Learn about using the preposition “a”
Now Playing: Lesson Audio
Get a breakdown of the dialogue and translations instantly with the Premium line-by-line Audio. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Get this lesson’s key vocab, their translations and pronunciations. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.
| INTRODUCTION |
| Lizy: Buenos días, soy Lizy Stoliar. |
| Alan: Alan La Rue here. “I can’t love you.” Hello all and welcome back to spanishpod101.com. I am Alan and to my right is my partner in crime, Lizy. Lizy, ¿cómo te va? |
| Lizy: Partner in crime? |
| Alan: It’s just an expression, Lizy. Are we continuing our theme of love and romance? |
| Lizy: Yes, we are Alan, and let me tell you, today’s conversation could be “una novela”. |
| Alan: And by “novela” you mean a “telenovela”, right? A soap opera. |
| Lizy: Right. |
| Alan: Here we go again. While these conversations are funny and maybe a little bit dramatized, the thing is it can be hard to talk about emotions as deep and complex as love. |
| Lizy: That’s true. This is a good place to really immerse yourself in a common situation but in the Spanish language. |
| Alan: Exactly. Now speaking of immersion, if you are looking to take the next step, which is traveling to Spanish speaking country, why not think about Lima and come study with us at “El Sol”? We will take great care of you. Immersion is the next logical step of your learning process. |
| Lizy: So before we move on to the conversation, let’s have a little “repaso”, a little review. |
| Alan: In our last lesson, we looked at the preposition “por” and we learned how it can be used to express cause. |
| Lizy: Yes, we did. What are we doing today? |
| Alan: Today we are going to examine another preposition. |
| Lizy: Okay, which? |
| Alan: That would be the preposition “a”. |
| Lizy: Just “a”. |
| Alan: Again you think it would be easy. It’s just the letter “A” but you would be surprised to learn about the different usages and meanings that it has. |
| Lizy: Well, Alan, you are just going to have to surprise me then. |
| Alan: Boo! |
| Lizy: Is that the best you can do? |
| Alan: Okay, Boo… Good now. Hey, I am excited to say, let’s get into today’s conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| RAMÓN: ¿Por qué nunca me das la oportunidad de mostrarte el amor que tengo por ti? |
| ELIANA: ¡Ramón, no te puedo amar! |
| RAMÓN: ¡No puede ser! ¡Mi vida! ¡No...! ¿¡Por qué!? |
| ELIANA: Porque amo a Ernesto. |
| RAMÓN: ¡Ese desgraciado! ¿¡Cómo vas a decirme eso!? |
| ELIANA: ¡Ay, Ramón, no hagas eso! |
| RAMÓN: Why don't you ever give me a chance to show you the love I have for you? |
| ELIANA: Ramón, I can't love you! |
| RAMÓN: Impossible! My love! No...! Why!? |
| ELIANA: Because I love Ernesto. |
| RAMÓN: That scum! How are you going to say that to me!? |
| ELIANA: Oh, Ramón, don't do that! |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Lizy: I know. This seems like a very stressful situation for everyone involved. |
| Alan: But come on tell me, have you ever been in a similar situation? |
| Lizy: Sí, varias veces, Alan. And what about you? |
| Alan: No comment, Lizy. |
| Lizy: Come on. |
| Alan: Okay, Lizy, three words. Selective memory loss. |
| Lizy: Oh, interesting. |
| Alan: Now that we’ve gone through the conversation, what do you say we run through some of the vocabulary? |
| Lizy: Sounds like a good idea. |
| Alan: So let’s begin with... |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Lizy: “Mostrar”. |
| Alan: “To show.” |
| Lizy: “Mos-trar”, “mostrar”. |
| Alan: Then we will hear... |
| Lizy: “Desgraciado, desgraciada”. |
| Alan: “Unfortunate”, “vile”, “scum.” |
| Lizy: “Des-gra-cia-do, des-gra-cia-da”, “desgraciado, desgraciada”. |
| Alan: Next we will hear... |
| Lizy: “Porque”. |
| Alan: “Because.” |
| Lizy: “Por-que”, “porque”. |
| Alan: Next we will hear... |
| Lizy: “¿Por qué?” |
| Alan: “Why?” |
| Lizy: “¿Por qué?”, “¿por qué?” |
| Alan: Then we will hear... |
| Lizy: “Oportunidad”. |
| Alan: “Opportunity.” |
| Lizy: “O-por-tu-ni-dad”, “oportunidad”. |
| Alan: And finally... |
| Lizy: “Vida”. |
| Alan: “Life.” |
| Lizy: “Vi-da”, “vida”. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Alan: Now Lizy, this word “oportunidad”, we will talk about it in depth in just a bit but it reminds me of another word. |
| Lizy: Which one? |
| Alan: “Oportuno”. |
| Lizy: Ah, that’s a good one to know. |
| Alan: “Oportuno” or “oportuna” means “opportune” but we can think about it as “timely.” |
| Lizy: Right and we can also say “inoportuno” or “inoportuna”. |
| Alan: Right and that’s something that’s kind of inconvenient or untimely. Let’s look at some of the vocabulary used in today’s lesson. Lizy, we got a work cut out for us. |
| Lizy: I am up for it. |
| Alan: Okay, so the first word I think we should look at is “mostrar”. |
| Lizy: Okay. |
| Alan: So in our conversation, how was “mostrar” used? |
| Lizy: Well, our lovesick Ramon is almost begging Eliana when he says “¿Por qué nunca me das la oportunidad de mostrarte el amor que tengo por ti?” |
| Alan: Right. So in this sense, “mostrar” is being used to express a desire for demonstration as in to show love or any other emotion for that matter. |
| Lizy: Exactly. |
| Alan: And when we use this verb in the present tense, we could say something like “ella no muestra sus emociones”. |
| Lizy: And the translation... |
| Alan: That’s something like, “she doesn’t show her emotions.” So this is an “O” to “ue” stem changing verb in the present indicative and as we’ve seen before, this stem change occurs in all the forms of this tense and mood except for the first and second person plural. |
| Lizy: Excellent, thanks. The next word is “desgraciado”. |
| Alan: Ouch! That sounds kind of rough. |
| Lizy: Yes, “desgraciado”. It is not a term that should be used frivolously. |
| Alan: Right. This is a serious word. That’s why Ramon is calling Ernesto “un desgraciado” or “scum”. |
| Lizy: Claro. He is trying to make a point to Eliana – a very strong point. |
| Alan: You know I don’t think I agree with his strategy. What do you think? |
| Lizy: Yo tampoco, creo que él es una persona muy negativa, pues no se debe hablar mal de otros. I think he is a very, very negative guy. |
| Alan: Yeah, right Lizy. Do you have another example where one could use “desgraciado”? |
| Lizy: Sí, “una vida desgraciada”. |
| Alan: “An unhappy life.” “Desgraciada” is used in another way here but still we see it’s a very negative word. |
| Lizy: “Definitivamente”. |
| Alan: So the next word on our list is a very common one, “porque”. We saw it briefly last time. It means “because”. Lizy, how is “porque” used in our conversation? |
| Lizy: “Porque amo a Ernesto”. Eliana has given her reason to Ramon. It is simply, because she loves Ernesto. |
| Alan: I don’t think that reason alone is going to dissuade him. What do you think? |
| Lizy: Sometimes men are stubborn like mules… |
| Alan: Stubborn like mule, you got that right but hey, Lizy, sometimes it’s hard to hear a no when you know, you are in love. |
| Lizy: Yes, I agree with you. |
| Alan: So now we come to a word that I am sure is on Ramon’s mind. |
| Lizy: What’s that? |
| Alan: “¿Por qué?” “¿por qué?” “¿por qué?” “Why?” |
| Lizy: I think you are right. |
| Alan: You know, I can almost hear his interior dialogue now. Why doesn’t she love me? Why does she love Ernesto, why not me? |
| Lizy: She probably left him because he is a negative person and whiner person. |
| Alan: He is a whiner, that’s for sure. Well, this brings up the opportunity to present our next word. |
| Lizy: Okay. |
| Alan: “Oportunidad”. “Opportunity.” Lizy, can you give us an example of “oportunidad”? |
| Lizy: “Tienes muchas oportunidades de encontrar el amor”. |
| Alan: Now see that’s just a kind of advice that poor Ramon needs to hear. This means “you’ve got a lot of opportunities to find love.” So we see that the word “oportunidad” is very similar to the English word “opportunity.” And last but certainly not least, “vida”. |
| Lizy: “La vida”. |
| Alan: Now a couple of things here. First, when we use the article before “vida” means “life” as in “tenemos una buena vida”, “we have a good life” but without the article we can use this word “vida” as a term of endearment when we want to address our partner. |
| Lizy: Alan, let’s hear how you use this word when you are talking to your wife. |
| Alan: Well, for example Lizy, if we are having a really good moment and things feel great, I can say “mi amor, tú eres mi vida” which means “my love, you are my entire life.” |
| Lizy: ¡Qué lindo! ¡Qué amoroso eres con tu esposa! Oh you are loving, very, very loving with her. |
| Alan: Time for some grammar. |
| Lizy: La gramática. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Alan: Let’s continue our discussion of prepositions. |
| Lizy: Which preposition are we looking at today? |
| Alan: The preposition “a”. Lizy, where was this preposition used in our conversation? |
| Lizy: “Porque amo a Ernesto”. |
| Alan: “Because I love Ernesto.” I have to say, Lizy, we are getting the most out of our examples today. |
| Lizy: Yes, we are. |
| Alan: All right. So there is a lot of rules and lots of different situations in which the preposition “a” is used. Let’s focus on the usage here. |
| Lizy: Sounds good. |
| Alan: So Lizy, what kind of word expresses action? |
| Lizy: A verb. |
| Alan: And what’s the verb of this sentence? |
| Lizy: Here it’s “amo”. |
| Alan: Right and that means “I love.” Now what word is receiving the action of this verb. |
| Lizy: Receiving the action, here it’s “Ernesto.” |
| Alan: Right. “Porque amo a Ernesto”. “Because I love Ernesto”, and is Ernesto receiving this action directly or indirectly? |
| Lizy: Directly. |
| Alan: So we can say that Ernesto is the direct object of the verb “amo”, right? |
| Lizy: Right. |
| Alan: And is Ernesto a person? |
| Lizy: I would hope so. |
| Alan: Yeah, that would be kind of weird if he wasn’t. Anyway, when the direct object of a verb is a person, we need to use the preposition “a” before it. So we have to say “amo a Ernesto” but not “amo Ernesto”. |
| Lizy: Good way to put it. How about another example? |
| Alan: Umm how about “llamo a Fernando”? “I call Fernando.” Now notice how this preposition doesn’t even get translated but it needs to be there in order for the sentence to make grammatical sense. |
| Lizy: So what will become of poor Ramón? |
| Alan: Ah gosh I know, he has had it kind of rough. Today his pickup line blows up in his face and now he finds out that Eliana is in love with Ernesto. |
| Lizy: ¡Ayy, pobrecito…! |
| Alan: Lizy, but you know here at spanishpod101, we are always looking for answers and solutions. So tell me what do you think Ramón could do to win Eliana’s heart? |
| Lizy: Umm, ¿sinceramente? nada, porque ella está enamorada de Ernesto. Sincerely? nothing, because she loves Ernesto. A no ser que espere un tiempo a ver si rompen. |
| Alan: Well that’s very practical. So in another word is just check back in a couple of months to see if that love is still – still alive. That’s really practical, Lizy. |
Outro |
| Lizy: Okay, that’s all for today. Take chances but take care. |
| Alan: That’s right and better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. Okay, take care everybody. ¡Chao! |
| Lizy: ¡Chao! |
Easily master this lesson’s grammar points with in-depth explanations and examples. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Comments
Hide