Learn how to form the imperfect subjunctive of the Spanish verb that means "to want"
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Fernando: “Are you bragging about your Spanish skills?” Como siempre, aqui con JP. JP ¿cómo estas? |
| JP: Muy bien gracias. ¿Tú Fernando? |
| Fernando: Muy bien. |
| JP: Now, Fernando, why don’t you tell us what we’re going to learn in this next lesson. |
| Fernando: En esta lección se va a revisar la formación del verbo querer en el tiempo imperfecto subjuntivo. La conversación toma lugar en un parque. LA conversación es entre Ezequiel y Federico y estarán utilizando el registro familiar. |
| JP: All right. Let’s take a listen to this conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Ezequiel: Dime Fede, ¿hablas otro idioma aparte del español? |
| Federico: Hablo inglés y portugués. Afortunadamente desde niño se me enseñó la importancia de hablar más de un idioma. |
| Ezequiel: Igual a mí, aunque yo sólo hablo inglés y español. Pero hoy día gracias a ésto tengo un trabajo que me permite viajar mucho. |
| Federico: ¿Para eso me preguntaste? ¿Para presumirme que viajas? No cambias Ezequiel. Siempre presumiendo. |
| Ezequiel: [Risas]. No es cuestión de presumir. Me interesa porque quisiera aprender otro idioma para viajar aún más. |
| Federico: Te conozco. Pero por esta ocasión te creeré. |
| Ezequiel: Tell me, Fede, do you speak a language besides Spanish? |
| Federico: I speak English and Portuguese. Fortunately, since I was a kid, I have been taught the importance of speaking more than one language. |
| Ezequiel: Me too, even though I only speak English and Spanish. But nowadays, thanks to this, I have a job that allows me to travel a lot. |
| Federico: Why did you ask me? To show off that you travel? You don't change, Ezequiel. Always bragging. |
| Ezequiel: It's not a matter of bragging. I'm interested because I'd like to learn another language in order to travel even more. |
| Federico: I know you. But for now I'll believe you. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| JP: All right, Fernando. Let’s talk about what we just heard in this dialogue. |
| Fernando: Claro. Fede y Ezequiel están teniendo una conversación cerca de cuántos idiomas habla cada uno. |
| JP: Right. Ezequiel wants to know how many languages Federico speaks. |
| Fernando: Le pregunta a Fede: “Dime Fede, ¿hablas otro idioma aparte del español?” |
| JP: Fede obviously is Federico, right? |
| Fernando: Sí es corto. Como Roberto: Bobby, Robby. |
| JP: So, Fede, Federico, says he speaks English and Portuguese, right? |
| Fernando: Sí : “Hablo inglés y portugués.” Y le agrega: “Afortunadamente desde niño se me enseñó la importancia de hablar más de un idioma.” |
| JP: Ok. So, ever since he was a kid, right? |
| Fernando: Sí y lo dice en un tono humilde, porque utiliza “afortunadamente” |
| JP: Like “fortunately for me”, right? He’s grateful. |
| Fernando: Exacto. |
| JP: Now, Ezequiel has a similar experience, right? He sasses “Me too.” |
| Fernando: “Igual a mí”, en referencia a que a él se le enseñó la importancia de hablar más de un idioma. “ ...aunque yo sólo hablo inglés y español”, asi es que un idioma menos. “ Pero hoy día gracias a ésto tengo un trabajo que me permite viajar mucho.” |
| JP: Ok, “I have a job that allows me to travel a lot.” |
| Fernando: Exacto, porque habla más de un idioma. |
| JP: Now, Federico doesn’t realize the point of this conversation, right? |
| Fernando: En cierta forma sí, pero bromeando Federico: “¿Para eso me preguntaste?” |
| JP: “Is that why you asked me?” Now, literally, “para eso” means “for this reason”, right? “For this reason you asked me?” |
| Fernando: Exacto. “¿Para eso me preguntaste? ¿Para presumirme que viajas?” |
| JP: Ok. “To bragged me that you’re traveling / that you travel a lot?” |
| Fernando: “No cambias Ezequiel. Siempre presumiendo.” |
| JP: Ok, “You’re always bragging. You don’t change, Ezequiel. You are always bragging.” |
| Fernando: Yes. Tipo lo que se le llamaría en inglés “show off”. |
| JP: Yes. |
| Fernando: Pero no presumiendo, no diciendo que es mejor lo que el hace que los demás. |
| JP: Ezequiel you mean? |
| Fernando: Sí. |
| JP: All right. And so, he defends himself, right? |
| Fernando: “No es cuestión de presumir.” Lo dice en forma de risa porque le causó gracia lo que dijo Federico. “Me interesa porque quisiera aprender otro idioma para viajar aún más.” |
| JP: Ok. “I’m interested because I’d like to learn another language in order to travel even more.”, right? |
| Fernando: Exacto, sí. Y en este caso parece ser que puede ser el Portugues. |
| JP: Ok. Yes, well, Federico already speaks Portuguese, right? |
| Fernando: Exacto. |
| JP: So, does Federico accept this rationale? |
| Fernando: Lo acepta. En principio le dice: “Te conozco.” |
| JP: “I know you.” |
| Fernando: Exacto. “ Pero por esta ocasión te creeré.” |
| JP: Ok. It’s “I know you, but…”, right? “I know you, but I believe you this time.”, right? |
| Fernando: Exacto. |
| JP: I’ll let it slide. All right. Let’s look at some of the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Fernando: hoy día |
| JP: “Nowadays” |
| Fernando: hoy dí-a, hoy día. Desde niño. |
| JP: “Since I was a child”, “since he was a child” |
| Fernando: deds-de ni-ño, desde niño. Quisiera. |
| JP: “I would like”, “he would like” |
| Fernando: qui-sie-ra, quisiera. Presumir. |
| JP: “To show off”, “to presume” |
| Fernando: pre-su-mir, presumir |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| JP: All right. So, we have four vocabulary words that we’re leaning on today. Why don’t we take a closer look, that we’ve heard them in isolation? |
| Fernando: Empecemos con “hoy día” |
| JP: “hoy día”. Ok, now this is two words in Spanish, “hoy” meaning “today” and “día” meaning “day”? |
| Fernando: Sí, es… parece ser redundante. |
| JP: Right. But when you hear it in a sentence the translation is obvious. It’s something like “nowadays”. |
| Fernando: Exacto. |
| JP: How did we hear it in the dialogue? |
| Fernando: “Pero hoy día gracias a ésto tengo un trabajo que me permite viajar mucho.” |
| JP: Ok. “But, nowadays, thanks to this, I have a job that allows me to travel a lot.”, right? “Hoy día” – “nowadays”. |
| Fernando: DEsde niño. |
| JP: All right. Now, this is an interesting structure because of this “desde” that usually means “since”. But, when you use it in this construction, like “desde niño”, this is something that’s unique to Spanish. We don’t have it in English. Now, “desde niño” I translated it as “since I was a child”, but it can also be “since he was a child”. Yes, actually, you have to listen to the subject of the sentence to find out who was the child, right? So, how did we hear it in the dialogue? |
| Fernando: ”desde niño se me enseñó la importancia de hablar más de un idioma.” |
| JP: Ok. “The importance of speaking more than one language was taught to me ever since I was a kid.” |
| Fernando: Sí, exacto. |
| JP: Right? So, “desde niño”. The formula is “desde” plus a stage in your life, right? So, you can say “back when I was in primary school” |
| Fernando: Desde la primaria. |
| JP: Or, maybe you’re not talking about yourself, maybe you’re talking about the third person. How about “ever since he was a puppy”? |
| Fernando: Desde cachorro. |
| JP: Right. So, you see, this is a structure that we don’t have in English. “Desde” plus a stage of life. |
| Fernando: Pasemos a la siguiente. |
| JP: Yes, let’s do that. |
| Fernando: Quisiera. |
| JP: “Quisiera”, ok. “I would like/He would like/She would like” Now, we’re going to talk more about “quisiera” in the grammar section. So, for now, I’ll just mention that this is the verb “querer” – “to like” or “to want”, and it’s in the Imperfect Subjunctive. “Quisiera”. And we’re going to talk more about it later. |
| Fernando: La última palabra es “presumir”. |
| JP: “Presumir”, ok. It sounds like “to presume” and it means “to presume”, but it also can mean “to show off” or “to brag” |
| Fernando: Sí. |
| JP: Now, in English, those sound very different, but in Spanish, they sound kind of close the way you use “presumir”. |
| Fernando: Así es. |
| JP: It’s just depending on context, which way you’re going to translate it as. Shall we move to the grammar section? |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Fernando: Sí pasemos. |
| JP: All right. So, I mentioned before that we’re going to talk about the word “quisiera” which is actually Imperfect Subjunctive of the verb “querer”. Now, “quisiera” is taught at the beginning level of any Spanish learning method. We even use it in the absolute beginner series, and we don’t explain the grammar, we just say that it means “I would like”. So, if I want to say “I would like a bottle of water.”? |
| Fernando: Quisiera una botella de agua. |
| JP: “Quisiera una botella de agua. ” or “He would like to leave now.” |
| Fernando: Quisiera irse ahora. |
| JP: “Quisiera irse ahora. ”. To the very beginning levels, we just teach that means “I would like”. The real story is that the way you translate the words “I would like” into Spanish, would be using the Conditional, right? So, the Conditional of “querer” would be like “querría”. You noticed that has a double “r” in it and it’s a little bit difficult to say, so the truth is Latinos prefer to replace that Conditional form with the Imperfect Subjunctive form, which is kind of close to what it means, right? So, instead of saying “querría” we say “quisiera”. |
| Fernando: Es mucho más fácil utilizar quisiera. |
| JP: Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ve never heard anyone, you know, to walk into a store and say “Querría una botella de agua”, right? It’s always “quisiera”. |
| Fernando: Claro, definitivamente. |
| JP: So, what I want to do today is review the formation of this Imperfect Subjunctive of “querer”, because the truth is, now that we’re no longer absolute beginners, we can use “quisiera” in all the forms. “quisiera, quisieras, quisiera, quisiéramos”. We can conjugate it in all the forms. To make an Imperfect Subjunctive there’s no irregulars, folks. There’s no special forms you have to memorize. All you have to do to find the stem is to take the third person plural form of the Preterit and that’s the form that says “they did it”. So, if I want to say “they ate”? |
| Fernando: Ellos comieron. |
| JP: “Ellos comieron”. Now, the stem for the Imperfect Subjunctive is in that form “comie, ellos comieron”, the stem for it is “comie”. |
| Fernando: ¿Cómo se deletrea? |
| JP: Well, it’s just like “comieron”, but you take off the “ron”. |
| Fernando: Exacto. |
| JP: Right? I used to tell my students the “ron is gone” is gone. |
| Fernando: Entonces seria ie. |
| JP: Right. “Comie” , ok? |
| Fernando: Ok. |
| JP: Now, to that stem you’re going to add the Imperfect Subjunctive suffixes. Now, there’s two sets of these suffixes. The “ra” suffixes and the “se” suffixes. So, the “ra” suffixes will sound like this: “comiera, comieras, comiera, comiéramos, comierais , comieran”, right? Don’t worry. I’ve got this on the grammar section. The “se” suffixes will sound like this: “comiese, comieses, comiese, comiésemos, comieseis, comiesen”. These are the Imperfect Subjunctive forms. In this case, we’re using “querer”, so the third person Preterit form would be “quisieron”. Conjugate that with the “ra”, we get what we expect.”Quisiera, quisieras, quisiera, quisiéramos, quisierais, quisieran”. So, you’re going to use that whenever you need an Imperfect Subjunctive, but also whenever you need to use “querer” in the Conditional, because the truth is, Latinos avoid “querer” in the Conditional, and replace it with the Imperfect Subjunctive “quisiera”. |
Outro |
| JP: Now, I ran really fast through that conjugation, so if you want to take a look at the charts, I’ve got the charts for you in the lesson notes, which you’ll find at the website, which is www.Spanishpod101.com |
| Fernando: JP, creo que es todo. |
| JP: OK; sweet. Hasta luego. |
| Fernando: Adios. |
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