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. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Lizy: Un poco de gramática. |
| Alan: Sounds great Lizy. Time for a bit of grammar. |
| Lizy: Today’s topic is the preposition para. |
| Alan: Para, right. Now, this is a really easy preposition to learn. |
| Lizy: Is there a general way to understand it? |
| Alan: Well yeah, in fact, there is. If I say - Vamos para el norte “Let’s go up to the north,” is my destination very specific or is it kind of approximated? |
| Lizy: Approximated. |
| Alan: Uh-huh, and the same goes for the expression - La fiesta ha sido programada para el viernes. “The party has been planned somewhere around Friday.” Again, this isn’t very specific, is it? |
| Lizy: No. |
| Alan: Now, in today’s conversation, Ernesto says “Para ti amor, hago cualquier cosa”. So when we use this preposition to refer to whom or for whom an action occurs, it kind of emphasizes the recipient of the action, instead of the action itself. |
| Lizy: Hmm, I see. |
| Alan: So what’s important here is that “it’s for you that I would do anything” and that “I would do anything for you.” You know what I mean? |
| Lizy: I think so. |
| Alan: Well, when the preposition para refers to destination or to a time, it expresses this approximately. But when it refers “to whom” or “for whom” an action occurs, it emphasizes the recipient of the action. |
| Lizy: Okay. Now, it’s clearer. |
| Alan: So Liz, if I ask you to dinner - Lizy, te gustaría cenar conmigo, how may you emphasize that you would really enjoy that? |
| Lizy: I could say - Para mi seria un placer. |
| Alan: “For me, it would be a pleasure.” Exactly. |
| Lizy: What about a couple of examples for the preposition para is used to show the destination of an action? |
| Alan: Uh, for example, in a very general sense - Martin se fue para allá. “Martin went over there.” Again, you can see how the destination is much less defined than it would be the preposition A. |
| Lizy: Got it! |
| Alan: So Liz, we said that this is a very common word, right? |
| Lizy: Right. |
| Alan: So Lizy, take a second and tell us when the last time you used it was? |
| Lizy: Hmm, bueno, fue hace un rato cuando te dije “Voy para allá”. |
| Alan: Okay, just a little while ago when I said I am going over there, voy para allá. |
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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