Learn how to use Spanish exclamations to declare that something is "impossible"
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Dylan: Hola, hola a todos, ¿cómo están? Habla Dylan. |
| Carlos: What’s going on pod101 world? My name is Carlos. In this lesson, you will learn about exclamations, “¡no puede ser!” |
| Dylan: This conversation takes place on a phone and in a home. |
| Carlos: The conversation is between Fernanda and her grandmother and Sebastián. |
| Dylan: The speakers are friends and are speaking informally. |
| Carlos: Okay guys, let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Abuela: Hijita,puedes decirle a tu novio que la abuela cocina la carne primero, pero que la verdadera receta es poner la carne cruda. |
| Fernanda: Ajajaj, ¡gracias abue! ¡Qué astuta eres! |
| Sebastián: Y… ¿qué te dijo? |
| Fernanda: Que yo tengo razón, pero que ella lo hace de otra forma y el sabor es mucho mejor. |
| Sebastián: ¡No puede ser! Tenías razón. |
| Fernada: Así como lo oyes, ¡yo tenía razón! |
| Abuela: Honey, you can tell your boyfriend that your grandma cooks the meat first, but that the true recipe calls for putting in the meat raw. |
| Fernanda: Hahaha, Thanks, Granny! You are so smart!! |
| Sebastián: And…what did she say? |
| Fernanda: That I’m right, but that she does it a different way and the flavor is much better. |
| Sebastián: It can’t be! You were right! |
| Fernada: Exactly what you heard! I was right! |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Dylan: Wow! Her and her grandma look inspiring. |
| Carlos: Seriously, she was wrong but she is like just telling him, we will do it the same way, it’s okay, it’s fine. No problem. No, no, no I do it the way he said but the real way is what you do, that’s why you are smarter than me. |
| Dylan: Yes, right. |
| Carlos: So the grandmother will always seat the side of the younger, hah. |
| Dylan: Yeah, and Sebastián fell for it. |
| Carlos: He did. Well, I don’t think he fell for it completely. |
| Dylan: No, I don’t think so. |
| Carlos: Well, we will see what’s going on with that later. Okay guys, let’s have a closer look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Dylan: “Primero, primera”. |
| Carlos: “First.” |
| Dylan: “Pri-me-ro, pri-me-ra”, “primero, primera”. “Verdadero, verdadera”. |
| Carlos: “True”, “real.” |
| Dylan: “Ver-da-de-ro, ver-da-de-ra”, “verdadero, verdadera”. “Astuto, astuta”. |
| Carlos: “Astute”, “smart”, “intelligent.” |
| Dylan: “As-tu-to, as-tu-ta”, “astuto, astuta”. “Forma”. |
| Carlos: “Way.” |
| Dylan: “For-ma”, “forma”. “Sabor”. |
| Carlos: “Flavor”, “taste.” |
| Dylan: “Sa-bor”, “sabor”. “Oír”. |
| Carlos: “To hear.” |
| Dylan: “O-ír”, “oír”. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Carlos: Okay guys, let’s have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Dylan: The first word we will look at is “primero”. |
| Carlos: Right. “Primero”, our first word. |
| Dylan: Didn’t work out that time. |
| Carlos: Hey, nobody bet a thousand. |
| Dylan: So here we have the first in ordering. |
| Carlos: Correct. “Hijita, puedes decirle a tu novio que la abuela cocina la carne primero pero que la verdadera receta es poner la carne cruda”. |
| Dylan: “Honey, you can tell your boyfriend that your grandma cooks the meat first but that the true recipe calls for putting in the raw meat.” |
| Carlos: Such a compound. Well, if the recipe calls for being raw, then why does the grandma do it? |
| Dylan: She is just trying to refuse the situation to make all sides feel better. No reason to fight over that. |
| Carlos: No, you are right. They are about to enjoy a very good meal. |
| Dylan: “Pero necesitan cocinar primero”. |
| Carlos: That’s right and that’s why I always try to cook when I am full from a small snack. Otherwise the waiting is excruciating. |
| Dylan: Hey, “lo primero es lo primero”. |
| Carlos: “First is first”? |
| Dylan: That’s right, “lo primero es lo primero”, “first things first.” |
| Carlos: Okay, next up. |
| Dylan: The adjective “verdadero, verdadera”. |
| Carlos: Well, I noticed “verdad”. |
| Dylan: Well, think of “verdadero, verdadera” as “truth” or “real.” |
| Carlos: Ah okay, so the true recipe. |
| Dylan: Correct or “verdadera receta”. |
| Carlos: “La verdadera receta es poner la carne cruda”. |
| Dylan: “The true recipe calls for putting in the meat raw.” |
| Carlos: Okay, but let’s put it in another context. |
| Dylan: “Sonia es la verdadera madre de Andrés”. |
| Carlos: “Sonia is Andres’ true mother.” |
| Dylan: Now the noun form is when you’ve already recognized. |
| Carlos: Right, “la verdad”, “the truth.” |
| Dylan: Good. I think we covered that one. |
| Carlos: I agree. |
| Dylan: Next up, “astuta, astuto”. |
| Carlos: I like that adjective, “astuta, astuto”, “astute”, “cunning”, “sly”, “crafty”, yet “fraudulent”, not flaw just like…Fraudulent – well everything but fraudulent, but that’s not good. |
| Dylan: Okay, but we know that Fernanda probably wouldn’t have called her grandmother fraudulent. So I think that it’s a safe bet to say that she means it in one of the positive ways. |
| Carlos: Well, let’s see how it is used in the conversation. |
| Dylan: “¡Qué astuta eres!” |
| Carlos: “You are so smart” or “how smart you are.” See we were right. |
| Dylan: Yep. |
| Carlos: O “mi amigo es muy astuto”. |
| Dylan: Hah okay sure. “My friend is very astute.” |
| Carlos: What? Not good enough. Well it makes the point. A good related word is “inteligente”. |
| Dylan: Yes, “inteligente”, “intelligent”, would fit nicely. |
| Carlos: Sorry, “inteligente”. Next up... |
| Dylan: “Forma”. |
| Carlos: “Forma”. A noun that I thought initially meant “form” but it means... |
| Dylan: “Ways.” |
| Carlos: “Que yo tengo razón pero que ella lo hace de otra forma y el sabor es mucho mejor”. |
| Dylan: “That I’m right but that she does it in a different way and the flavor is much better.” Hah! Sebastián just better keep his mouth shut on this one now. |
| Carlos: Do you really think he will? |
| Dylan: No, no I don’t. |
| Carlos: “No me gusta la forma como le habla”. |
| Dylan: “I don’t like the way he speaks to her” either. |
| Carlos: Or “la manera”. |
| Dylan: Nor “the manner.” |
| Carlos: And our suspicious are verified when he speaks. |
| Dylan: Wait! We aren’t there yet. |
| Carlos: No? |
| Dylan: We have another noun to deal with first. |
| Carlos: Which? |
| Dylan: “Sabor”. |
| Carlos: Ah, “sabor”, “taste”, “flavor”, something abundant in Latin American cooking. |
| Dylan: And that’s why you love it. |
| Carlos: There are also many other reasons. |
| Dylan: Well, we already heard our example from the conversation. |
| Carlos: Right, “pero que ella lo hace de otra forma y el sabor es mucho mejor”. |
| Dylan: “But she does it in a different way and the flavor is much better.” |
| Carlos: Now the argument at hand concerns cooking the meat first or not. Dylan, now you cook “chiles rellenos” or stuffed peppers and what’s your verdict? |
| Dylan: I cook the meat first. I also grill the “chiles” so I can peel off the skin. I mean that’s just the way to do it. |
| Carlos: Okay, now I will take your word for that and I will try it later. |
| Dylan: So you love to eat. Which flavor don’t you like? |
| Carlos: A mi no me gusta el sabor de la Coca Cola Zero. Disgusting. |
| Dylan: It tastes like regular coke. |
| Carlos: Well, then by that standard. To tell you the truth, I haven’t had a regular Coke in years. |
| Dylan: Do you know the opposite of “sabor”? |
| Carlos: “Sin”. |
| Dylan: No, not “sin sabor”. |
| Carlos: Okay, then no. |
| Dylan: The opposite is “insípido”, “tasteless.” |
| Carlos: I am not a big fan of that “insípido”. I am a fan of big flavor, big spices. |
| Dylan: Last but not least, we have the verb “oír”, “to hear.” |
| Carlos: Isn’t it the infinitive? |
| Dylan: Yeah. |
| Carlos: But how is it conjugated in the conversation? |
| Dylan: Well, you tell me. Listen to the example, “así como lo oyes”. |
| Carlos: “Exactly what you heard.” So that will be “oyes” and that will be “oír” conjugated as second person singular or “tú” form of the present tense of the indicative mood. |
| Dylan: Exactly. |
| Carlos: Hah, I love it when I get the hang of something. |
| Dylan: How about a sample sentence of “oír” in the past tense? |
| Carlos: Oh those three letter verbs are tricky. Okay, let me see. “Ayer oí una nueva canción”. |
| Dylan: Good job. “Yesterday I heard a new song.” |
| Carlos: Thanks. It took me a second though. |
| Dylan: Well, what’s a related word? |
| Carlos: “Escuchar”, “to listen.” |
| Dylan: Nice. Let’s get down to grammar. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Carlos: Okay, what we got for today? |
| Dylan: What we got? |
| Carlos: Fine. What do we have today? |
| Dylan: There you go. In today’s lesson, we look at the combination of two words “poder”, “to be able” and “ser”, “to be”, and that make up one crucial phrase “puede ser”, “it could be”, “it is possible”, “maybe”, “perhaps.” |
| Carlos: Now how do we use this phrase? |
| Dylan: We use this phrase to express potential or possibility. We can also express impossibility by adding the word “no”. |
| Carlos: For example... |
| Dylan: “¡No puede ser!” |
| Carlos: “Impossible!”. “It can’t be!”, which was our example from the conversation. |
| Dylan: Let’s take a look at formation. |
| Carlos: Always a good thing to learn. |
| Dylan: “Poder”, “to be able”, and “ser”, “to be.” Make up these two phrases. One, “puede ser”. |
| Carlos: “It could be”, “it is possible”, “maybe”, “perhaps.” |
| Dylan: Two, “no puede ser”. |
| Carlos: “Impossible”, “it can’t be.” Well, that sounds easy enough. |
| Dylan: Well, let’s check out some sample sentences. |
| Carlos: Okay. |
| Dylan: Rodolfo, “¿vamos al partido mañana?” |
| Carlos: “Want to go to the game tomorrow?” |
| Dylan: Alonso, “puede ser”. |
| Carlos: “Perhaps.” |
| Dylan: Rodolfo, “pero Ronaldo no va a jugar”. |
| Carlos: “But Ronaldo is not going to play.” |
| Dylan: Alonso, “¡No puede ser! Juegan horrible sin él”. |
| Carlos: “Impossible. They play horribly without him.” Well, that was nice little good conversation that we had right there. |
| Dylan: Yeah, we want another tip? |
| Carlos: Sure I always like tips. |
| Dylan: Well, we can use the phrase “puede ser”, “it could be”, “perhaps”, “it’s possible”, just as the word “quizás”, “maybe.” |
Outro |
| Carlos: I will keep that in mind. I know guys, “¡no puede ser, no puede ser!” but that just about does it for today. |
| Dylan: ¡Hasta luego! |
| Carlos: Nos vemos, ¡chao! |
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