Learn about using the expression ¡vamos!
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Lizy: Buenos días, soy Lizy. |
| Alan: How are you doing? I am Alan La Rue. “Are you ready? Let’s go.” |
| Lizy: Alan, that’s usually where we announced the title. |
| Alan: That’s right. |
| Lizy: So do you want to announce it? |
| Alan: “Are you ready? Let’s go.” |
| Lizy: Alan, the title. |
| Alan: That is the title, “Are you ready, let’s go!” We are going to continue to look at commands, “los mandatos”, this time in a classic conversation. |
| Lizy: What’s this one about? |
| Alan: Today we will hear Augusto try to hurry up to Cecilia as they get ready for a night out on the town. |
| Lizy: To talk about typical? |
| Alan: Well, let’s just say that in place like Lima for example, urgency is often more of a suggestion than anything else. |
| Lizy: Haha, bueno. |
| Alan: But we will talk about that more a little later on. |
| Lizy: Okay. |
| Alan: But before we get into this lesson conversation, don’t forget to press the center button on your iPod to see the lesson transcript in your display. |
| Lizy: Ready to follow along? |
| Alan: Let’s hear today’s conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| AUGUSTO: ¡Oye, Cecilia! ¿Estás lista? |
| CECILIA: Sí. Ahora voy. |
| AUGUSTO: Tengo muchas ganas de salir esta noche. |
| CECILIA: Ya estoy lista. ¡Vamos! |
| Alan: Once again slowly. Una vez más esta vez lentamente. |
| AUGUSTO: ¡Oye, Cecilia! ¿Estás lista? |
| CECILIA: Sí. Ahora voy. |
| AUGUSTO: Tengo muchas ganas de salir esta noche. |
| CECILIA: Ya estoy lista. ¡Vamos! |
| Alan: And this time with the translation. Ahora incluiremos la traducción. |
| AUGUSTO: ¡Oye, Cecilia! ¿Estás lista? |
| AUGUSTO: Hey, Cecilia! Are ya' ready? |
| CECILIA: Sí. Ahora voy. |
| CECILIA: Yeah. I'm goin' right away. |
| AUGUSTO: Tengo muchas ganas de salir esta noche. |
| AUGUSTO: I really feel like goin' out tonight. |
| CECILIA: Ya estoy lista. ¡Vamos! |
| CECILIA: Now I'm ready. Let's go! |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Alan: This reminds me of so many conversations I have had with my wife. |
| Lizy: Oh really? This ought to be good. How so? |
| Alan: Well, I guess it's that Augusto is urging Cecilia on, trying to get her to hurry up. |
| Lizy: So what do you say to your wife in order to get her to hurry up. |
| Alan: Well it's a whole show, I have to walk up to her with a flustered look on my face. And look at my watch and I say, Mi amor apúrate, por favor. Te ruego. Which basically means "My love, hurry up. I'm begging you. |
| Lizy: Does she listen to you? |
| Alan: Well, not always. But what about you Lizy. You must have been in some similar conversations. |
| Lizy: Well... |
| Alan: Come on let's hear it. Are you the one that is hurrying people up or you are slowing them down? |
| Lizy: I'm the one who is hurrying people up. |
| Alan: And what do you say to them? |
| Lizy: ¡Ya, es para hoy no para mañana! |
| Alan: It's for today, not tomorrow. Hurry up! Now that we have gone through the conversation, what do you say if we run through some of the vocabulary. |
| Lizy: Sounds like a good idea. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Alan: So let's begin with |
| Lizy: “Listo, lista”. |
| Alan: “Ready”, “intelligent.” |
| Lizy: “Lis-to, lis-ta”, “listo, lista”. |
| Alan: Next we will look at... |
| Lizy: “Ahora”. |
| Alan: “Now”, “just now”, “right away.” |
| Lizy: “A-ho-ra”, “ahora”. |
| Alan: Now we have... |
| Lizy: “Salir”. |
| Alan: “To go out”, “to leave.” |
| Lizy: “Sa-lir”, “salir”. |
| Alan: And then... |
| Lizy: “Noche”. |
| Alan: “Night.” |
| Lizy: “No-che”, “noche”. |
| Alan: Now we will hear... |
| Lizy: “¡Vamos!” |
| Alan: “Let’s go.” |
| Lizy: “¡Va-mos!”, “¡vamos!” |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Alan: Lizy, let’s jump back to the verb “salir” real quick if you don’t mind that is. |
| Lizy: No, no, no… |
| Alan: So we just said that the verb “salir” means... |
| Lizy: “To leave” or “to go out.” |
| Alan: And if I say “I am leaving the building”, it’s a same thing as saying “I am exiting the building”? |
| Lizy: Pretty close. |
| Alan: Okay and what’s the opposite of this word, “salir”? |
| Lizy: That would be “entrar”. |
| Alan: Which means...? |
| Lizy: “To enter” or “to go in.” |
| Alan: And what is the act of entering? |
| Lizy: Umm… |
| Alan: Let me put it this way. If I enter a building through the front door, then I went in through the… |
| Lizy: “Entrance.” |
| Alan: And how would you translate “entrance” to Spanish? |
| Lizy: “Entrada”. |
| Alan: Ah okay. So replacing the “R” at the end of the infinitive and then adding the ending “da” from “entrar”, “to enter”, “entrada”, “entrance.” |
| Lizy: Right. |
| Alan: So we can do the same thing with the verb “salir”? |
| Lizy: Sure we can remove the “r” from the end of the infinitive and at the ending the “a” from “salir”, “to go out”, “salida”. |
| Alan: And what does “salida” mean? |
| Lizy: It means “exit.” |
| Alan: Right and sometimes it means a way out as in “no hay salida”, “there is no way out.” All right, enough of that. Let’s get a bit deeper into the vocabulary for today’s lesson. |
| Lizy: Where shall we start? |
| Alan: How about with the word “listo”? |
| Lizy: Sounds good. |
| Alan: “Listo” spelled just like the English word “list” but with an “O” at the end, “listo”. |
| Lizy: What about its meaning? |
| Alan: This is an interesting word. For example, we can say “ya estoy listo” which means something like “I am ready now.” |
| Lizy: Right. So Alan, in this sense what does “listo” mean? |
| Alan: Oh I’d say it means something like “prepared.” |
| Lizy: ¡Así es! |
| Alan: But we can also say “es una chica lista”. |
| Lizy: And how would you translate that? |
| Alan: Maybe “she is a smart girl.” |
| Lizy: So here you translate “lista” the feminine singular form as “smart.” |
| Alan: Right. I guess that’s not a perfect translation but this is because this adjective “listo” has two main concepts at the heart of it. |
| Lizy: Which are... |
| Alan: “Diligence” and “cleverness.” |
| Lizy: Nice way to put it. |
| Alan: Also there is a little trick for making this distinction. If we use the verb “estar” and say “estás lista” we mean “you are ready” since “estar” is expressing a temporary condition. |
| Lizy: Okay. |
| Alan: But if we say “eres lista” now we mean “you are clever” or “you are astute”, “you are smart” or something like that. |
| Lizy: Good way to remember it. |
| Alan: Hah! Now how about the word “ahora”. |
| Lizy: “Ahora”. |
| Alan: Right. This is one that without a doubt will confuse at least once when you are learning it. |
| Lizy: Why is that? |
| Alan: Well, sometimes this word simply means “now” as in “ahora vamos a comer”, “now let’s go eat.” |
| Lizy: Okay. I follow... |
| Alan: But other times especially when we use the form “ahorita” in the diminutive, the meaning changes a little. |
| Lizy: How so? |
| Alan: Well, if I say “ahorita voy” does this mean “now I go”? |
| Lizy: No, not really. |
| Alan: Well what does it mean? |
| Lizy: It means that you are about to go. |
| Alan: Right. So in this case, we could translate it as “I will be right there” in the sense of “I am going right away.” |
| Lizy: Interesting. |
| Alan: Now suppose that your friend Marcos just left your house, I will call and ask, “is Marco still there?” |
| Lizy: Okay. |
| Alan: How do you respond? |
| Lizy: I might say “ahorita salió”. |
| Alan: Exactly. So when the word “ahora” or “ahorita” is used with a verb in the past, the meaning changes to something like “just now.” |
| Lizy: Ah, now I get it. |
| Alan: So we could translate this as “he just left” or “he left just now.” |
| Lizy: Very, very interesting. |
| Alan: All right, let’s wrap up with one more word. |
| Lizy: Sounds good. |
| Alan: How about an easy one, one that you already know even if you don’t realize it. |
| Lizy: Which one? |
| Alan: “Noche”, “la noche”. |
| Lizy: “La noche”. |
| Alan: So Lizy, if “buenos días” means “good morning” or “good day”, how do we say “goodnight”? |
| Lizy: “Buenas noches”. |
| Alan: Right. Another good one to learn with this is “esta noche”. |
| Lizy: Right, “esta noche”. This one means “tonight.” |
| Alan: Exactly so Lizy. What are you going to do “esta noche”? |
| Lizy: Bueno, voy a ir al cine a ver “Posdata: te amo”. Vi la sinopsis en un programa de televisión, tiene muy buenos comentarios. Además, ¡me encanta el cine, Alan! |
| Alan: In summary, she is going to the movies which is a past time she adores. |
| Lizy: And you Alan. “¿Qué vas a hacer esta noche?” “What are you going to do tonight?” |
| Alan: Me matriculé en un curso de noche en la universidad, pues voy a estudiar. |
| Lizy: Ah nice to hear you are going to night school but too bad, you can't go to the movies with us. |
| Alan: Tell me about it. So why don’t we switch it up now and move on to the grammar for today? |
| Lizy: Sounds good. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Alan: Really there is a great expression that came up today. |
| Lizy: Which one is that? |
| Alan: “¡Vamos!” |
| Lizy: “¡Vamos!” |
| Alan: “Let’s go!” |
| Lizy: Yep. |
| Alan: Now this is a verb right? |
| Lizy: It is. |
| Alan: And what is it in the infinitive form? |
| Lizy: It comes from “ir”, “to go.” |
| Alan: And how do you say “we go” in Spanish? |
| Lizy: “Vamos”. |
| Alan: And is this in the present tense? |
| Lizy: Yeah. |
| Alan: Of the indicative mood? |
| Lizy: Right. |
| Alan: So we say “vamos”, “we go”, but then “¡vamos!” in order to say “let’s go!” |
| Lizy: The emphasis is so important, “¡vamos!” |
| Alan: When we write this in Spanish, we use that inverted exclamation mark to introduce it and the upright exclamation mark to conclude it. |
| Lizy: But otherwise the words are spelled the same, right? |
| Alan: Exactly. Now Lizy, this phrase “¡vamos!” can be used in just tons of contexts. How about giving us some examples? |
| Lizy: Sure. Let’s say we are at a soccer match. We can cheer for our team yelling “¡Vamos , Alianza!” |
| Alan: Right and that’s like saying “Let’s go, Alianza!” like “we can do it!” |
| Lizy: But we can also use this expression to say that we are about to leave somewhere. |
| Alan: Ah right, like we are about to leave your house. I can ask “¿vamos?” Which is kind of like saying, “should we leave” or “ready to leave” and we can answer with the same word but this time pronounced affirmatively. “Sí, ¡vamos!” |
| Lizy: ¿Y sabes qué? Do you know what? |
| Alan: Okay, what? |
| Lizy: We can add emphasis to this act of departure by saying “¡vamonos!” |
| Alan: Right, “¡vamonos!”. This is like saying “let’s get out of here” or “let’s get out all”, “¡vamonos!”, let’s scram. |
| Lizy: Wow so many translations for just one phrase in Spanish. |
| Alan: Well that’s what happens when the phrase is used in so many ways. |
| Lizy: You mean written as a statement but with a value of a command. |
| Alan: Right, they are statements that embody commands. For example, “seguimos” literally means “we move” on formed in the present tense but when we say “¡seguimos!” this works like a command, “let’s move on.” |
| Lizy: Right. We can say that the indicative mood is often preferred over the imperative mood when we make every day commands. |
Outro |
| Alan: Well that’s about all the time we have for today. |
| Lizy: Great show, Alan. |
| Alan: Lizy, por favor, es un placer para mi. |
| Lizy: Ahh, de igual manera. |
| Alan: See you later! |
| Lizy: ¡Hasta luego! |
| Alan: ¡Chao! |
| Lizy: ¡Chao! |
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