Learn how to use the Spanish demonstrative pronouns meaning "this" and "that"
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Dylan: Hola, hola a todos. Habla Dylan, ¿cómo están? |
| Carlos: What’s going on pod101 world? My name is Carlos. In this lesson, you will learn about demonstrative pronouns. |
| Dylan: The conversation takes place in a home. |
| Carlos: The conversation is between Jorge and Andrea. |
| Dylan: The speakers are friends, so they are speaking informally. |
| Carlos: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Jorge: Andrea, vamos al concierto de Vicente Fernández. |
| Andrea: ¿Al concierto de quién? Nunca lo he oído. |
| Jorge: Pero Andrea, ¿en qué mundo vives? |
| Andrea: En este, pero aún así no lo conozco. |
| Jorge: Es un cantante de rancheras. |
| Andrea: ¿Rancheras? Jamás, no me gusta esa música. |
| Jorge: ¡Vamos! No seas malita, hazlo por mí. |
| Jorge: Andrea, let's go to the Vicente Fernandez concert. |
| Andrea: Whose concert? I've never heard him. |
| Jorge: But Andrea, what world do you live in? |
| Andrea: In this one, but I still don't know him. |
| Jorge: He's a "rancheras" singer. |
| Andrea: "Rancheras?" Never, I don't like that music. |
| Jorge: Come on! Don't be mean, do it for me. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Dylan: “Salsa ranchera”. |
| Carlos: “Salsa ranchera”. That’s why. |
| Dylan: Yeah. |
| Carlos: Now Dylan, you know, Costa Rica is actually the first time I was like exposed to “ranchera”, although I thought I mean I heard a “mariachi” but I didn’t know it was like a concert phenomenon like you can sell at a stadium. |
| Dylan: Especially Vicente Fernández. He is super loved everywhere in the world. He sold like diamonds sales or whatever. |
| Carlos: I know like he had a concert here like… |
| Dylan: No all the time. |
| Carlos: Like not too long ago and I think it’s sold out and they were like really expensive tickets. |
| Dylan: Yeah, well he has a son too, super famous, Alejandro Fernández. So it’s like in the family. |
| Carlos: That’s cool. So would you say he is the “Frank Sinatra”? |
| Dylan: Oh, yeah. |
| Carlos: Okay. |
| Dylan: Hey, yeah. |
| Carlos: Cool. He is okay in my book. Okay guys, let’s have a closer look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Dylan: “Concierto”. |
| Carlos: “Concert.” |
| Dylan: “Con-cier-to”, “concierto”. “¿En qué mundo vives?” |
| Carlos: “In what world do you live in?” |
| Dylan: “¿En qué mun-do vi-ves?”, “¿en qué mundo vives?”. “Cantante”. |
| Carlos: “Singer.” |
| Dylan: “Can-tan-te”, “cantante”. “Rancheras”. |
| Carlos: Popular genre of Mexican music. |
| Dylan: “Ran-che-ras”, “rancheras”. “Conocer”. |
| Carlos: “To know.” |
| Dylan: “Co-no-cer”, “conocer”. “Malita”. |
| Carlos: “Mean.” |
| Dylan: “Ma-li-ta”, “malita”. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Carlos: Okay guys, let’s have a closer look at the usage of some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Dylan: The first word we will look at is “concierto”. |
| Carlos: “Concierto”. A cognate that you have a lot of experience with, Dylan. |
| Dylan: You are right. I have been to an organized quite a few concerts. |
| Carlos: But which concert are they talking about in the conversation. |
| Dylan: Well, our first line when Jorge says “Andrea, vamos al concierto de Vicente Fernández”. |
| Carlos: “Andrea, let’s go to the Vicente Fernández concert.” Who? |
| Dylan: Hey, hold on. Andrea has the same response. We talked about that earlier. |
| Carlos: Oh yeah, it’s right. He is famous. |
| Dylan: Very famous but around Latin America. |
| Carlos: But not in the States or Europe. |
| Dylan: We will put it this way. He is not Shakira or Ricky Martin although he has been around much longer than both of them. |
| Carlos: So he has staying power. Interesting. |
| Dylan: Pero él tiene conciertos grandísimos. |
| Carlos: Okay, so then he must be popular then? |
| Dylan: You could say that. |
| Carlos: Now what about some related words to “concierto”? |
| Dylan: Well, do you know the noun “la tarima”? |
| Carlos: No. Can’t say that I do. |
| Dylan: “La tarima” is a platform like the stage. |
| Carlos: Ah got it, okay. |
| Dylan: Well, next up is a question that is funny to me and that is why I picked it. |
| Carlos: And what’s that? |
| Dylan: “¿En qué mundo vives?” |
| Carlos: “What world do you live in?” |
| Dylan: So if you have a friend that is kind of spacey or just not aware, you could easily ask them. |
| Carlos: “¿En qué mundo vives?” That’s kind of funny. So Vicente Fernández is that well known. |
| Dylan: Well, think about if someone asked you about Tony Bennett and you had no idea who he was. |
| Carlos: Got you. |
| Dylan: But if we are talking about a friend of mine to use this question in another context, we could say “Yo no sé en qué mundo vive mi amiga, siempre olvida todo”. |
| Carlos: “I don’t know what world my friend lives in. She always forgets everything.” Wait! I heard another expression that might relate to this. Now I – no, no, no I know it does. |
| Dylan: And what’s that? |
| Carlos: “Vive en la luna”. “She lives in the moon” or “she lives on the moon.” |
| Dylan: Same effect. |
| Carlos: What’s next? |
| Dylan: A noun that was the name of a recent movie about a famous Puerto Rican. |
| Carlos: They haven’t made a movie about me yet, no. That’s all right. No, I am listening, which? |
| Dylan: “Cantante”. |
| Carlos: Of course, “El cantante”. Also one of my favorite songs by the subtitled movie, Héctor Lavoe. |
| Dylan: Well, here we find out what type of music Vicente Fernández plays which will answer your original question. |
| Carlos: Cuéntame. |
| Dylan: “Es un cantante de rancheras”. |
| Carlos: “He is a ‘rancheras’ singer.” Well, that just opened up a whole other question. |
| Dylan: Wait on that. |
| Carlos: Okay. |
| Dylan: So you can use “cantante” in another sample sentence. You’ve already kind of given us one. |
| Carlos: “Héctor Lavoe es un cantante de salsa”. |
| Dylan: “Héctor Lavoe is a salsa singer”, and what do “cantantes” do? |
| Carlos: “Ellos cantan”, “they sing”, which would be the verb “cantar”, “to sing.” |
| Dylan: Now to answer another question that I know is coming... |
| Carlos: Yes, one ex again. What exactly are “rancheras”? |
| Dylan: Well, not to get too deep, but “rancheras” are closely associated with “mariachis”. |
| Carlos: So they dress in that whole get up and they sing like in the groups walking around. |
| Dylan: Oh, definitely. “Rancheras” have their origins in Mexico but their popularity is far reaching. |
| Carlos: You know it really must be from here from hearing about it in Costa Rica. |
| Dylan: Well, it just goes to show you, “a mi me gustan las rancheras”. |
| Carlos: I am still devote bit of my taste for them but you are going to have to give me a related word. |
| Dylan: Well, do you know the name of that get up you are talking about, the traditional Mariachi one? |
| Carlos: No, I don’t. |
| Dylan: “El charro”. That’s what the traditional dress is called. |
| Carlos: Nice. I did not know that. |
| Dylan: Now our next word we’ve gone over before. |
| Carlos: Okay. |
| Dylan: But it’s being used here in a way that is worth pointing out. |
| Carlos: Sounds good. What is it? |
| Dylan: “Conocer”. |
| Carlos: “Conocer”, “to know.” Again. |
| Dylan: Well, what are we knowing? |
| Carlos: A person or a place. |
| Dylan: Right. Sometimes in learning Spanish, we focus on that. We focus on knowing someone personally. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Carlos: Okay, I think I can see where we are going. |
| Dylan: In today’s conversation, we heard “Pero aún así no lo conozco”. |
| Carlos: “But I still don’t know him.” |
| Dylan: So here neither Andrea or Jorge know Vicente Fernández personally but since he is a person, we use “conocer” and not... |
| Carlos: It’s “saber” which also means “to know.” That is a good point. |
| Dylan: Like “Yo conozco Marc Anthony”, “I know Marc Anthony.” |
| Carlos: But not personally... |
| Dylan: I wish. That would be fun to go into those circles. |
| Carlos: I bet. |
| Dylan: Last but not least, “malita”. |
| Carlos: “Malita”. I don’t like the sound of that. |
| Dylan: “Malita” is a diminutive form of the adjective “mala”, “bad.” |
| Carlos: But that’s not how we translated it. |
| Dylan: No, it’s not. Here we translated “malita” as “mean.” |
| Carlos: “No seas malita”. |
| Dylan: “Don’t be mean.” Looks like Andrea doesn’t have a taste for Rancheras. |
| Carlos: Like I said I can’t say I do either. |
| Dylan: Well, either way, when you want to say someone is being mean, you can say “malita”. |
| Carlos: Ah, like “Silvia es una malita, no quiere ayudarme a hacer la tarea”. |
| Dylan: Perfect. “Silvia is very mean. She doesn’t want to help me do the homework.” |
| Carlos: But if she were nice... |
| Dylan: We would have the opposite, “buenito, buenita”. |
| Carlos: This is diminutive of the adjective “bueno, buena”. |
| Dylan: Demonstrative pronouns. |
| Carlos: Demonstrative pronouns. A pronoun refers to a noun which it takes the place of. |
| Dylan: With pronouns, we can refer to words that we mentioned previously in order to avoid redundancy. |
| Carlos: So we know that demonstrative pronouns then will be similar to the demonstrative adjectives with the distinction that the pronouns will replace the word to which they refer while the adjectives will modify this word but and the other difference is |
| Dylan: Well, what makes a demonstrative pronoun different from other pronouns is that it indicates the special relationship between the speaker, the person we are speaking to and the thing we are referring to. For example, we can say, “this table” which is near us both. “That table” which is only near you but not me or “that table over there” which is far from both of us. |
| Carlos: Okay, let’s take a look at the formation. So if I am referring to something near the speaker and the person being spoken to... |
| Dylan: Masculine singular “éste”, feminine singular “ésta”, neuter singular “esto”, masculine plural “éstos”, feminine plural “éstas”. |
| Carlos: So if I am referring to something near the person being spoke to... |
| Dylan: Masculine singular “ése”, feminine singular “ésa”, masculine plural “ésos”, feminine plural “ésas”. |
| Carlos: And what about if I am referring to something distant from the speaker and the person being spoken to? |
| Dylan: Masculine singular “aquél”, feminine singular “aquélla”, masculine plural “aquéllos”, feminine plural, “aquéllas”. |
| Carlos: “Aquél” always confuses me. |
| Dylan: Well, let’s look at some sample sentences to clarify. |
| Carlos: Sounds good. |
| Dylan: “No me gusta esta camisa, prefiero ésa”. |
| Carlos: “I don’t like this shirt. I prefer that one.” |
| Dylan: “Aquéllos que dicen mucho, hacen poco”. |
| Carlos: “Those who talk a lot do very little.” |
| Dylan: “Éste no es el momento de hacer bromas”. |
| Carlos: “This is not the time to make jokes.” |
| Dylan: “Me gusta esta playa, pero más me gusta aquélla que queda unas dos horas más hacia el sur”. |
| Carlos: “I like this beach. I like that one more. That’s about two more hours to the south.” |
| Dylan: And what did you notice? |
| Carlos: What stands out is how demonstrative pronouns demonstrate the location of the thing being referred to in relation to the speaker and the person being spoken to. |
| Dylan: Well, good but let’s not forget that the verb “mostrar” which means “to show” is at the heart of the word “demostrativo”, “demonstrative.” Make sure you don’t confuse demonstratives adjectives with demonstrative pronouns. |
| Carlos: What do you mean? |
| Dylan: Well, for example, in the sentence “No puedo aceptar eso”, “I can’t accept that”, the word “eso” is actually taking the place of what I can’t accept, whereas if we say “No puedo aceptar esa oferta”, “I can’t accept that offer”, we are using the word “esa” as an adjective that modifies “oferta”. |
| Carlos: So you are telling me we should study both. |
| Dylan: That would be a good idea. |
Outro |
| Carlos: Okay guys, you know what, that just about does it for today. |
| Dylan: ¡Chao! |
| Carlos: ¡Nos vemos! |
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