Learn about expressing obligation
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Lizy: Bienvenidos a SpanishPod101.com! |
| Lizy: ¡Muy buenos días! |
| Alan: Alan here. “Calling for Backup.” In this lesson, you will learn what to do if you lose your ATM card and have no other recourse than to call a family member to ask him or her to wire you some money. |
| Lizy: This conversation takes place on “la Avenida Pardo”, right here in Miraflores, Lima, Perú. |
| Alan: Here we will listen to Martín call his friend José looking for some backup since the bank manager can’t or won’t give him his ATM card back. |
| Lizy: Since these guys are buddies, the conversation is informal and today in particular, kind of slangy. |
| Alan: Okay, let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| JOSÉ LUIS: ¿Aló? |
| MARTÍN: ¡Oye brother, habla Martín, el banco me acaba de cagar! El cajero se comió mi tarjeta y el gerente se escuda en una ley cojuda para no devolvérmela. |
| JOSÉ LUIS: Oye, compadre, ¡qué tal mañana la tuya! |
| MARTÍN: ¡Recójeme, hermano! Estoy en la quinta cuadra de Pardo. Tengo que ir a mi casa y de allí al Western Union. Mi hermana me va a hacer una transferencia. |
| JOSÉ LUIS: Claro, hermano. Dame quince minutos, me acabo de levantar. |
| MARTÍN: Está bien, gracias. |
| JOSÉ LUIS: Nooo... ¿de qué? Ya nos vemos, chau. |
| MARTÍN: Chau. |
| JOSÉ LUIS: Yo? |
| MARTÍN: Hey, hermano, it's Martín, the bank has just screwed me over! The ATM ate my card and the manager is hiding behind a lame law so that he doesn't have to give it back to me. |
| JOSÉ LUIS: Wow, dude, what a morning you've had! |
| MARTÍN: Pick me up, man! I'm on the fifth block of Pardo. I've got to go to my house and from there, to Western Union. My sister is going to wire me a transfer. |
| JOSÉ LUIS: Of course, man. Give me fifteen minutes, I just got up. |
| MARTÍN: Cool, thanks. |
| JOSÉ LUIS: Nooo... What for? See ya' soon. Bye. |
| MARTÍN: Bye. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Alan: Wow, talk about local flavor. Lizy, I would have to say this conversation in particular sounds very Peruvian. ¿Qué opinas tú? |
| Lizy: Bueno, sí. La jerga es muy peruana, pero hay varias que se llaman “lisuras”, malas palabras, y hay que tener mucho cuidado cuando se dicen. |
| Alan: Sí, muchísimo cuidado, chicos. Cuando yo empecé a aprender español, por ejemplo, usaba de vez en cuando esas malas palabras y me causaban un montón de problemas. Uno tiene que saber cuándo y dónde aplicarlas. Okay, let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. 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 closely. Today’s first word is a verb. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Lizy: “Cagar”. “To defecate”. “Ca-gar”, “cagar”. |
| Alan: And an example of this would be... |
| Lizy: “¡La cagaste!” |
| Alan: “You screwed up.” Next we will look at another verb. |
| Lizy: “Escudar”. |
| Alan: “To shield.” |
| Lizy: “Es-cu-dar”, “escudar”. |
| Alan: Okay and to contextualize this, we have the sentence... |
| Lizy: “El criminal se escudó bajo una ley antigua”. |
| Alan: “The criminal shielded himself under an old law.” This time we have an adjective. |
| Lizy: “Quinto, quinta”. |
| Alan: “Fifth.” |
| Lizy: “Quin-to, quin-ta”, “quinto, quinta”. |
| Alan: And the sample sentence is... |
| Lizy: “Esta es la quinta vez que me llamas.” |
| Alan: “This is the fifth time that you called me.” And again, another adjective... |
| Lizy: “Cojudo, cojuda”. |
| Alan: “Lame.” |
| Lizy: “Co-ju-do, co-ju-da”, “cojudo, cojuda”. |
| Alan: And an example of this would be... |
| Lizy: “No seas cojudo y acompáñame”. |
| Alan: “Don’t be lame and come with me.” Now, on to a feminine noun... |
| Lizy: “Transferencia”. |
| Alan: “Transfer.” |
| Lizy: “Trans-fe-ren-cia”, “transferencia”. |
| Alan: Okay, the sample sentence for this word is... |
| Lizy: “Mi hermano me envió una transferencia ayer y vengo a recogerla”. |
| Alan: “My brother sent me a wire transfer yesterday and I’ve come to pick it up.” Finally, a verbal phrase. |
| Lizy: “Tener que ir”. |
| Alan: “To have to go.” |
| Lizy: “Te-ner que ir”, “tener que ir”. |
| Alan: And the last sample sentence is... |
| Lizy: “Teníamos que ir a mi casa antes de venir aquí”. |
| Alan: “We had to go to my house before coming here.” Okay, time for today’s pronunciation tip. Today’s word is “cojudo”. |
| Lizy: “Cojudo”. |
| Alan: “C-o-j-u-d-o”. Lizy, could you pronounce this a few times that our students can really hear what the “J” should sound like? |
| Lizy: “Cojudo”, “cojudo”, “cojudo”. |
| Alan: I am feeling kind of insulted here, Lizy. Okay, let’s have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Lizy: Okay, sounds good. Now be careful with the first word. |
| Alan: I know, I know. Why don’t you go ahead, Lizy? |
| Lizy: “Cagar”. |
| Alan: This verb is vulgar but we’ve got to admit it’s pretty common. Lizy, you are blushing. |
| Lizy: Yes, a lot, because I don’t like to talk that way. I never, never say those things. |
| Alan: Okay, well let’s start by looking at how it was used in the conversation. Lizy… |
| Lizy: “¡El banco me acaba de cagar!” |
| Alan: “The bank has just screwed me!” Doesn’t “atornillar” mean “to screw”? |
| Lizy: Well, yes, it does but “cagar” literally means “to defecate.” |
| Alan: Okay, yeah, I think I get the point. |
| Lizy: For example, “me cago de frío”, which people sometimes say when they are really cold. |
| Alan: Okay, “escudar”. |
| Lizy: “Escudar”. This “ar” verb comes from the masculine noun “escudo”, which means... |
| Alan: “Shield.” |
| Lizy: Right. So “escudar” means... |
| Alan: “To shield.” |
| Lizy: Isn’t it used in a certain way in today’s conversation? |
| Alan: Right, in today’s conversation it’s been used pronominally which means it’s a little more like saying “to hide behind.” Martín uses it, right? |
| Lizy: When Martín is complaining, he says “el gerente se escuda en una ley cojuda para no devolvérmela”. |
| Alan: “The manager is hiding behind a lame laws that he doesn’t have to give it back to me”. What does “cojudo” mean? |
| Lizy: This is a very Latin American expression and its slang. |
| Alan: Slang. ¡Ay, Dios! |
| Lizy: “Cojudo, cojuda”. |
| Alan: This is another funny adjective. Literally, it refers to an animal that has not been castrated. Oh oh, there we go! Lizy is blushing again. |
| Lizy: However in Latin America, we tend to use this word as a synonym with “tonto”. |
| Alan: Claro. O “bobo”. |
| Lizy: So in this sense, it means “stupid” or “lame.” So “una ley cojuda” is... |
| Alan: “A really lame law”, “a stupid law.” Okay ,the next one is pretty self explanatory. |
| Lizy: “Transferencia” just means “transfer.” |
| Alan: Right, like “a wire transfer.” |
| Lizy: It comes from the “ir” verb “transferir”. Where was it used in today’s conversation? |
| Alan: When Martín said “Mi hermana me va a hacer una transferencia”, “my sister is going to wire me a transfer” and while she is doing that, stick around because today’s grammar point is coming up. Okay, today’s grammar point focuses on expressing obligation. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Lizy: Right, “tener”, “to have.” |
| Alan: One of the ways to express obligation is using the verb “tener”. |
| Lizy: Is its use similar in English? |
| Alan: Somewhat. It’s like expressing obligation in English by saying “I have to study.” |
| Lizy: In Spanish, we can also express an impersonal obligation using the verb “haber”, “there is”, “there are.” |
| Alan: Right. When we say something like “one must pay”, we are expressing an impersonal obligation because the particular person who must pay is not specified. Let’s look at the formation of expressing a personal obligation. |
| Lizy: Okay, remember we are using the verb “tener”. So it would be “tener” plus “que” plus “infinitivo de verbo”. |
| Alan: “To have” plus “to” plus “infinitive verb.” Okay Lizy, how about an example? |
| Lizy: “Yo tengo que salir”. |
| Alan: Notice to follow the formula, “I have to go out.” |
| Lizy: “Tenemos que comprar leche”. |
| Alan: “We have to buy milk.” |
| Lizy: “Ustedes tienen que practicar”. |
| Alan: “They have to practice.” So once again notice that the verb being conjugated here is “tener” and it is then matched with “que” and the infinitive of the verb. |
| Lizy: Now remember with impersonal obligation, we are going to be using the verb “haber”. |
| Alan: So what’s our formula? |
| Lizy: “Hay” plus “que” plus “infinitivo de verbo”. |
| Alan: One must and infinitive of verb. |
| Lizy: Hold on. I have the examples. |
| Alan: Whenever you are ready. |
| Lizy: “Hay que tener paciencia”. |
| Alan: “One must have patience”, very true. |
| Lizy: “Hay que estudiar para graduarse”. |
| Alan: “One must study in order to graduate.” How about one more for good measure? |
| Lizy: Well, let’s switch it up and talk about a past obligation. |
| Alan: I hadn’t thought about that. Sounds like a good idea though. |
| Lizy: Okay, we had the example “yo tengo que estudiar”. |
| Alan: Right, “I have to study.” So now we are switching back to using “tener”. |
| Lizy: Yes, but in order to talk about a past obligation, we conjugate the verb “tener” in the imperfect tense. So “yo tengo que estudiar” becomes... |
| Alan: “Yo tenía que estudiar”, “I had to study.” Notice again that the verb being conjugated here is “tener” along with the infinitive of another verb. |
| Lizy: I think they got it. |
| Alan: Thanks to your examples, Liz. |
| Lizy: Now, now Alan, we are a team. |
| Alan: That we are, that we are. |
| Lizy: Time for the “tarea”. |
| Alan: That’s right guys, homework time. So in today’s lesson, we learned how to express obligation by using the verb “tener”, then “que” and then any verb in the infinitive form. Now we are going to give you five sentences in Spanish. What you have to do is to change the sentence using the verb “tener” then “que” and then the infinitive verb while maintaining the person and number of the verb. For example, if the question is “camino a la tienda”, “I walk to the store”, then the answer would be “tengo que caminar a la tienda”, “I have to walk to the store.” Ready? |
| Lizy: ¡Ahí vamos! Número 1, “compráis zapatos a menudo”. Número 2, “cenan a las ocho” . Número 3, “salís temprano de la casa”. Número 4, “riegas las plantas cada día”. Número 5, “practicas mucho”. |
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. That just about does it for today. Okay folks. Eso es todo por esta lección, saludos y ¡chao! |
| Lizy: Muy bien, eso fue todo, ¡no se pierdan! |
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