Learn about using “vos” instead of “tú”
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Natalia: Hola soy Natalia. |
| Carlos: What’s going on? My name is Carlos. |
| Natalia: A Night in the Discoteca. |
| Carlos: What’s going on pod101 world, welcome back to spanishpod101.com, the fastest, easiest and most fun way to learn Spanish. I am joined in the studio by |
| Natalia: Natalia. |
| Carlos: Of course. Natie, how is life treating you? |
| Natalia: Really good Carlos. I have been working so much. |
| Carlos: You have, you have. What are we learning today? |
| Natalia: So something you know absolutely nothing about, el voseo. |
| Carlos: Oh man, I have been waiting for this. I hear vos being used all the time in Costa Rica. |
| Natalia: Well today, we will hear a conversation between Adolfo and Martha. |
| Carlos: Okay where are they? |
| Natalia: In a disco which would make it very informal. |
| Carlos: Okay. Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| ADOLFO: ¡Hola! ¿por qué estás tan seria? |
| MARTA: ¿Debería reírme por algo? |
| ADOLFO: Bueno, podés reirte de que ya no sé que más decirte. |
| MARTA: ¡Jaja... bueno eso sí es más gracioso! Me llamo Marta. |
| ADOLFO: Yo soy Adolfo, ¿qué estás tomando? Te invito a un trago. |
| Carlos: And now slower. Una vez más esta vez lentamente. |
| ADOLFO: ¡Hola! ¿por qué estás tan seria? |
| MARTA: ¿Debería reírme por algo? |
| ADOLFO: Bueno, podés reirte de que ya no sé que más decirte. |
| MARTA: ¡Jaja... bueno eso sí es más gracioso! Me llamo Marta. |
| ADOLFO: Yo soy Adolfo, ¿qué estás tomando? Te invito a un trago. |
| Carlos: And now with the translation. Ahora incluiremos la traducción. |
| ADOLFO: ¡Hola! ¿por qué estás tan seria? |
| ADOLFO: Hello there. Why are you so serious? |
| MARTA: ¿Debería reírme por algo? |
| MARTA: Is there something I should be laughing about? |
| ADOLFO: Bueno, podés reirte de que ya no sé que más decirte. |
| ADOLFO: Well, you can laugh at the fact that I do not know what else to say to you. |
| MARTA: ¡Jaja... bueno eso sí es más gracioso! Me llamo Marta. |
| MARTA: Haha...! OK, that is pretty funny! My name is Marta. |
| ADOLFO: Yo soy Adolfo, ¿qué estás tomando? Te invito a un trago. |
| ADOLFO: I am Adolfo. What are you drinking? Let me buy you a drink. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Natalia: That’s lame. |
| Carlos: Oh come on! |
| Natalia: Oh! |
| Carlos: Oh come on! Come on, hey! |
| Natalia: I would just stare at him and turnaround. |
| Carlos: Hey lovely! Why so serious? |
| Natalia: That is so dumb. |
| Carlos: Can I make you smile? |
| Natalia: Shut up! |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Carlos: Try it out. It’s funny. I want to hear comments. Now it’s time to move on to vocabulary section of today’s lesson guide. Here we are going to break up these words giving you the word class and translation for each. ¿Todos preparados? Bien. First we have an adjective. |
| Natalia: serio, seria |
| Carlos: Serious, grave, reliable. |
| Natalia: se-rio, se-ria. Serio, seria. |
| Carlos: An example of this would be |
| Natalia: Ella es una persona muy seria. |
| Carlos: Okay next up a pronominal verb. |
| Natalia: reírse |
| Carlos: To laugh. |
| Natalia: re-ír-se, reírse |
| Carlos: Like for example |
| Natalia: ¿De qué te ríes? |
| Carlos: What are you laughing about? Again we have a verb |
| Natalia: poder |
| Carlos: To be able, can. |
| Natalia: po-der, poder |
| Carlos: And the sample sentence is |
| Natalia: ¿Podés decirme porque no me llamaste? |
| Carlos: Can you tell me why you didn’t call me? And this time, we will study a set phrase. |
| Natalia: No sé qué |
| Carlos: I don’t know what. |
| Natalia: No sé qué |
| Carlos: And in context, we hear |
| Natalia: Francamente, no sé qué decirte. |
| Carlos: Frankly, I don’t know what to tell you. And the second, the last word of the day is a verb. |
| Natalia: deber |
| Carlos: Should, ought to, duty |
| Natalia: de-ber, deber |
| Carlos: An example would be... |
| Natalia: Ya deben de estar en casa. |
| Carlos: They ought to be home by now. And we will finish off today’s vocab list with a masculine noun. |
| Natalia: trago |
| Carlos: Drink. |
| Natalia: tra-go, trago |
| Carlos: And one more sample sentence to finish it off. |
| Natalia: ¡Oye, compa, pásame ese trago! |
| Carlos: Hey there buddy! Pass me that drink. |
| Natalia: Carlos, you should really learn how to pronounce the verb reírse. |
| Carlos: Why is that Natie? |
| Natalia: It will be useful. |
| Carlos: Useful. |
| Natalia: Useful. Then we could say, no te rías de mí. Whoahaha!! |
| Carlos: Whoahaha!! Don’t laugh at me. |
| Natalia: Come on Carlos. |
| Carlos: Reírse. |
| Natalia: Re-írse |
| Carlos: Reírse. |
| Natalia: No te rías de mí. |
| Carlos: No te rías de mi. Let’s have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. The first we look at is… |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Natalia: Reírse |
| Carlos: Reírse |
| Natalia: The word reírse is a pronominal verb that means to laugh. |
| Carlos: Pronominal? |
| Natalia: Carlos, since it’s a pronominal verb, you have to use a pronoun with it whenever we conjugate it. |
| Carlos: Okay. |
| Natalia: So, yo me río, I laugh. Vos te reís, you laugh. Él se ríe, he laughs and so on… |
| Carlos: Well then how was it used in today’s conversation? |
| Natalia: In today’s conversation, it sounded like this: ¿Debería reírme por algo? |
| Carlos: Is there something I should be laughing about? |
| Natalia: While we are in this one, let’s also know that the feminine noun risa means laughter. Also the verb sonreír means to smile and una sonrisa is a smile. |
| Carlos: Noted. |
| Natalia: Also note the verb poder. |
| Carlos: Poder. Very important. |
| Natalia: So important Carlos. We call it a helping verb or an auxiliary verb since it’s used in combination with another verb in the infinitive. |
| Carlos: Poder means to be able or can. |
| Natalia: So in today’s conversation, when Alfo says: Bueno, podés reirte de que ya no sé que más decirte. |
| Carlos: Well you can laugh at the fact that I don’t know what else to say to you. |
| Natalia: We see that the verb reír which we just went over is in the infinitive mood while podés has been conjugated to the second person singular the vos form. |
| Carlos: Ah the vos form. Still not too clear on that. |
| Natalia: Don’t worry, we will get there in the grammar point. Now we have to move on to our next phrase, no sé qué. |
| Carlos: No sé qué. |
| Natalia: This is a set phrase. It is used for a number of reasons. We know that no sé qué or yo no sé means I don’t know but when you want to be more explicit and tell someone what you don’t know! You need to say no sé qué and then just include the verb in the infinitive. |
| Carlos: Okay. |
| Natalia: So for example, in the last example, we heard ya no sé qué más decirte, I don’t know what else to say to you. Another example would be no sé qué querés, I don’t know what you want. |
| Carlos: But don’t you mean quieres? |
| Natalia: No again querés corresponds to vos and not tú but we will touch this on just a little second. |
| Carlos: Natie, I can hardly wait. |
| Natalia: Carlos, last but not least, this one I know you know. |
| Carlos: What? |
| Natalia: trago |
| Carlos: Oh yeah I know trago. |
| Natalia: This is a masculine noun that means drink as in an alcoholic drink. |
| Carlos: And if it were nonalcoholic, it would be una bebida, a beverage. |
| Natalia: This word trago comes from the verb tragar which means to swallow. |
| Carlos: Right. And in today’s conversation, Adolfo offers Martha a drink and says, ¿qué estás tomando? Te invito a un trago. What are you drinking? Let me buy you a drink. |
| Natalia: Please don’t let him scare you. You stick around for today’s grammar point and don’t use that quote ever. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Natalia: Have you ever heard someone, ¿cómo estás? |
| Carlos: I think I can think of one or two times. |
| Natalia: And how do people usually answer? |
| Carlos: Bien ¿y tú? |
| Natalia: Have you ever heard another answer? |
| Carlos: Bien bien ¿y vos? And it took me a while to figure out just what that meant. |
| Natalia: So in Costa Rica, we sometimes use vos as the second person singular personal pronoun instead of tú. |
| Carlos: I kind of thought that but I wasn’t sure. |
| Natalia: They mean the same thing really but when we use vos the endings of some of the verbs forms change. |
| Carlos: Okay but Costa Rica isn’t the only place vos is used right. |
| Natalia: No Costa Rica is not the only country where the voseo or the phenomenon of using vos instead of tú can be found. It’s also found in Argentina, parts of Bolivia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Uruguay, Venezuela. |
| Carlos: Is it used the same in all these places? |
| Natalia: No, when to use the vos and when to use tú changes from one country to the next but today our focus is in the irregular forms where the vos in the present tense of the indicative mood. So it’s irregular ar verbs. |
| Carlos: Okay so how do we form vos. |
| Natalia: For all the irregular ar verb, the vos form is created by dropping the infinitive ending and adding AS to the stem, AS. |
| Carlos: Okay so AS with an accent? |
| Natalia: Yes. |
| Carlos: Okay and I see that mostrar is a O to UE stem changing verb. Now is it the same for irregular er verbs? |
| Natalia: Yeah the same goes for all the irregular er verbs. The vos form is created by dropping the infinitive ending and adding ES to the stem of the volver. What will we get Carlos? |
| Carlos: We get tú vuelves or/and vos volvés. |
| Natalia: Volvés. |
| Carlos: Volvés. And I noticed that volver is an O to UE stem changing verb also. Now what about regular and irregular ir verbs? |
| Natalia: For all the regular and irregular ir verbs, the vos form, it always follows the vosotros form. So, tú sales but vos salís. Tú exiges but vos exigís and so on. |
| Carlos: And what about ser and ir. |
| Natalia: The verbs ser and ir are exceptions to this list. |
| Carlos: There are always exceptions. |
| Natalia: Learn them Carlos. You know, always notice for irregular verbs in the present tense of the indicative mood, we see the presence of infinitive stem for those verbs where subject is vos. Contar, contás. Querer, querés. Transferir, transferís. |
| Carlos: And I think it will be important to recognize how the forms for tú and vos are related to each other. |
| Natalia: It’s not as if someone that tends to use the vos and the corresponding verb forms one understand tú and its corresponding forms. So if you are going to learn, well you might as well learn both. |
| Carlos: I will try to learn both. |
| Natalia: Good. Similar phenomena includes the Latin American preference for ustedes over the Iberian counterpart vosotros and in Portuguese, the Latin American preference of vos over tú. |
| Carlos: Do you speak Portuguese too? |
| Natalia: Carlos, come on. Hello, as a matter of fact, no but I know some random facts. |
| Carlos: That you do. |
| Natalia: You know, it’s also time for the Tarea and that one I know for sure. |
| Carlos: Okay. |
| Natalia: Okay so in today’s grammar point, we studied the voseo and how to use vos instead of tú. We also learned how some of the formations of verbs conjugated to vos are different from those conjugated to tú. |
| Carlos: And now we are going to give you five sentences in Spanish. |
| Natalia: The verb in each sentence will be conjugated to the to form. |
| Carlos: What you have to do is change the verb ending to the vos form and substitute the personal pronoun vos for tú whenever necessary. |
| Natalia: Ready? |
| Carlos: Here we go. |
| Natalia: Número uno: ¿En qué andas? Número dos: Siempre tienes que hacerte el payaso . Número tres: ¿Tú me quieres decir que no sabías nada? Número cuatro: Tú no te imaginas lo bueno que es este cafecito. Número cinco: ¿Puedes creer lo que pasó? |
Outro |
| Carlos: And remember party people, you can always pick up the questions, answers with comments on the answers by downloading the premium audio track labeled Tarea, the homework and that just about does it for today. Okay, nos vemos. |
| Natalia: ¡Hasta mañana! |
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