Learn how to use conditional clauses
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Fernando: “Give me your best recommendation in Spanish” Estoy aquí con JP. JP ¿qué onda con estos titulos? |
| JP: Hi, everyone. Hola Fernando. Sorry about those titles, you know, we outsource those, too. I consulted. |
| Fernando: ¿Seguimos haciendo eso? |
| JP: Yes, we do. It’s important so the people can find us on. Anyway, it’s not a problem. |
| Fernando: Bueno. |
| JP: Fernando, do you want to hear up what we’re going to talk about today? |
| Fernando: Porfavor dinos. |
| JP: Ok. So, in this lesson we’re going to review Conditional Clauses for hypothetical situations in the present. The conversation takes place in a hotel. The conversation is between Evelyn and the hotel concierge, and the speakers are using the formal register. You’re ready to listen the dialogue? |
| Fernando: Y bueno creo que ahora es tiempo de escuchar el dialogo. |
| JP: Muy bien. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Evelyn: Buenas tardes, joven. ¿Me podría dar una sugerencia para ir a cenar por aquí cerca, por favor? |
| Concierge: Hola. Con mucho gusto. Afortunadamente existen varias opciones por la zona. ¿Se le antoja un platillo en particular? |
| Evelyn: Pues, para empezar somos un grupo grande... unos diez. Entonces si es posible un lugar donde vamos a caber todos. Si usted estuviera a cargo de esta cena, ¿a dónde llevaría usted a estas diez personas? |
| Concierge: Es buena pregunta. Tendría que decidir entre un restaurante italiano que suele recibir a grupos numerosos y otro restaurante argentino muy bonito pero un poco más caro. |
| Evelyn: Entonces me voy a decidir por el argentino. En cuanto al precio, como no voy a pagar, no debe ser un problema. [Risas.] |
| Evelyn: Good afternoon, sir. Could you suggest someplace for dinner around here, please? |
| Concierge: Hello, it would be my pleasure. Fortunately, there are various options in the neighborhood. Are you craving a specific dish? |
| Evelyn: Well, to start with, we're a big group - around ten of us. So if it's possible, a place where we will all fit. If you were in charge of this dinner, where would you bring these ten people? |
| Concierge: That's a good question. You'd have to decide between an Italian restaurant that often takes big groups and another restaurant, Argentinian - very nice, but a little more expensive. |
| Evelyn: Then I'm going to go with Argentinian. In terms of price, since I'm not paying, it's not going to be a problem. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| JP: All right. Now, this is a pretty natural conversation between the hotel guest and the hotel concierge. There’s a little bit of grammatical difficulty in here, Fernando. |
| Fernando: Sí bastante al parecer es un hotel muy bueno. |
| JP: All right. That’s a grammatical hotel. |
| Fernando: Exatamente. |
| JP: Ok. So, she starts by saying “Good afternoon.”. |
| Fernando: Buenas tardes, joven. ¿Me podría dar una sugerencia para ir a cenar por aquí cerca? |
| JP: Ok. Now, that’s a very polite way to ask for suggestion, right? |
| Fernando: Exactamente. |
| JP: Now, the grammar that she uses “me podría dar”, so this is the Conditional for politeness, right? |
| Fernando: Exactamente. |
| JP: “Could you give me?”, right? All right. So, let’s continue. |
| Fernando: Le contesta el joven, “ Con mucho gusto. Afortunadamente existen varias opciones por la zona.” |
| JP: Ok. So, they’re going to be able to find something nearby. |
| Fernando: Sí, nadamas que el joven quiere saber si hay algún platillo en especial que se le antoje a la señorita. |
| JP: Right. Maybe she wants to eat food, maybe she wants Italian, maybe she wants tacos. |
| Fernando: Sí y le pregunta, “¿se le antoja un platillo en particular?” |
| JP: All right. Now, we’re going to talk about that verb “antojar” because that’s a very interesting, grammatically it’s a pretty interesting verb. Here we can just say it means like “Are you thinking about a particular plate?” I mean, “Are you craving a particular dish?” |
| Fernando: Sí yo creo que esa palabra, la segunda que mencionas, es más adecuada. |
| JP: So, “craving”. |
| Fernando: Sí exactamente. |
| JP: Ok, cool. But, she doesn’t have a particular preference for cuisine, right? |
| Fernando: Sí definitivamente. Para empezar ella quiere un lugar donde quepa el grupo que son diez. |
| JP: Ok, that’s a big group for dinner. |
| Fernando: Bastante pues incluso ella dice para empezar somos un grupo grande entonces si es posible queremos un lugar donde quepamos todos. Y después le hace una pregunta al joven que me parece interesante. “Si el estuviera a cargo de la cena, ¿a donde iria? |
| JP: Oh, ok. So, “If you were in charge with the dinner, where would you go?”, right? |
| Fernando: Sí. A dónde llevarías un grupo tan grande. |
| JP: Ok, now this is a big Conditional sense, so we’re going to talk about this sense, again, later in the podcast. Let’s move on. So, the dude provides two options. |
| Fernando: Sí dos opciones. Uno es un restaurante italiano y el otro es un argentino y los dos acomodan a grupos grandes. Nadamas que el argentino al parecer es un poco más caro que el italiano. |
| JP: Ok, so in the end she decides to go at the Argentinean restaurant, right? El argentino. |
| Fernando: Sí porque como no va a pagar pues no le importa. |
| JP: Ok, it’s on the company. |
| Fernando: Exacto. |
| JP: Sweet. High five. All right. Let’s move on to the vocabulary. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Fernando: la sugerencia |
| JP: “Suggestion” |
| Fernando: la su-ge-ren-cia, la sugerencia. Antojarse. |
| JP: “To seem appetizing to” |
| Fernando: an-to-jar-se, antojarse. Caber |
| JP: “To fit” |
| Fernando: ca-ber, caber. Estar a cargo de. |
| JP: “To be in charge of” |
| Fernando: es-tar a car-go de, estar a cargo de. En cuanto a |
| JP: “As for”, “in terms of”, “regarding”, “when it comes to” |
| Fernando: en cuan-to a, en cuanto a |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| JP: Ok, let’s take a look at these five vocabulary words. So, what do we start with? |
| Fernando: Empecemos con la sugerencia |
| JP: La sugerencia. Ok, this is a “suggestion”, right? |
| Fernando: Exactamente. |
| JP: Ok, now this is related to the verb “sugerir” which is “to suggest”. |
| Fernando: Sí, Evelyn le dice al concierge, “¿Me podria dar una sugerencia?” |
| JP: I wanted to point out this particular word “la sugerencia”, because it’s not quite a cognate. In English, it’s “suggestion” and you might be tempted to say “la sugestion”, or anyway, something like that. It’s “la sugerencia”, is the word, right? |
| Fernando: La sugerencia, exactamente. |
| JP: Ok, cool. What’s next? |
| Fernando: Antojarse. |
| JP: Antojarse. Fernando, I had time getting a really good translation for this word. |
| Fernando: ¿Pero por qué? |
| JP: Well, it’s really easy to translate a sentence with “antojarse”, right? We should say “We feel like eating something” or “Something sounds good to me”, but finding just a plain Infinitive was really hard, because it’s hard to get the grammar. “Antojarse” is something like “to give a craving to someone” or “to seem appetizing to” or “to make someone feel like they want to eat it”. |
| Fernando: Sí definitivamente. |
| JP: So, when you use “antojarse”, what you say is that the food is going to do something to you to give a craving, right? |
| Fernando: Sí exactamente y también podemos decir, “se me antoja ir a la India”. |
| JP: Ok, “I feel like going to India.” |
| Fernando: Exactamente. |
| JP: Ok, “I have a feeling that I should go to India.” or India is actually, well, literally, “India is giving me this “ganas” to go to India.”, right? |
| Fernando: Exactamente |
| JP: Ok. |
| Fernando: Sí o o se me antojo de nuevo ir a Israel. |
| JP: Ok. So, “I feel like going back to Israel.” |
| Fernando: Sí. |
| JP: Ok, so, it’s not just food, it’s like at other pleasures, as well. |
| Fernando: Exacto lo que acabas de decir es muy cierto. Placeres. Comer es un placer. Viajar es un placer. |
| JP: También. |
| Fernando: Vez. |
| JP: Ok, cool. What’s next? |
| Fernando: Caber. |
| JP: “Caber” is “to fit”, and this wouldn’t be a particularly crazy verb, except that it has some irregular forms. For example, the first person “I fit”. |
| Fernando: Yo quepo. |
| JP: Yo quepo. So, if you’re talking about fitting into a box or fitting into a car, or something like that, you’d use “yo quepo”. |
| Fernando: Yo quepo. |
| JP: It’s very irregular. The rest isn’t so much pretty irregular. Cabes, cabe, cabemos, cabeís, caben. |
| Fernando: Caben |
| JP: Right. |
| Fernando: Exacto. |
| JP: All right. So, we use “caber” a lot when we’re talking about clothes or containers. In this case, Evelyn was talking about fitting into a restaurant, right? |
| Fernando: Sí. La penultima “estar a cargo de”. |
| JP: Estar a cargo de. Ok, one, two, three, four words “estar a cargo de”. Ok, “to be in charge of”. Ok, now the English is like a one to one translation “to be in charge of” “estar a cargo de”. |
| Fernando: Casi casi, sí. |
| JP: Ok, cool. Ok, so you’re going to use this phrase when you assign responsibility to something. |
| Fernando: Exactamente. |
| JP: Ok. |
| Fernando: O un gerente o alguien. En este caso, Evelyn le dice al joven, “Si usted estuviera a cargo”. |
| JP: Ok, so “If you were in charge”… |
| Fernando: “¿qué restaurant escogeria?” |
| JP: Ok, |
| Fernando: “what restaurant would you choose?” |
| JP: Ok, cool. I think there’s one more to go. |
| Fernando: En cuanto a |
| JP: En cuanto a. All right. This is one of those connecting phrases, “en cuanto a”, and this is actually, linguists call this a topicalizer. |
| Fernando: No se que acabas de decir. |
| JP: Ok. This phrase “en cuanto a”, three words, this phrase calls out a topic. |
| Fernando: Sí. |
| JP: Ok. So, if I want to say “in terms of podcasting”… |
| Fernando: En cuanto a podcasting. |
| JP: “You’re an expert, Fernando.” |
| Fernando: eres un experto, Fernando. Gracias |
| JP: You’re welcome. Now, see, the sense is “You’re an expert, Fernando.”, right? “You are an expert.” But to start off with, I call that a topic, right? “en cuanto a podcasting” – “in terms of podcasting”, ok? So, in this realm, “podcasting, you’re an expert”. |
| Fernando: Sí exacto. |
| JP: Ok. |
| Fernando: Yo creo que ya no deberíamos de usar a Evelyn porque habla muy fancy, para nosotros. |
| JP: She does. She does. Let’s move on to the grammar. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Fernando: Ahora pasemos al punto de gramática. Vamos a repasar, ay dios santo, las cláusulas condicionales para situaciones hipotéticas en el presente. ¿Ahora también hacemos un outsourcing de los puntos de gramática? |
| JP: No, no, no. I take care of those. |
| Fernando: A gracias. |
| JP: Ok. So, Fernando, do you know what these are, these Conditional senses for hypothetical situations in the present? |
| Fernando: ¡Claro que si! Nadamas que prefiero que tú lo digas. |
| JP: Ok. Well, as you know, for those of you that are studying Spanish, the Conditional senses are the If/Then senses or sometimes we call them the “c” clauses because they begin with “c”. They have a special grammar to them. Now, the classic If/Then sense is “If you built it, they will come.”. Do you remember the “Field of dreams”? |
| Fernando: Sí. |
| JP: “if you built…” with Kevin Costner, right? |
| Fernando: Sí. Si lo construyes, ellos vendrán. |
| JP: Yes, “If you build it, they will come.” Now, that’s a hypothetical situation in the future. You can also have a hypothetical situation in the present, which is what we’re going to talk about today. So, in the present, “If you built it now, they would come.”, right? |
| Fernando: Si lo construyeras ahorita, vendrían. |
| JP: Ok., so, what we have here is a Conditional sense with a hypothetical situation in the present. Now, if you’re already getting lost, don’t worry, because I’ve written out a grammar explanation. You can go to our website, which is www.Spanishpod101.com and take a look at the written explanation that I’ve provided for you there. I just want to talk really quickly about it, that these specific If/Then senses are a very simple formula, ok? So, you have If + the Imperfect Subjunctive. So, “If you built it”, right? “If you built it.” All right. “Did you build it? No, you didn’t build it.”, right? That didn’t actually happen. |
| Fernando: Un campo de béisbol. |
| JP: Right. “Did you build…”. If I say “If you built it, they would come.”. Have you built it? |
| Fernando: No. |
| JP: No, you haven’t. So, it’s hypothetical. “If you built it now”. The following clause, the main clause, “They would come”. So, there, in English, just like in Spanish, we’ve got a Conditional Tense, “they would come”. Now, tell us what Evelyn said to the concierge in our dialogue? |
| Fernando: Si usted estuviera a cargo... |
| JP: Ok, so “If you were in charge”, right? Hypothetically, “If you were in charge now”. |
| Fernando: ¿ que restaurant escogeria? |
| JP: “which place would you choose?” So, you heard that “would” in English that means that you’re going to use the Conditional Tense in Spanish. |
| Fernando: Sí. |
| JP: And back in the If Clause where we started, “si estuvieras”, ok, that’s… you heard that Past Tense it didn’t really happen, you heard that hypothetical tense, ok. So, to sum it up. The formula for a Conditional sentence for hypothetical situations in the present is “si” + the Imperfect Subjunctive / Then + the Conditional. Ok. And that’s all in the lesson notes. So, if I’ve just confused you know, please look at the lesson notes and it will clear right up for you. |
| Fernando: JP ya no voy a repetir este punto de gramática, no puedo más. |
| JP: Ok. |
| Fernando:Entonces yo creo que mejor que nos despidamos. |
Outro |
| JP: Ok, cool. I guess it’s time to go. Hasta luego. |
| Fernando: Adios. |
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