Learn how to talk about the weather
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Lizy: Buenos días, me llamo Lizy. |
| Alan: Alan here. |
| Lizy: Newbie series, lesson #17. |
| Alan: “It’s Cloudy out.” How are we today, pod101 world? My name is Alan. |
| Lizy: Soy Lizy. |
| Alan: Welcome back to our newbie series where you will only be a newbie for a short amount of time. |
| Lizy: Before you know it, you will step up to become a beginner. |
| Alan: And if you have been with us from the very beginning, I want you to think back to all the Spanish that you’ve learned since we started our little adventure. |
| Lizy: It has been an adventure. Hasn’t it? |
| Alan: It sure has. Well, they say that learning is a journey metaphorically and if it was easy, it wouldn’t be any fun with it. |
| Lizy: Let’s not get philosophical today, Alan. |
| Alan: Okay, well, then let’s just get down to business. Today we are going to continue with cloudy weather expressions. |
| Lizy: Are we still looking at them in relation to the verbs “estar” and “haber”. |
| Alan: You’d better believe it. |
| Lizy: Where in the world is our conversation taking place today? |
| Alan: Well, today’s conversation takes place in the coastal city of Concepción, Chile, where Marcos, Felix and Olivia talk about how cloudy it is. |
| Lizy: So follow along with the PDF file. |
| Alan: Read and listen. Hit your brain with a double threat. |
| Lizy: Okay friends, let’s get into today’s conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| MARCOS: Hay muchas nubes. |
| FÉLIX: Sí, está nublado. |
| OLIVIA: Siempre hay nubes en Concepción. |
| MARCOS: El cielo está gris. |
| OLIVIA: Hay niebla también. |
| Alan: And now slower. Una vez más esta vez lentamente. |
| MARCOS: Hay muchas nubes. |
| FÉLIX: Sí, está nublado. |
| OLIVIA: Siempre hay nubes en Concepción. |
| MARCOS: El cielo está gris. |
| OLIVIA: Hay niebla también. |
| Alan: And now with the translation. Ahora incluiremos la traducción. |
| MARCOS: Hay muchas nubes. |
| MARCOS: There are a lot of clouds. |
| FÉLIX: Sí, está nublado. |
| FÉLIX: Yeah, it's cloudy out. |
| OLIVIA: Siempre hay nubes en Concepción. |
| OLIVIA: There are always clouds in Concepción. |
| MARCOS: El cielo está gris. |
| MARCOS: The sky is grey. |
| OLIVIA: Hay niebla también. |
| OLIVIA: There is fog too. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Alan: They think Concepción is cloudy, well I guess they have never seen winter in Lima. |
| Lizy: Yes, we do have ever present clouds |
| Alan: and yet it never really rains. |
| Lizy: Don't tell that to Carlos in Costa Rica. |
| Alan: That's right, In Costa Rica rain isn't a threat it's a promise. |
| Lizy: In Lima it's an empty threat. |
| Alan: It's an empty threat, how menacing. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Alan: Okay guys, on to the vocab. Here we are going to breakdown these words syllable by syllable so you can hear exactly how each word sounds. |
| Lizy: “Haber”. |
| Alan: “To have”, “there to be.” |
| Lizy: “Ha-ber”, “haber”. |
| Alan: Next we will hear... |
| Lizy: “Nube”. |
| Alan: “Cloud.” |
| Lizy: “Nu-be”, “nube”. |
| Alan: Okay, now let’s move on to... |
| Lizy: “Nublado, nublada”. |
| Alan: “Cloudy.” |
| Lizy: “Nu-bla-do, nu-bla-da”, “nublado, nublada”. |
| Alan: Okay, now let’s check out... |
| Lizy: “Cielo”. |
| Alan: “Sky”, “heaven.” |
| Lizy: “Cie-lo”, “cielo”. |
| Alan: Next we will hear... |
| Lizy: “Gris”. |
| Alan: “Gray.” |
| Lizy: “Gris”, “gris”. |
| Alan: And finally... |
| Lizy: “Niebla”. |
| Alan: “Fog.” |
| Lizy: “Nie-bla”, “niebla”. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Alan: Amiga. We have a lot of good words to use today. |
| Lizy: Ah, that’s why they call this the usage section. |
| Alan: Aaha, practical and witty. Now if I am not mistaken, our first vocabulary word is the verb “haber”. |
| Lizy: “Hay una bebida en la mesa”. |
| Alan: “There is a beverage on the table.” Lizy, how important would you say the verb “haber” is in the Spanish language? |
| Lizy: Muy pero muy importante. The verb “haber” is one of the most important verbs in the Spanish language. |
| Alan: Most definitely. It has two main uses. It is the auxiliary verb used in all compound constructions and in this sense it means “have” as in “I have eaten.” Lizy, why don’t you tell our audience what the other use is? |
| Lizy: Bueno. The other use has to do with the existence of things, people, events, etcetera and in this sense, it means “there is” and “there are.” |
| Alan: But don’t get overwhelmed audience. For this lesson, we will be looking at the second meaning only. |
| Lizy: We like to let you know things slow and steady. |
| Alan: That’s right. So next we have “nube” and if you are walking through the streets of Lima in July, you might say... |
| Lizy: “Las nubes están grandes”. |
| Alan: That’s right. “The clouds are big.” So the word “nube” means “cloud.” Lizy, can you think of any ways that we can help our audience remember the meaning of “nube”? |
| Lizy: Ah, one way to help you remember the meaning of “nube” is to think about the English word “nebula” which are clouds of gas in space. |
| Alan: Aha, okay, that is a good way to remember it and very scientific. |
| Lizy: Yes. |
| Alan: Okay, let’s move on to “nublado”. |
| Lizy: “Es un día nublado”. |
| Alan: “It’s a cloudy day.” The word “nublado” means “cloudy.” I think it’s obvious how similar it is to the noun “nube” which we just saw means “cloud.” |
| Lizy: Right and “nublado” is both an adjective and past participle of the verb “nublar” which means “to cloud over” but we will look at that in a future lesson. |
| Alan: Okay Lizy, trick question. Where are clouds usually? |
| Lizy: The sky. |
| Alan: Hey, great! This brings us to the last vocabulary word today which is “cielo”. |
| Lizy: “El sol está en el cielo”. |
| Alan: “The sun is in the sky” but also the clouds. Now the word “cielo” has two meanings. It can mean “sky” or “the heavens.” |
| Lizy: It usually only has the second meaning in religious contexts. In this lesson, we will only be looking at it in the first sense i.e. as the sky. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Alan: Okay. I see the grammar on the horizon. |
| Lizy: If it isn’t blocked by the clouds. |
| Alan: Well, in that case I think today we will look at some weather expressions that use “está” and “hay” with regards to cloudy weather. |
| Lizy: Alan, maybe you could explain to our audience what the difference is. |
| Alan: When we use “está” we are saying “it is” and then when we add an adjective to describe the weather. When we say “hay” we are saying “there is” or “there are” and then we add a noun to describe the weather. |
| Lizy: Maybe we should start by looking at the expressions that use “está”. |
| Alan: Okay, why don’t you show us where that showed up in the conversation? |
| Lizy: “Está nublado”. |
| Alan: “It’s cloudy out.” So if we think back to newbie lessons 1 and 2, remember that “está” is the third person singular form of the verb “estar” which means “to be.” |
| Lizy: And when we use it in this way it is what we call impersonal because there is no person associated with it. That means that when we translate it, we use it is. Alan, I am sure our audience is questioning how to complete the expression. |
| Alan: Well if they are to complete the expression, all you have to do is add an adjective to describe the weather. We know that “nublado” means “cloudy.” So we have “está nublado”, “it’s cloudy out.” |
| Lizy: Now, “hay”… |
| Alan: Now where did we have “hay” in the conversation? |
| Lizy: “Hay niebla”. |
| Alan: “There is fog”. So the word “hay” comes from the verb “haber”. When it’s used this way, we call it a verb of existence. Here it means “there is” or “there are” depending on whether the noun that comes after it is singular or plural. |
| Lizy: Exactly and in the example we are looking at, we see that “niebla” which means “fog” is in the singular. So in this case, we understand the expression as “there is fog”. |
| Alan: And if it were used with a plural noun, Liz? |
| Lizy: “Hay nubes”. |
| Alan: “There are clouds.” Notice how the word “hay” stays the same. Lizy, can you explain to us why? |
| Lizy: Because it isn’t a plural, we understand it as “there are clouds.” There are other uses with the word “hay” which we will look at in upcoming lessons. |
| Alan: I can’t wait but for now, let’s make sure that we remember these. |
| Lizy: I think they have the gist of it. |
| Alan: I hope so. |
Outro |
| Lizy: Bueno, ¡hasta luego! |
| Alan: See you later, amigos. It’s been fun, bye. |
| Lizy: Bye! |
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