definition. |
| Carlos: Shoot. |
| Natalia: “Aun, denota a veces la idea de encarecimiento en sentido afirmativo o negativo”. |
| Carlos: So what’s so confusing? |
| Natalia: There is another adverb. |
| Carlos: Another one? |
| Natalia: Yeah, spelled the same exact way, just one small, very, very important difference. |
| Carlos: And what’s the difference? |
| Natalia: Well, first we have “aun”, which is a vocabulary word from this lesson. |
| Carlos: Which means “even”. |
| Natalia: And then we have “aún” which is also an adverb but with an accent over the “u” it means “still”. One related word at a time, Carlos. Here’s a sample sentence for each. |
| Carlos: Ok. |
| Natalia: “Te compraré la camiseta y aun el pantalón si sacas buenas notas”. “I’ll buy you the T-shirt and even the trousers if you had good grades.” |
| Carlos: Nati, you’re all about the bribe. “Aún”? |
| Natalia: “Aún lo entiendo”, “I still do not understand.” Do you see how important the accent is? |
| Carlos: I'm beginning to see your point. |
| Natalia: That’s why I'm stickler for pronunciation. It’s that important. |
| Carlos: So what’s next? |
| Natalia: A very familiar verb, “hablar”. |
| Carlos: I think “hablar” is one of the first verbs to learn. |
| Natalia: Was it one of your first? |
| Carlos: Yes, it was. |
| Natalia: Well, then that must be important, Carlos. So how was it used in the conversation? |
| Carlos: “Ahora haz click en el nombre de la persona con quien quieres hablar”. “Now click on the name of the person you want to speak with.” Now, let me see if I can understand the definition. |
| Natalia: “Articular, proferir palabras para darse a entender”. |
| Carlos: Another cognate. “Articular”, “articulate.” |
| Natalia: Or, for example, “Carlos habla mucho”, “Carlos talks a lot.” |
| Carlos: Hey, that’s how I got my job, Nati. [*] here’s another related word. |
| Natalia: Which? |
| Carlos: “Decir”, “to tell”. |
| Natalia: You’re getting the concept. |
| Carlos: I try, Nati, I try. |
| Natalia: Now, I know the next word is one of your favorites. |
| Carlos: I'm listening. |
| Natalia: “Imaginar”. |
| Carlos: “To imagine”. Now why would that be one of my favorites? |
| Natalia: Because you daydream more than any human being I’ve ever met. |
| Carlos: Head on the clouds, feet on the ground, Nati. But you know what? I know I’ll be practical. In the conversation, “¿ves? no es tan difícil como te imaginabas”. |
| Natalia: You see, it’s not as hard as you thought. |
| Carlos: But didn’t we say that “imaginar” meant “to imagine”. |
| Natalia: Well, yes, but don’t you think you could use it either. |
| Carlos: I don't know, what you think? |
| Natalia: Well, don’t you imagine that you can use it either? |
| Carlos: Ok, I see your point. So then a related word would definitely be the verb “pensar”, “to think”. |
| Natalia: You read my mind. “A veces yo imagino que soy millonario”. |
| Carlos: “Sometimes I imagine that I'm a millionaire.” |
| Natalia: That’s ok. Carlos, we have another one, a family member. “Primo, prima”. |
| Carlos: “Cousin.” You know, family members can be more confusing to learn in English, in my opinion. |
| Natalia: Well, not cousin, but yeah. Niece, nephew, uncle, aunt, all of those get really complicated. |
| Carlos: Yeah, in Spanish it does make a little more sense because they are all masculine feminine nouns. The only one that I can think of is “madre” and “padre” but even that is similar. |
| Natalia: In the conversation it’s also used like a term of endearment. “Gracias primas, ya entendí”. |
| Carlos: “Thank, coz, I understand.” Yeah, as I get older I call my cousins “coz” now, it’s like the diminutive. |
| Natalia: The diminutive… “Soy muy apegada a mis primas”. |
| Carlos: “I'm very close to my cousins.” |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Natalia: Grammar today, Carlos. Adverbs. |
| Carlos: The sibling of the adjective. |
| Natalia: I guess you could think of it like that but you don’t confuse the poor people. |
| Carlos: I won’t. Check it out. Like adjectives, adverbs are words that are often used to provide needed details to speech and writing. |
| Natalia: Ok. |
| Carlos: See, we could make grammatically complete sentences without adverbs but we would be really limited in what we could convey. It would get boring really quickly. |
| Natalia: It makes sense. |
| Carlos: Now, would you say English adverbs and Spanish adverbs are similar? |
| Natalia: Well, Spanish adverbs are more like their English counterparts. |
| Carlos: Since I’ve redirected the question of adverbs, why don’t you define them for us? |
| Natalia: That’s the thing, there’s at least two ways in which you can define what adverbs are. |
| Carlos: Let’s talk of the first. |
| Natalia: One way is that adverbs are words that tell us when, how or where the action or process in a sentence takes place. |
| Carlos: Ok, and the other? |
| Natalia: Adverbs are words that modify or limit the meaning of a verb, adjective, adverb or entire sentence. |
| Carlos: Now what about number and gender? Where do adverbs fit in there? |
| Natalia: Well, the thing is adverbs in Spanish are invariable. |
| Carlos: And what do you mean by invariable? |
| Natalia: That is they don’t show number and gender. |
| Carlos: That answers that question. |
| Natalia: Their function is to modify the meaning of verbs, the meaning of adjectives and the meaning of other adverbs. |
| Carlos: That’s pretty versatile. |
| Natalia: We’re just hitting the tip of the iceberg. |
| Carlos: How so? |
| Natalia: Let’s compare adverbs in English and adverbs in Spanish. Carlos, where are the most adverbs derived from? |
| Carlos: Well, most adverbs are derived from adjectives although there are more than a few that really aren’t. |
| Natalia: Right, but in Spanish most adverbs that are derived from adjectives. “Mente” like “rapidamente”. |
| Carlos: So they end in “mente”, and the translation of that leads to an English comparison. “Rapidly”. You know, most adverbs derive from adjective in English end in LY. |
| Natalia: Exactly, but let’s look at the most common types of adverbs. |
| Carlos: Sure. |
| Natalia: First up we have adverbs of manner. These are most common used in a wide range of situations. |
| Carlos: Any particular reason why? |
| Natalia: Always is because they tell us how something is done, but there’s another thing, you know? Placement. |
| Carlos: Where are they placed? |
| Natalia: Usually they are placed after the verbs they modify. |
| Carlos: For example? |
| Natalia: Well, “estudia bien”. |
| Carlos: The adverb being “bien”. “He studies well”. |
| Natalia: “Canta mal”. |
| Carlos: The adverb here being “mal”. “He sings poorly”. |
| Natalia: “Conduce rapidamente”. |
| Carlos: That’s our first “mente” and we already talked about what it means, “he drives rapidly” or “quickly.” |
| Natalia: Well, here’s one for you. “Leo mucho”. |
| Carlos: The adverb here being “much”, “I read a lot”. |
| Natalia: Ok, next grouping adverbs use are the intensifiers and modifiers. |
| Carlos: And can we get a little more specific? |
| Natalia: Here they serve to make the adverb or adjective, they modify either more or less intense. |
| Carlos: Modify and intense. Intensifiers and modifiers, makes sense. |
| Natalia: There is a difference in placement here. |
| Carlos: What’s that? |
| Natalia: In this case, they come before the words they modify. |
| Carlos: You mean like “estoy muy contento”, “I'm very happy”. |
| Natalia: Or “estoy muy cansado”, “I'm very tired”. |
| Carlos: Those would be the most common words that I hear from you. |
| Natalia: Carlos, don’t be like that. |
| Carlos: But I am not… |
| Natalia: I'm really happy, you hear all the time. So adverbs can also be point of view adverbs. |
| Carlos: What do you mean? They are adverbs with an opinion? |
| Natalia: No, these adverbs modify an entire sentence and evaluate it. |
| Carlos: And does the placement change? |
| Natalia: “Usualmente”. |
| Carlos: “Usually”, nice insert of example. |
| Natalia: Usually they come at the beginning of a sentence but they really don’t have to. |
| Carlos: I'm going to need some examples. |
| Natalia: “Quizás él tenga miedo”. |
| Carlos: “Perhaps he is afraid.” |
| Natalia: “Personalmente, no lo creo”. |
| Carlos: “Personally I don’t believe it.” |
| Natalia: “Pablo evidentemente estudia mucho”. |
| Carlos: “Pablo obviously studies a lot.” |
| Natalia: Well, we also have adverbs of time. These are adverbs that tell when something occurs, and before you ask about placement, they usually but not always come after the verb. |
| Carlos: For example? |
| Natalia: We could say “salimos mañana”, “we’re leaving tomorrow”, or you think of one. |
| Carlos: “No estudia nunca”. “He never studies.” |
| Natalia: Last but not least we have adverbs of place. |
| Carlos: And what are adverbs of place? |
| Natalia: These are adverbs that tell when an action or process occurs. |
| Carlos: It makes sense. |
| Natalia: But be careful because these can be confusing for beginners. |
| Carlos: Ok, but why? |
| Natalia: Because many of the adverbs that indicate place can also function as prepositions or even as pronouns. |
| Carlos: And placement? |
| Natalia: Adverbs of place appear either before or after the verb they modify. It’s more important in Spanish than English to make certain that the adverb is placed close to the verb it modifies. |
| Carlos: For example? |
| Natalia: Well, for example, “está aquí”, “It is here”, “allí comeremos”, “We’ll eat there”, “te busca arriba”, “He’s looking for you upstairs”. |
Outro |
| Carlos: Alright, well, you know what, that seems like it just about does it for today. Ok, nos vemos. |
| Natalia: Chao! |
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