Learn about using the preposition “de”
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Lizy: Buenos días, soy Lizy. |
| Alan: Soy Alan. “Romance 5. Liar!” Lizy and Alan are back for another lesson. |
| Lizy: La lección treinta. |
| Alan: Number 30. |
| Lizy: Another romance lesson. |
| Alan: That’s it, Lizy. Today what is turning out to be a heart wrenching sag of love tribulation and deceit. Julia figures out that Ramón has been cheating on her and she is not going to take it anymore. |
| Lizy: No way. |
| Alan: So guys, while these dramatizations are definitely humorous, they also provide a great opportunity to talk about feelings as complex as love and to learn how these are expressed in the Spanish language. |
| Lizy: And what do we have in store for grammar today? |
| Alan: Well, today we are going to continue with our discussion of prepositions. |
| Lizy: Las preposiciones. |
| Alan: That’s right, “las preposiciones”, and you will be surprised how useful these little words can be since they are used all the time. |
| Lizy: Sounds great. Easy to learn, easy to use and tons of opportunities to use them. |
| Alan: That’s right. You got it, you get the bang for your buck. Okay, so we are about to hear a short conversation. So now, imagine that you are in the apartment of Julia and Ramón, we’re eavesdropping. They’ve been together for a little while and it looks like it was going to be a lasting relationship but now you will see what happens... |
| Lizy: Here we go. |
| DIALOGUE |
| JULIA: ¿¡Ramón, me estás sacando la vuelta!? |
| RAMÓN: ¿De qué hablas, mi vida, mi amor, luz de mi vida? |
| JULIA: ¡Dejó su lápiz de labios en el baño, mentiroso! |
| RAMÓN: Amor, espera... |
| JULIA: No me digas amor. ¡Ya no! |
| RAMÓN: ¿Julia, me puedes perdonar? |
| JULIA: Ramón, are ya' cheating on me!? |
| RAMÓN: What are ya' talking about, honey, baby, light of my life? |
| JULIA: She left her lipstick in the bathroom, you liar! |
| RAMÓN: Baby, wait... |
| JULIA: Don't call me baby. Not anymore! |
| RAMÓN: Julia, can ya' forgive me? |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Lizy: Este Ramón, ¡qué malo! ¡Bótalo Julia, bótalo! |
| Alan: Yeah, it looks like Ramón has made yet another big mistake. |
| Lizy: Caught red-handed. |
| Alan: I know and the guy still has the guts to beg. He is pretty low. |
| Lizy: It reminds me of that song by Alicia Lizarraga, one of my favorite singers. She has this song called “Déjalo que se vaya”. |
| Alan: How about a little taste of it, Lizy? |
| Lizy: Right now? |
| Alan: Yeah, come on. |
| Lizy: Umm maybe in a little bit. We’ve got some work to do first. |
| Alan: Uh the suspense is killing me. All right, seeing that Lizy wants to be a little shy right now, let’s break down some of today’s vocab. |
| Lizy: Oye, no soy tímida, ¡no fastidies! ¡Estudiemos! |
| Alan: All right, all right. So let’s begin with... |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Lizy: “Sacar”. |
| Alan: “To remove.” |
| Lizy: “Sa-car”, “sacar”. |
| Alan: Next we will hear... |
| Lizy: “Vuelta”. |
| Alan: “Turn”, “return”, “walk.” |
| Lizy: “Vuel-ta”, “vuelta”. |
| Alan: Now we will hear... |
| Lizy: “Lápiz de labios”. |
| Alan: “Lipstick.” |
| Lizy: “Lá-piz de la-bios”, “lápiz de labios”. |
| Alan: Now we will listen to... |
| Lizy: “Mentiroso, mentirosa”. |
| Alan: “Deceitful”, “liar.” |
| Lizy: “Men-ti-ro-so, men-ti-ro-sa”, “mentiroso, mentirosa”. |
| Alan: Next... |
| Lizy: “Baño”. |
| Alan: “Bathroom.” |
| Lizy: “Ba-ño”, “baño”. |
| Alan: And finally... |
| Lizy: “Perdonar”. |
| Alan: “To forgive.” |
| Lizy: “Per-do-nar”, “perdonar”. |
| Alan: Hey very nice, Lizy. Great to hear those words broken down that way. |
| Lizy: No hay problema. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Alan: Well, let’s look really quickly at the pronunciation of the word for “bathroom.” |
| Lizy: “Baño”. |
| Alan: Right, “baño”. Spelled “b-a-ñ-o”. |
| Lizy: “Baño”. |
| Alan: So the key here is the “ñ” sound that we get by placing that tilde over the “n”. It’s kind of like the sound we get from “ny” in “Canyon.” |
| Lizy: “Baño”. |
| Alan: “Baño”. |
| Lizy: Muy bien, Alan. Now let’s see how these words were used today. |
| Alan: Sí, señorita. But first, let’s focus on the verb “sacar”. Now we’ve definitely seen this one before and we’ve said that it means “to remove” but today it’s been used in an idiomatic phrase. |
| Lizy: Right, Julia accusing Ramón by saying “¿¡Ramón, me estás sacando la vuelta!?” |
| Alan: And that means, “Ramón, are you cheating on me?” Oh, Ramón! |
| Lizy: So the phrase is “sacar la vuelta”. |
| Alan: Right, “sacar la vuelta”. Now because this is idiomatic. That means that we can’t translate it literally or if we do, we are going to be completely mistaken. |
| Lizy: Basically, this phrase is used just like the expression, “to cheat on someone.” |
| Alan: Exactly. So we could say “Ramón le está sacando la vuelta a Julia”, “Ramón is cheating on Julia.” |
| Lizy: And Alan, how does Julia know that Ramón “le está sacando la vuelta”? |
| Alan: She knows that he’s cheated on her because Ramón’s other woman has apparently left her lipstick in the bathroom. Man, oh man! |
| Lizy: ¡Qué sinvergüenza! |
| Alan: And how do we say lipstick in Spanish? |
| Lizy: Let’s listen to where it came up in the conversation. Julia says, “¡Dejó su lápiz de labios en el baño!” |
| Alan: “She left her lipstick in the bathroom.” So in order to say “lipstick” in Spanish, we use three words. First word. |
| Lizy: “Lápiz”. |
| Alan: Years ago, you probably learned that “lápiz” means “pencil” but in this expression it’s a little different. |
| Lizy: Then we have the preposition “de”. |
| Alan: Right. We’ve seen that one before and the third word... |
| Lizy: “Labios”. |
| Alan: “Labios” and literally this means “lips.” So “lápiz de labios”, “pencil of lips.” I don’t think so. It’s “lipstick.” |
| Lizy: Oh, so we can learn “lápiz de ojos”? |
| Alan: Right, and what does that mean? |
| Lizy: “Eyeliner.” |
| Alan: Great. Now moving on, Lizy, right after Julia accuses Ramón of cheating on her, she calls him a “mentiroso”. |
| Lizy: “Mentiroso”. |
| Alan: This is a strong word. What verb does it come from? |
| Lizy: “Mentir”. |
| Alan: Which means... |
| Lizy: “To lie” or “to deceive.” |
| Alan: And what kind of word is “mentiroso”. |
| Lizy: Well, really it’s an adjective. |
| Alan: Okay, so as an adjective, it could mean something like deceitful, right? |
| Lizy: Así es. |
| Alan: But she is addressing the Ramón as “mentiroso”. It’s like she is saying, “¡qué mentiroso eres!”. |
| Lizy: So then, how has it been used here? |
| Alan: Well, in this case it’s an adjective that’s working like a noun. |
| Lizy: I see you know. I think we do this a lot in Spanish. |
| Alan: What – use adjectives as nouns? |
| Lizy: Yeah. |
| Alan: Well, I think you are right. Now “mentiroso” is the masculine singular form and the feminine singular form would be “mentirosa” and of course for the plural we would just add an “S” to the end of each. |
| Lizy: “Mentirosos, mentirosas”. |
| Alan: You got it. |
| Lizy: Okay, last word, “perdonar”. |
| Alan: Well, I don’t think that Julia is going to “perdonar” Ramón. |
| Lizy: No merece ser perdonado. |
| Alan: Uff I’d hate to be in his shoes and ran to you and then darkout. So where does this come up? |
| Lizy: Ramón, like a little dog begs, Julia, “¿Julia, me puedes perdonar?” |
| Alan: And that means “Julia, can you forgive me?” So “perdonar”, “to forgive.” |
| Lizy: Alan, now it’s a good time to go back to that song I was talking about. |
| Alan: Está bien. So what’s it called again? |
| Lizy: It’s called “Déjalo que se vaya”. |
| Alan: Let him go. All right, can we get you to sing the chorus? |
| Lizy: Oh, yes. Ahora sí. “Déjalo que se vaya y no lo llames. No lo llames aunque estés sufriendo, corazón. Aunque tu alma se quede triste en la desolación. Pero déjalo que se vaya y no lo llames, qué algún día ya las pagará”. |
| Alan: Muy bien, muy bien. And if we were to translate this to English people, we would get “let him go and don’t call him, let him go and don’t call him, don’t call him even though you are dying dear, even though your soul is suffering all on its own, let him go and don’t call him.” Well Lizy, that’s a tough act to follow. |
| Lizy: ¡Ay, por favor! Ahora veamos la gramática. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Alan: Okay, time to look at the grammar for this lesson. For the past few lessons, we have been focusing on prepositions since these are words that are so common and since they have so many different meanings. |
| Lizy: Which one are we going to look at today? |
| Alan: Well, I thought we would look at the preposition “de” since it came up twice in today’s conversation. |
| Lizy: Muy bien, maestro. |
| Alan: So the first time this comes up is with Ramón trying to sweet talk Julia addresses her as “luz de mi vida”, “light of my life.” |
| Lizy: So what is the function of this word “de”? |
| Alan: That’s the question. What do we use it for? So let’s start out by saying that this preposition like all prepositions has many different usages. I mean we could write lessons after lessons about each of these. |
| Lizy: That would be a lot. |
| Alan: For sure it would but you know, all you’ve got to do is learn these uses one by one and not all at once and that way, before you know what, it will just make sense. |
| Lizy: Okay, so in this particular case “luz de mi vida”, how can we understand the preposition “de”? |
| Alan: Well, here it’s showing membership. |
| Lizy: Membership. |
| Alan: That’s right. |
| Lizy: I thought it was possession. |
| Alan: Well, if we said “la decisión es de Julia”, “it’s Julia’s decision”, now it’s showing possession, it’s showing belonging. |
| Lizy: Okay, I see. |
| Alan: So in this case, we first have to see what it’s possessed, then the preposition “de” and then the name of that possessor, “la decisión de Julia”. |
| Lizy: Keep going. |
| Alan: Well, with membership, we are not referring to the relation between the possessor and the thing possessed but rather to the attributes or objects contained in a person or thing. For example, “la sinceridad de Miguel”, “Miguel’s sincerity.” “El brillo del piso”, “the shine of the floor” and in today’s conversation, “luz de mi vida”. |
| Lizy: So it seems that we can say the preposition “de” can express both possession and membership. |
| Alan: That’s right, it can. |
Outro |
| Lizy: Well, that’s all the time we have for today. Alan, ha sido un gusto como siempre. |
| Alan: De igual manera, Lizy. |
| Lizy: ¡Chao a todos! |
| Alan: Be good, ¡chao! |
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