Learn about using the preposition “para”
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Lizy: Buenos días, soy Lizy. |
| Alan: Soy Alan. "Romance 6. I will do anything." |
| Lizy: Hola, ¿cómo están todos? Aquí estamos nuevamente con Alan. Con muchas ganas de compartir esta nueva lección con ustedes. Anxious to share a new lesson with you. |
| Alan: Hey everybody, welcome back. Alan and Lizy back again. Today we are continuing with the last part of these episodes on Romance. |
| Lizy: "El romance." |
| Alan: Así es. In today’s lesson conversation, we are going to listen to Ernesto and Eliana who formed a strong relationship. And Eliana, like many young women, in Latin America is starting to feel the pressure from her family. |
| Lizy: Right. It’s obvious that she and Ernesto are spending a lot of time together and they want these two lovebirds to make a formal commitment before they embarrass the family. |
| Alan: Uff, so classic and so conservative. |
| Lizy: And Alan, what did you want to look at for grammar today? |
| Alan: Today we are going to talk a little bit about how the present tense can be used to express a future action. |
| Lizy: Ah, another very common topic that comes up in everyday speech. |
| Alan: Yeah, it can be a little tricky at first until you get the hang of it. |
| Lizy: This should be a good one. |
| Alan: No doubt about it. Now remember to keep your eyes open for regional lessons that reference this lesson. We’ve got the Iberian, Peruvian and Costa Rican series all bringing the Spanish speaking world right to you and don’t think that just because you are in the early stages of language learning, the regional series is beyond you. Hey, it’s quite the contrary my friends. Every form of Spanish is a regional form. So stick with us and learn how one form is distinguished from the next. |
| Lizy: All right. On to the conversation. |
| Alan: Here we go. Let’s get it done. |
| DIALOGUE |
| ELIANA: Ernesto, toda mi familia hace la misma pregunta. |
| ERNESTO: ¿Qué cosa? |
| ELIANA: ¿Cuándo, Ernesto, cúando? |
| ERNESTO: ¿Cuándo qué? |
| ELIANA: ¿Cuándo nos formalizamos? |
| ERNESTO: Para tí, amor, hago cualquier cosa. |
| ELIANA: Ernesto, my whole family is asking the same question. |
| ERNESTO: What's that? |
| ELIANA: When, Ernesto, when? |
| ERNESTO: When what? |
| ELIANA: When are we going to make it formal? |
| ERNESTO: For you, baby, I'll do anything. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Lizy: I’ve heard this conversation before. |
| Alan: Yeah, I mean this is the kind of thing that every Latino family talks about at some point in time. |
| Lizy: In Latino culture, there is so much pressure to get married especially if you have a serious relationship. |
| Alan: You know, Lizy, since moving to Lima, all of my friends that I’ve met stayed at home until they got married and then they moved straight into the marital home. There was none of this living together business. On the other hand, back in Canada, I can’t think of one friend who got married without first shacking up. |
| Lizy: Yes, there is a big difference. |
| Alan: All right, let’s get down to it. Time to break down some of the vocab that came up today. |
| Lizy: ¡Vamos! |
| Alan: So let’s begin with... |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Lizy: "Familia." |
| Alan: "Family." |
| Lizy: "Fa-mi-lia," "familia." |
| Alan: Next we will look at... |
| Lizy: "Mismo, misma." |
| Alan: "Same," "very." |
| Lizy: "Mis-mo, mis-ma," "mismo, misma." |
| Alan: Now we have... |
| Lizy: "Formalizarse." |
| Alan: "To formalize." |
| Lizy: "For-ma-li-zar-se," "formalizarse." |
| Alan: And then... |
| Lizy: "Pregunta." |
| Alan: "Question." |
| Lizy: "Pre-gun-ta," "pregunta." |
| Alan: Next we will hear... |
| Lizy: "¿Cuándo?" |
| Alan: "When?" |
| Lizy: "¿Cuán-do?," "¿cuándo?" |
| Alan: And finally... |
| Lizy: "Cualquier, cualquiera." |
| Alan: "Any." |
| Lizy: "Cual-quier, cual-quie-ra," "cualquier, cualquiera." |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Alan: Okay, real quick, Lizy. Let’s hear the word for question again. |
| Lizy: "Pregunta." |
| Alan: "Pregunta." Right, spelled "p-r-e-g-u-n-t-a." |
| Lizy: "Pregunta." |
| Alan: Now listen to that deep "u" sound "pregunta." |
| Lizy: "Pregunta." |
| Alan: Right. We’ve got to make sure that we don’t get lazy and pronounce the "U" like the soft "U" of cup but like the double "O" of "boot," "pregunta." |
| Lizy: "Pregunta." |
| Alan: That’s the one. |
| Lizy: "Muy bien." |
| Alan: All right, now let’s put some of these words into context. |
| Lizy: You got it. |
| Alan: So the first word is "familia." |
| Lizy: Okay. For example, "tengo una familia extensa." |
| Alan: "I’ve got an extensive family." Do you really have a large family, Lizy? |
| Lizy: No, realmente. Yo tengo una familia muy pequeñita. Sólo vivo con mi mamá. |
| Alan: There is Lizy breaking patterns. In fact, she doesn’t have a large family. She lives alone with her mother. So guys, this is the word that came up before but today I’d like to point out something new. |
| Lizy: Well, what’s that? |
| Alan: If you’ve seen something before, then when you see it again, it looks... |
| Lizy: "Familiar." |
| Alan: Right and in this sense, it’s like "conocido," "it’s known," and when all of your family get together to a big holiday meal, then "es una cena... |
| Lizy: familiar." |
| Alan: So here we are using the word "familiar" to mean "family" but as an adjective like "a family meal" or like "a family gathering." |
| Lizy: Sería una reunión familiar. |
| Alan: Right on. So that being said, let’s look at the following examples from today’s conversation. Eliana says, "Ernesto, toda mi familia hace la misma pregunta." And this means, "Ernesto, my whole family is asking the same question." |
| Lizy: So typical. |
| Alan: I know. So aside from the word "familiar," we find a couple of other words from our vocabulary list. |
| Lizy: Claro. We see "la misma pregunta." |
| Alan: Now "pregunta," we’ve seen before, right? |
| Lizy: Sure, if I have "una pregunta" then I have something I want to ask you. |
| Alan: And if you have something you want to ask me, then what you have is... |
| Lizy: "A question." |
| Alan: Aha, so "una pregunta" is "a question." |
| Lizy: Y el verbo "preguntar.".. |
| Alan: Well, the verb "preguntar" means "to ask." |
| Lizy: And what about "misma"? |
| Alan: Aha, well, this is a bit tricky. You see there are a number of different meanings for it. If you are looking at today’s PDF, you will see that it can be used as an adjective and adverb and also a pronoun. |
| Lizy: Many, many meanings. |
| Alan: But for today, we are going to focus on it as an adjective since that’s how it appeared in today’s conversation. |
| Lizy: "Toda mi familia hace la misma pregunta." |
| Alan: So "la misma pregunta," that is "the same question." |
| Lizy: And as an adjective, it’s going to have masculine and feminine endings, right? |
| Alan: You got it. Since "pregunta" is a feminine singular noun, the adjective "misma" is also feminine. |
| Lizy: And what do we call this rule? |
| Alan: "Concordancia." "Agreement." |
| Lizy: It’s not so hard. |
| Alan: Nope, but you know another example would make it even easier. |
| Lizy: How about this one, "escuché la misma lección tres veces"? |
| Alan: Hey, that’s a good one. "I listen to the same lesson three times." This is a really good way to drive home the material. |
| Lizy: Oh, the beauty of podcasts. |
| Alan: All right, ready for one more word. |
| Lizy: Shoot! |
| Alan: Well, this is kind of a tricky one. So let’s go back to the conversation first. Ernesto says, "Para tí, amor, hago cualquier cosa." |
| Lizy: And that means... |
| Alan: "For you my love, I will do anything." |
| Lizy: ¡Ay, qué lindo! I think Ramón could learn something from Ernesto. |
| Alan: Could he ever, you are right. So the word "cualquier" is an adjective and it’s an interesting kind of adjective since it describes a very general quality. |
| Lizy: Cualquier cosa, claro. |
| Alan: So this word "cualquier" just means "any." |
| Lizy: Por ejemplo, "en cualquier momento." |
| Alan: Right, and that means "at any time." |
| Lizy: Or "en cualquier sitio." |
| Alan: Aha, "in any place," "en cualquier momento," "en cualquier sitio," great. So Lizy, just to touch a bit on the topic from today’s conversation, it sounds like corking is pretty big in Latin America, do you think so? |
| Lizy: Depende de la pareja o depende de la chica, de la mujer, no? Si se quiere hacer la difícil, dura más. |
| Alan: Okay. So yeah in general terms, it really depends on the couple but sometimes there are women who just play a little hard to get. |
| Lizy: Alright, now let's shift gears and look at the grammar. |
| Alan: Sounds great. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Alan: Today's topic, how to use the present tense to express a future action. |
| Lizy: Sounds a little technical, don't you think, Alan? |
| Alan: Well, I guess I can see that, but let's look at it this way. In today's lesson conversation, when Eliana asks Ernesto, ¿Cuándo nos formalizamos? Is she saying, "when do we make it formal?" or "when are we going to make it formal?" |
| Lizy: ¿Cuándo nos formalizamos? The second one. "When are we going to make it formal?" |
| Alan: Right now, the verb in Spanish here is formalizamos, isn't it? Lizzy, what's the persona and tense of this verb? |
| Lizy: It's the first person plural. Nosotros formalizamos. |
| Alan: Ok, here's the kicker: what's the tense of this verb? |
| Lizy: It's in the present tense. |
| Alan: Ok so that means that we're literally saying "when do we make it formal" however when we translate this to English we're saying "When are we going to make it formal?" So if I say "we're going to make it formal next year" when does the action of the verb take place? |
| Lizy: In a year. |
| Alan: Ah-ah, exactly, and that means that this is an expression of a future act, even though we're using the present tense. |
| Lizy: This is really common in spoken Spanish. For example, Alan, if I say te llamo más tarde, what does it mean? |
| Alan: Te llamo más tarde. Well, again, literally it means I call you later. But figuratively, I need to understand this as I will call you later. |
| Lizy: Así es. |
| Alan: Now, there's another place in today's conversation where this came up. |
| Lizy: Where's that? |
| Alan: Well, when Ernesto, the yes man, says to sweet Eliana, Por ti, amor, hago cualquier cosa. |
| Lizy: Uy, uy, uy, uy, uy. Oye, Ernesto, ¿acaso no tienes un hermano? |
| Alan: Now, Lizzy, getting back to the grammar here, what's the verb conjugated to the present tense here? |
| Lizy: It's hago. |
| Alan: It's hago. That's it. And this means I do. However, when we take this verb for its future value, we understand it as I will do. |
| Lizy: Funny how that works. |
| Alan: Yeah. This is one of those little nuances that really distinguishes the Spanish language. |
| Lizy: Alan, do you think this one is harder to use or harder to understand when others use it? |
| Alan: I think it's hard to use and hard to understand until you understand the theory behind it. But once you do, it all clicks and it will fit very, very easily. And here, of course, the context of the conversation will help you an awful lot. And also, there's other clues to, you know, the intonation. You know when somebody's talking about the future, even though they're using the present tense. |
| Lizy: And, of course, practice, practice, practice. |
| Alan: Why did I know you were going to say that? |
Outro |
| Lizy: Well, this is as far as we will go for today. Alan, ha sido un gusto, como siempre. |
| Alan: De igual manera, Lizy. |
| Lizy: Bye! |
| Alan: Take it easy, ¡chao! |
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