Learn about pronouns and possessive pronouns
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: Muy bienvenidos. |
| Alan: Alan here, “The Bureaucracy of the ATM troll.” |
| Lizy: In this lesson, you will learn how it feels to have a bank manager tell you that it’s highly unlikely that you will ever see your ATM card again. |
| Alan: The conversation takes place in a bank. |
| Lizy: We will hear poor Martín and the bank manager. |
| Alan: Seeing that we are in a professional environment, the speakers address each other formally. |
| Lizy: That’s right. |
| Alan: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| MARTÍN: Pero, señor, ¿qué hago? Acabo de llegar a Lima, ¡y ya no tengo cómo retirar dinero! |
| GERENTE: Lo lamento, pero este procedimiento es por su seguridad. |
| MARTÍN: Le confieso que sin la tarjeta me siento desamparado. |
| GERENTE: Lo único que le quedaría sería hacer una solicitud a su banco para tramitar la devolución de su tarjeta...pero no es recomendable. |
| MARTÍN: ¿No? ¿Y por qué? |
| GERENTE: Porque en toda mi experiencia como gerente de este banco, ningún cliente con el caso como el de usted ha recibido su tarjeta de vuelta. Siento mucho no poderle ayudar. |
| Martín: But, Sir, what do I do? I've just arrived in Lima, and now I don't have a way to withdraw money! |
| MANAGER: I am sorry, but this procedure is for your safety. |
| Martín: To tell you the truth, without my card I feel abandoned. |
| MANAGER: The only other thing that you could do would be to make a request to your bank so that they process the return of your card... but it is not recommendable. |
| Martín: No? And why not? |
| MANAGER: Because in all of my experience as manager of this bank, no client with a case like yours has received his or her card back. I am really sorry that I cannot help you. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Lizy: ¡Ay, qué horrible puede ser la burocracia a veces! ¿No? |
| Alan: Sí, pues, bueno, es verdad. Pero, ¿sabe qué, Lizy? Es un mal necesario a veces. |
| Lizy: ¿Qué? ¿Cómo es eso? |
| Alan: Bueno, la burocracia es necesaria. Son trámites, en fin. Lo que sí puede ser frustrante cuando uno se encuentra con ineficiencia en la burocracia, ¿no? Se tiene que hacer la distinción. |
| Lizy: Así es, totalmente de acuerdo. Y la ineficiencia tiene como consecuencia que se dilatan muchos esos trámites. |
| Alan: Now is the time to move on to the vocabulary section of today’s lesson guide. Here we are going to break these words down and give you some key points. Listen up and follow along. First, we have a verb. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Lizy: “Retirar”. |
| Alan: “To withdraw.” |
| Lizy: “Re-ti-rar”, “retirar”. |
| Alan: As in the example... |
| Lizy: “¿Cuánto dinero deseas retirar?” |
| Alan: “How much money do you wish to withdraw?” Next we are going to look at another verb. |
| Lizy: “Lamentar”. |
| Alan: “To be sorry”, “to lament.” |
| Lizy: “La-men-tar”, “lamentar”. |
| Alan: Como por ejemplo... |
| Lizy: “Lamentamos no poderte asistir”. |
| Alan: “We are sorry for being unable to help you.” This time, we have a masculine noun. |
| Lizy: “Procedimiento”. |
| Alan: “Procedure.” |
| Lizy: “Pro-ce-di-mien-to”, “procedimiento”. |
| Alan: Which we see in the following sample sentence... |
| Lizy: “Es importante que todos entendamos claramente los procedimientos”. |
| Alan: “It’s important that we all understand the procedures clearly.” And now a feminine noun. |
| Lizy: “Seguridad”. |
| Alan: “Safety.” |
| Lizy: “Se-gu-ri-dad”, “seguridad”. |
| Alan: As in the example... |
| Lizy: “Tenemos que revisar algunos datos, pero no se preocupe, es por su seguridad”. |
| Alan: “We have to go over some information but don’t worry, it’s for your safety.” And now another feminine noun. |
| Lizy: “Experiencia”. |
| Alan: “Experience.” |
| Lizy: “Ex-pe-rien-cia”, “experiencia”. |
| Alan: As in the sample sentence... |
| Lizy: “¿Qué me podría decir usted sobre su experiencia laboral?” |
| Alan: “What could you tell me sir about your work experience?” And finally, a noun that can be either feminine or masculine. |
| Lizy: “Gerente”. |
| Alan: “Manager.” |
| Lizy: “Ge-ren-te”, “gerente”. |
| Alan: And the last sample sentence is... |
| Lizy: “¿Hace cuánto tiempo que trabajas de gerente?” |
| Alan: “How long have you worked as a manager?” Time for a quick pronunciation tip. How about the word “seguridad”? |
| Lizy: “Seguridad”. |
| Alan: Now you will notice that some Spanish speakers don’t really pronounce the final “D”. |
| Lizy: Right, they say “segurida”. |
| Alan: And in Madrid for example, you will notice that the final “D” is often pronounced like a “th”. |
| Lizy: Right. I think it would be like “seguridath”. |
| Alan: Okay, Liz, time to make our vocabulary deposit. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Lizy: You aren’t just saying that because our first verb is “retirar”. |
| Alan: Can’t hide anything from you, can I? |
| Lizy: No. |
| Alan: Okay, “retirar”. |
| Lizy: “Retirar”. |
| Alan: So if I make a deposit... |
| Lizy: Then, “yo hago un depósito”. |
| Alan: And what’s the other side of it? |
| Lizy: “Retiras dinero”. |
| Alan: Right. “You withdraw money.” So “retirar” means “to withdraw.” |
| Lizy: En la conversación de hoy escuchamos el siguiente ejemplo, “ya no tengo cómo retirar dinero”. |
| Alan: Now I don’t have a way to withdraw money, never a good thing. |
| Lizy: No, it’s definitely not. Next up. |
| Alan: “Lamentar”. |
| Lizy: “Lamentar”. |
| Alan: Sounds like “to lament” and in fact it’s pretty close. |
| Lizy: “Lamentar” means either “to lament” or “to be sorry.” |
| Alan: For example... |
| Lizy: I could say, “lo lamento, pero no te puedo ayudar”. |
| Alan: “I am sorry but I can’t help you.” Sounds like you’ve had a lot of practice saying that, Lizy. Tell me, have you ever been that bureaucratic troll in our story? |
| Lizy: No, but I have certainly heard it a lot. |
| Alan: You’ve been on the receiving end, have you? Okay, I think another word to pick up while we are on this is the adverb “lamentablemente”. Lizy, why don’t you tell our audience how we can often use this adverb? |
| Lizy: We often use this like “unfortunately.” |
| Alan: For example... |
| Lizy: “Lamentablemente no podré asistir a la reunión”. |
| Alan: “I unfortunately won’t be able to attend the party.” Let’s proceed with... |
| Lizy: “Procedimiento”. You see the word proceed somewhere in there. |
| Alan: How can we define this masculine noun? |
| Lizy: The masculine noun “procedimiento” comes from the verb “proceder” which we can translate as “to proceed” or “to put forth.” |
| Alan: If you break it down, you will see the prefix “pro” which gives us the sense of forward movement, “procedimiento” is then “a procedure.” Lizy, where did we see this in today’s conversation? |
| Lizy: “Este procedimiento es por su seguridad”. |
| Alan: “This procedure is for your safety.” I think we can surmise what “seguridad” means. |
| Lizy: “Seguridad”. |
| Alan: “Seguridad”. “Security.” Let’s hear the example again. |
| Lizy: “Este procedimiento es por su seguridad”. |
| Alan: “This procedure is for your safety.” Ah, so it means “safety.” Is it related to the adjective “seguro”? |
| Lizy: Sure it is. |
| Alan: What about the verb “asegurar”, “to assure”, “to make sure.” |
| Lizy: Yep, that one too. |
| Alan: Okay, last but not least, “experiencia”. I think the definition is pretty obvious “experiencia”, “experience.” |
| Lizy: We also have a related verb. |
| Alan: “Experimentar”. |
| Lizy: A good one to point out. |
| Alan: Oh, definitely. It has two different English translations in fact. On the one hand, it means “to experience” as in to have “una experiencia” and on the other hand, it also means... |
| Lizy: “To experiment”, as in to have “un experimento”. |
| Alan: All right guys, stick around. Today’s grammar point is coming up next. Today we are going over pronouns. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Lizy: They must be important. |
| Alan: Why do you say that? |
| Lizy: Well, I think we’ve gone over them in a couple of lessons and I know that Carlos and Natalia have as well in their series. |
| Alan: When you are right, you are right. So then, how can we define a pronoun? |
| Lizy: After you, Alan. |
| Alan: Okay, no problem. Pronouns replace nouns or noun phrases and sentences where the context still allows the meaning to be understood. |
| Lizy: For example, “they are my shirts” becomes... |
| Alan: “They are mine.” So now that that’s clear, let’s move on to another type of pronouns. |
| Lizy: Which? |
| Alan: Possessive pronouns. |
| Lizy: The kind that show possession? |
| Alan: Aha, that’s it. So while they show possession or ownership, they also replace the noun or the noun phrase. |
| Lizy: So that would make them similar to possessive adjectives. |
| Alan: These parts of speech are similar in many ways. |
| Lizy: How so? |
| Alan: Well, here concordance is as important as always. |
| Lizy: Which means the number and gender of the noun affects the number and gender of, in this case, the possessive pronouns. |
| Alan: So let’s hear Spanish possessive pronouns, Liz. |
| Lizy: “Mío”, “mía”, “míos”. |
| Alan: “Mine.” |
| Lizy: “Nuestro”, “nuestra”, “nuestros”, “nuestras”. |
| Alan: “Ours.” |
| Lizy: “Tuyo”, “tuya”, “tuyos”, “tuyas”. |
| Alan: “Yours.” |
| Lizy: “Vuestro”, “vuestra”, “vuestros”, “vuestras”. |
| Alan: “Yours.” |
| Lizy: “Suyo”, “suya”, “suyos”, “suyas”. |
| Alan: “His/hers/yours/its.” Okay, Lizy, let’s get down on some examples. |
| Lizy: “Deja los platos sucios, son míos”. |
| Alan: “Leave the dirty dishes, they are mine.” Notice the placement of the possessive pronoun as well. It replaces the noun it agrees with. |
| Lizy: “El periódico que está en la mesa es tuyo”. |
| Alan: “The newspaper that’s on the table is yours.” |
| Lizy: “Martín siempre deja la ropa en el piso. La camisa es suya”. |
| Alan: “Martin always leaves clothes on the floor. The shirt is his.” |
| Lizy: So let’s remind ourselves that possessive pronouns replace a noun to which they refer. |
| Alan: Consider me reminded, my friend. |
| Lizy: For example, if we say “es mi revista”, “it is my magazine”, then we would get “es mía”, “it is mine.” |
| Alan: But wait, audience, it’s easy to get confused here. When we say “es mía” if we didn’t use “mía” we would have to repeat the noun “revista” and say “es mi revista.” Therefore we are in fact replacing this noun with the possessive pronoun. |
| Lizy: Right. The other way would sound kind of funny. |
| Alan: If you really, really, really want to get this down, you might also want to check out our direct and indirect object pronouns. |
| Lizy: Right. Those tell us who or what receives the verbal action directly and whom or what receives it indirectly. |
| Alan: How about one last example? |
| Lizy: “Le dí la llaves ayer, son de ella”. |
| Alan: And this would become... |
| Lizy: “Se las dí, son suyas”. |
| Alan: I think some “tarea” is in order here. |
| Lizy: We are getting to that. |
| Alan: Okay, the subject is ripe, just absolutely ripe for really good homework assignment. |
| Lizy: Fine, fine let’s get to it. |
| Alan: All right, in today’s grammar point, we learned about possessive pronouns and how they replace nouns in order to avoid redundancy. Now we are going to give you five short sentences in Spanish. What you have to do is figure out what noun or noun phrase is showing possession and then replace it with a possessive pronoun. So for example, if I say “el auto es de mi papá” then the answer would be “el auto es suyo”, ready? |
| Lizy: ¡Ahí vamos!. Número 1, “es tu taza”. Número 2, “los libros pertenecen a nosotros”. Número 3, “esa casa pertenece a vosotros”. Número 4, “las innovaciones pertenecen a él”. Número 5, “es mi banco”. |
Outro |
| Alan: And remember, you overachievers out there, you can always check out the answers and the comments on the answers by downloading the premium audio track titled “tarea”, homework. Okay guys, that wraps it up once again for today. Study hard, okay. It’s not going to come on its own. You got to practice. So okay, Lizy, que les vaya bien. ¡Chao! |
| Lizy: ¡No se pierdan, amigos! |
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