Learn about expressing obligation
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Natalia: Buenos días me llamo Natalia. |
| Carlos: What’s going on? My name is Carlos. |
| Natalia: Look who is talking? Hello everyone. I am Natalia and welcome to Spanishpod101.com |
| Carlos: You know, with us, you will learn to speak Spanish with fun and effective lessons. |
| Natalia: We also provide you with cultural insights |
| Carlos: That you simply will not find in a textbook. Man, you know Natie, people can be so judgmental. |
| Natalia: That is generally true but why do you mention it? |
| Carlos: Well in today’s conversation, some friends are commenting about another’s weight. |
| Natalia: Well you never know. I mean if they are just saying anything to her directly. Are they? |
| Carlos: No the conversation is between Olivia and Carla. Is chilling informal. |
| Natalia: Well you know gossip is a form of bonding they say. |
| Carlos: Yeah you know, I’ve heard that but do we have to do it? |
| Natalia: Some would say we are obligated. Well you know, check my grammar point hint. |
| Carlos: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| CARLA: ¡Qué buena está la comida aquí! |
| OLIVIA: Sí, pero hay que mantener la dieta, no como otras. |
| CARLA: ¿De qué hablas? |
| OLIVIA : ¿No has visto a Miriam? ...¡es gigante!. |
| CARLA: ¿Quién habla? ¿No fuiste tú la que acaba de chuparse los dedos? |
| OLIVIA: ¡Qué maluca eres! Además, la comida estuvo mortal. |
| Carlos: And now slower. Una vez más esta vez lentamente. |
| CARLA: ¡Qué buena está la comida aquí! |
| OLIVIA: Sí, pero hay que mantener la dieta, no como otras. |
| CARLA: ¿De qué hablas? |
| OLIVIA : ¿No has visto a Miriam? ...¡es gigante!. |
| CARLA: ¿Quién habla? ¿No fuiste tú la que acaba de chuparse los dedos? |
| OLIVIA: ¡Qué maluca eres! Además, la comida estuvo mortal. |
| Carlos: And now with the translation. Ahora incluiremos la traducción. |
| CARLA: ¡Qué buena está la comida aquí! |
| CARLA: The food is here is great! |
| OLIVIA: Sí, pero hay que mantener la dieta, no como otras. |
| OLIVIA: Yeah, but we have to watch what we eat, unlike others. |
| CARLA: ¿De qué hablas? |
| CARLA: What are you talking about? |
| OLIVIA : ¿No has visto a Miriam? ...¡es gigante!. |
| OLIVIA: Have you seen Miriam?... she is gigantic! |
| CARLA: ¿Quién habla? ¿No fuiste tú la que acaba de chuparse los dedos? |
| CARLA: Who's talking? Wasn't that you who just finished licking her fingers? |
| OLIVIA: ¡Qué maluca eres! Además, la comida estuvo mortal. |
| OLIVIA: You're so bad! What's more, the food was to die for. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Natalia: That is mean Carlos. You are right. |
| Carlos: That is mean right? |
| Natalia: That is not quite gossip you know saying somebody is gigantic. |
| Carlos: Gigantic. Who licks their fingers in public? |
| Natalia: A lot of people. |
| Carlos: That’s kind of disgusting. |
| Natalia: I know. |
| Carlos: Alright. Let’s take a look at the vocabulary for today’s lesson. Empezamos con un sustantivo femenino. |
| Natalia: comida |
| Carlos: Lunch, food, meal. |
| Natalia: co-mi-da, comida |
| Carlos: Natie, como por ejemplo. |
| Natalia: Espero que aprovechen la comida. |
| Carlos: I hope you enjoyed the meal. |
| Natalia: gigante |
| Carlos: Gigantic. |
| Natalia: gi-gan-te, gigante |
| Carlos: Y un ejemplo sería. |
| Natalia: ¡Oyé eres gigante! ¿Qué ya no haces ejercicio? |
| Carlos: Hey you are gigantic. What? Don’t you exercise anymore? Y ahora estudiaremos una frase verbal. |
| Natalia: acabar de |
| Carlos: To have just |
| Natalia: a-ca-bar de, acabar de |
| Carlos: ¿Cómo por ejemplo, Natie? |
| Natalia: Ella acaba de comprar nuevos anteojos. |
| Carlos: She has just bought new glasses. A continuación tenemos el adverbio. |
| Natalia: además |
| Carlos: Moreover and yet. |
| Natalia: a-de-más, además |
| Carlos: Y un ejemplo sería. |
| Natalia: Y además el carro no es mío por eso no te lo puedo prestar. |
| Carlos: And what’s more, the car isn’t mine. That’s why I can’t lend it to you. La proxima palabra es un adjetivo. |
| Natalia: mortal |
| Carlos: Mortal, to die for. |
| Natalia: mor-tal, mortal |
| Carlos: A ver un ejemplo. |
| Natalia: Tu torta de chocolate está mortal, mejor no puede ser. |
| Carlos: Your chocolate cake is to die for. It doesn’t get any better than this. Y la última palabra de hoy es otro adjetivo o sustantivo masculino o femenino. |
| Natalia: maluco, maluca |
| Carlos: Bad |
| Natalia: ma-lu-co, ma-lu-ca, maluco, maluca |
| Carlos: Como por ejemplo. |
| Natalia: No seas maluco te hablo enserio. |
| Carlos: Don’t be bad. I am speaking seriously. Okay let’s have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Natalia: The first word/phrase we will look at is gigante. |
| Carlos: Gigantic, huge like Sábado Gigante. |
| Natalia: Right. So it is describing a noun. So it is |
| Carlos: An adjective. |
| Natalia: I know you have an example. |
| Carlos: Esta noche en Sábado Gigante. |
| Natalia: Tonight on Sabado Gigante. How do you know about that show? |
| Carlos: You kidding me. Saturday nights at my grandmother’s house. She always had it on. |
| Natalia: My grandma always had it on too but well you know, check the use in today’s conversation. ¿No has visto a Miriam? ...¡es gigante!. |
| Carlos: Have you seen Miriam. She is gigantic. Well that’s so mean. |
| Natalia: Or just an observation you know. Here is another word to learn. |
| Carlos: Which? |
| Natalia: The adjective gigantesco, ginormous. |
| Carlos: Ginormous? |
| Natalia: Uhoo. |
| Carlos: That’s funny. You know, she is ginormous. Next up. |
| Natalia: Acabar de. To have just done something. |
| Carlos: A verbal phrase. |
| Natalia: Yep. Here it is being used with another verb in the infinitive. |
| Carlos: No doubt. ¿Ejemplo? |
| Natalia: Acabar de hacer algo. |
| Carlos: To have just done something. I see how it was used in today’s conversation. |
| Natalia: ¿No fuiste tú la que acaba de chuparse los dedos? |
| Carlos: Wasn’t that you who just finished licking her fingers. Uhoo good comeback. |
| Natalia: We have a reflexive verb related to this. Acabarse means to finish something off or to come to an end. It gets off the news idiomatically. So if you say se acabo it means that’s it. Say goodbye. |
| Carlos: You know, I always like the song by the Beatnuts. |
| Natalia: Okay let’s look at an adverb. |
| Carlos: Sure which? |
| Natalia: Además: moreover, what’s more, still, yet, nevertheless. |
| Carlos: You know I’ve heard that before. What kind of example do you have? |
| Natalia: Es guapa y además inteligente. |
| Carlos: She is beautiful and clever too. Next example. |
| Natalia: That’s one that should be learned for sure. |
| Carlos: Okay. What about in today’s convo, Natie? |
| Natalia: Además, la comida estuvo mortal. |
| Carlos: What’s more? The food was to die for! |
| Natalia: Además is pretty much synonymous with aparte de esto, aside from this. La proxima es mortal. |
| Carlos: And that would mean mortal. Wouldn’t it? |
| Natalia: It’s pretty easy Carlos but this adjective also means to die for. |
| Carlos: Right. You know, I wondered about that from the example from the conversation. |
| Natalia: Carlos, we have other words that are really delicious. |
| Carlos: Like what? |
| Natalia: For example exquisito, espléndido, deliciosos, riquisimo... More or less, I can go on and on. Let me ask you a question. |
| Carlos: Sure. |
| Natalia: How does the word maloco sound to you? |
| Carlos: Not good. |
| Natalia: Yeah you can tell by the sound of it. |
| Carlos: So what does it mean? |
| Natalia: It’s an adjective that means bad, ingrate, ungracious. |
| Carlos: Ingrate, I usually use that a lot. You know. |
| Natalia: I use ingrate a lot. |
| Carlos: Yeah none of those things sound good but now that I think about it, I have heard the word used in Peru. Is it used in Costa Rica? What are some of the ways to say bad? |
| Natalia: Mala gente. In Costa Rica, we don’t really use maluco. Now few people use it like absolutely everybody uses mala gente. It’s the term that very, very often used. |
| Carlos: And wait Natie, how was maluca used in the conversation. |
| Natalia: It was when we heard: ¡Qué maluca eres! Además, la comida estuvo mortal. |
| Carlos: You are so bad. What’s more? The food was to die for. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Natalia: Today, we are going to discuss how obligation can be expressed. |
| Carlos: Right on. How many ways can it be expressed? |
| Natalia: In Spanish, obligation can be expressed either personally or impersonally. |
| Carlos: That sounds easy enough. |
| Natalia: One of the ways to express obligation is to use the verb tener to have. Think of these as a formation along the same lines as to express obligation in English. |
| Carlos: So tener plus que expresses obligation. |
| Natalia: Right we can also express impersonal obligation with a verb haber using it as a verb of existence in a periphrastic construction. When we say something like hay que pagar one must pay, we are expressing an impersonal obligation because a particular person who must pay is not specified. |
| Carlos: Okay so specific person, personal, non-specified person, impersonal. You know, when I think about it, that does make sense. |
| Natalia: Oho here is the formation for personal obligation as you said before. The tener plus que but you are missing something. |
| Carlos: What’s that? |
| Natalia: The infinitive form of the verb in question. |
| Carlos: Okay so the complete formula is tener plus que plus infinitivo del verbo. To have plus to plus infinitive. Okay so how about some examples Natie? |
| Natalia: Yo tengo que salir. |
| Carlos: I have to go out. |
| Natalia: Or tenemos que comprar leche. |
| Carlos: We have to buy milk. So I see tener is the verb that’s conjugated. |
| Natalia: Exactly. |
| Carlos: Now what about the formation of impersonal obligation. |
| Natalia: Well I gave you the verb haber. So you take a crack on it. |
| Carlos: Okay I plus que plus infinitivo del verbo. One must plus infinitive of verb. |
| Natalia: Hey that’s a good work you see. |
| Carlos: Well thank you Natie. Now it’s your time for some examples. |
| Natalia: Hay que tener paciencia. |
| Carlos: One must have patience. |
| Natalia: Or hay que estudiar para graduarse. |
| Carlos: One must study in order to graduate or learn Spanish for that matter. |
| Natalia: Here is something that we should mention when talking about the past obligation, we conjugate the verb tener to have in the imperfect past tense. |
| Carlos: Now does that affect the structure. |
| Natalia: The structure is the same. |
| Carlos: Okay what about impersonal obligation. |
| Natalia: Well there is no direct way to translate impersonal expressions of obligation since the verb haber usually means there is or there are. Often when we translate impersonal expressions of vacation from Spanish to English, they become personal. |
Outro |
| Carlos: I will make sure to make extra notes for that. Well you know what, that just about does it for today. Alright. That really just about does it for today. Nos vemos. |
| Natalia: Chao! |
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