Learn about using Spanish indefinite pronouns
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Carlos: How to read in a group? What’s going on pod101 world? Welcome to the newbie series, season 2 at spanishpod101.com where we study modern Spanish in a fun, educational format. |
| Natalia: So brush up on the Spanish that you started learning long ago or start learning today. |
| Carlos: Natie, this conversation is giving me anxiety. |
| Natalia: Why? |
| Carlos: Because it has flashed me back to my teaching days. |
| Natalia: I can see how that can make you a bit nervous. |
| Carlos: At least the kids are being respectful to teacher in this conversation addressing her formally. |
| Natalia: Oh no! You can never address a teacher informally here you know. It just isn’t done. |
| Carlos: Do you know what they called me? |
| Natalia: What? |
| Carlos: Mr. |
| Natalia: Mr. Carlos. |
| Carlos: Ey Mr. |
| Natalia: Okay well get ready for an explanation of indefinite pronouns. Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| MAESTRA: Bien, chicos, ¡pongan atención! Abran sus libros en la página catorce, por favor. |
| GUSTAVO: ¿El libro de verbos? |
| MAESTRA: Sí, ese mismo. |
| MATEO: Profesora, no tengo la página catorce, alguien la arrancó. |
| MAESTRA: Susana, ¿puedes compartir tu libro con él? |
| SUSANA: ¡Claro! Leamos en grupo. |
| Carlos: And now slower. Una vez más esta vez lentamente. |
| MAESTRA: Bien, chicos, ¡pongan atención! Abran sus libros en la página catorce, por favor. |
| GUSTAVO: ¿El libro de verbos? |
| MAESTRA: Sí, ese mismo. |
| MATEO: Profesora, no tengo la página catorce, alguien la arrancó. |
| MAESTRA: Susana, ¿puedes compartir tu libro con él? |
| SUSANA: ¡Claro! Leamos en grupo. |
| Carlos: And now with the translation. Ahora incluiremos la traducción. |
| MAESTRA: Bien, chicos, ¡pongan atención! Abran sus libros en la página catorce, por favor. |
| TEACHER: All right guys, pay attention! Open your books on page fourteen, please. |
| GUSTAVO: ¿El libro de verbos? |
| GUSTAVO: The verb book? |
| MAESTRA: Sí, ese mismo. |
| TEACHER: Yes, that's the one. |
| MATEO: Profesora, no tengo la página catorce, alguien la arrancó. |
| MATEO: I don't have page fourteen. Someone ripped it out. |
| MAESTRA: Susana, ¿puedes compartir tu libro con él? |
| TEACHER: Susana, could you share your book with him? |
| SUSANA: ¡Claro! Leamos en grupo. |
| SUSANA: Sure! Let's read in a group. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Carlos: See flashing me right back here. I mean, all the time, could you please open your book to page 14. Which book? The verb book? Yes that book. I don't got my book ‘cause it’s gone. I don’t have page 14. How come you don’t have page 14? |
| Natalia: But that was different because you’ve been like throwing erasers at the poor kids. So it’s kind of different. |
| Carlos: Yeah. |
| Natalia: Okay. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Carlos: Let’s take a closer look at the vocabulary for this lesson. First up, we have a verb. |
| Natalia: poner |
| Carlos: To put, to place. |
| Natalia: po-ner, poner. Por ejemplo. Anda a la clínica antes de que te pongas muy mal. |
| Carlos: Go to the clinic before you become very ill. Now a pronoun. |
| Natalia: alguien |
| Carlos: Somebody, someone, anyone. |
| Natalia: al-guien, alguien. Alguien me dijo que queda un buen restaurante por aquí. |
| Carlos: Someone told me that there is a good restaurant around here and then a demonstrative pronoun. |
| Natalia: eso, ese, esa |
| Carlos: That, those. |
| Natalia: e-so, e-se, e-sa, eso, ese, esa. Por ejemplo eso es algo nuevo. |
| Carlos: That is something new and another verb. |
| Natalia: compartir |
| Carlos: To split, to share. |
| Natalia: com-par-tir, compartir. Por ejemplo. No tengo mucho pero de lo que tengo puedo compartir. |
| Carlos: I don’t have much but what I have, I can share and another verb. |
| Natalia: arrancar |
| Carlos: To uproot, to pull up, to extract, to beat it. |
| Natalia: a-rran-car, arrancar. Por ejemplo. Ya no quiero estar aquí, arranquémonos. |
| Carlos: I don’t want to be here anymore, let’s beat it. And now feminine noun |
| Natalia: página |
| Carlos: Page. |
| Natalia: pa-gi-na, página. Por ejemplo. Esta página tiene letras grandes. |
| Carlos: This page has big letters. All right, let’s take a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Natalia: The first word we will look at is poner. |
| Carlos: Poner. To put, to place. |
| Natalia: This is a very, very common verb. |
| Carlos: That it is. I mean it is one of the verbs that you should really keep close to the just. |
| Natalia: Okay whatever that means. |
| Carlos: Look in our conversation, the teacher says: Bien, alumnos, ¡pongan atención! Okay students, pay attention. Haah! those days. So here it is asking students to pay or place attention. |
| Natalia: But at the same time, poner can be used in other ways. |
| Carlos: Yeah like: Natie, ponle los zapatos a Michael. Natie put Michael shoes on. |
| Natalia: Carlo, my little brother is eleven and I can wear his shoes. They are bigger than mine actually. He is getting so big. |
| Carlos: Calm down Natie. Kids grow. |
| Natalia: So big. What! Okay I have gained my composure back. Our next word is a pronoun alguien. |
| Carlos: Ah somebody, someone, anyone. |
| Natalia: In our conversation, it’s used as an excuse when the student says alguien la arrancó. Someone ripped it out. My – that’s coincidence. |
| Carlos: Yeah I would say so Natie. My response to that would immediately be, what are the chances? Someone rips out a page from your book and it is amazingly the page that includes the homework for today. Que lastima. What a shame. It’s okay though because now you’ve already done it, you could do it again and it will be easy since you’re going to do it twice. |
| Natalia: Well you are a bit cold when you are a teacher hah! |
| Carlos: I have my moments but alguien is a pretty common pronoun. I am sure you have another example sentence. |
| Natalia: Oh definitely like: Necesitamos a alguien con experiencia. We need someone with experience. |
| Carlos: No we don’t. That’s why we have you Natie. |
| Natalia: I know, I know, I know Carlos. |
| Carlos: You also have humbleness and that’s one of your traits. |
| Natalia: Carlos, I know that too. I know. Okay well moving on, even more common are demonstrative pronoun. |
| Carlos: Which. |
| Natalia: eso, ese, esa |
| Carlos: That, those. Those can be confusing. |
| Natalia: Not really Carlos. Eso, ese, esa. |
| Carlos: No it’s just that eso, ese, esa is one of those fundamental things that you know you will get wrong. |
| Natalia: What do you mean? |
| Carlos: Like when I am speaking to someone in English and they use her instead of his, I know what they mean but it still is more evident that you are still learning language. |
| Natalia: Well we are always learning the language. You are right. I still mix up those sometimes. You know, so how is this demonstrative pronoun used in the conversation. |
| Carlos: When the teacher says sí ese mismo, yes that’s the one. |
| Natalia: Okay let’s look at another example. |
| Carlos: I am ready when you are. |
| Natalia: You heard this one many times. You heard Joe say many, many, many times in this lesson. |
| Carlos: Well come on with it. The suspense is killing me. |
| Natalia: Eso es. That’s it. |
| Carlos: Oh yeah, I see what you mean. Eso es. |
| Natalia: Eso es. We will go more in deep with this demonstrative pronoun at another time you know. |
| Carlos: How would you do that? |
| Natalia: Well we have to move on. Our next word is a verb compartir. |
| Carlos: To split or to share. |
| Natalia: We see this when the teacher asks Susanna ¿usted puede compartir su libro con él? |
| Carlos: Could you share your book with him? You know, that’s a good verb to learn. I mean sharing is caring and all that. |
| Natalia: What? |
| Carlos: Nothing. Something we teach toddlers but I could say gracias! |
| Natalia: To who? |
| Carlos: To you. |
| Natalia: Thank you. ¿Porqué? |
| Carlos: Because you share your Spanish pods with our audience. |
| Natalia: Ay con mucho gusto, Carlos and audience. |
| Carlos: Man, you almost believe her sincerity. |
| Natalia: Carlos, no comments. Our next word of the day is another verb arrancar. |
| Carlos: Arrancar. I like saying that, arrancar, arrancar |
| Natalia: Are you done? |
| Carlos: Arrancar |
| Natalia: Okay. |
| Carlos: Yes now I am. Have fun with that audience. This verb which is so fun to say means to uproot, to pull up, to extract or to beat it which is kind of a regional slang but in this case, the translation is different in the conversation. |
| Natalia: Right. We have already seen this example for another one of our vocabulary words today. |
| Carlos: Which |
| Natalia: Alguien la arrancó. |
| Carlos: Someone ripped it out. Right, that’s the amazing coincidence. So then here it is translated to mean ripped out. |
| Natalia: Well you can see the similarities. |
| Carlos: Oh definitely. I mean the translation does make sense but how about an example using another translation. |
| Natalia: You remember that terrible day I was robbed? |
| Carlos: Yeah you were pretty shaken out. |
| Natalia: Well if we were speaking Spanish, then I will have told you, me arranco el bolso. He snatched my bag. |
| Carlos: She snatched. And you can also say, he ripped your bag in English and it isn’t proper but it would be understood. |
| Natalia: Okay but well, we have last but not least, we have página. |
| Carlos: Página. Page, pretty simple translation. |
| Natalia: Right. In our conversation, you can get the meaning of: Abran sus libros en la página catorce, por favor. |
| Carlos: Open your books to page 14 please. Wow! Flashback. |
| Natalia: Carlos again? |
| Carlos: Sorry, it’s just hitting me hard. |
| Natalia: God. |
| Carlos: My students bored faces. |
| Natalia: Come on. Well, well, well. The audience is trying to learn here Carlos, not to hear your flashbacks and old memories. |
| Carlos: Okay. I am here, I am here. |
| Natalia: You know you can leave a comment if you want to hear more about Carlo’s old teaching days. Carlos |
| Carlos: Uhoo. |
| Natalia: Can you think of another example sentence? |
| Carlos: Vamos por la página setenta y dos. We are on page 72. |
| Natalia: How many times a day do you have to say that? |
| Carlos: Too many to count. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Natalia: Carlos, you know, I always like to tap you on your old English teacher position. |
| Carlos: I know because you know, it annoys me. So what do you want me to explain now? |
| Natalia: What’s a noun? |
| Carlos: A person, place or thing. |
| Natalia: Pronoun. |
| Carlos: A pronoun replaces a noun while once referring to it and agreeing with it. |
| Natalia: Excellent. Thank you. |
| Carlos: My pleasure. |
| Natalia: Now what makes an indefinite pronoun? |
| Carlos: An indefinite pronoun lacks definite terms. |
| Natalia: Well you might want to go deeper with that. |
| Carlos: Okay well they express the notions of quantity, identity and other kinds of vague and/or undetermined manner. You see they take the place of a non-concrete person or thing or one who determinates it is not to the interest of the speaker. |
| Natalia: Perfect. You know, since they take place of a noun, they work like nouns even though they can also work as adjectives. |
| Carlos: But now I have a question for you? |
| Natalia: What? |
| Carlos: How many different kinds of indefinite pronouns are there? |
| Natalia: There are so many of indefinite pronouns and each one tends to have a number of different forms. |
| Carlos: It sounds like a lot to think about right now. What would you say are the most common? |
| Natalia: Okay for singular, we have them in this order. Masculine and feminine and neutral. |
| Carlos: Okay so example. |
| Natalia: Uno, una, uno |
| Carlos: One. |
| Natalia: Alguno, alguna, algo. |
| Carlos: Some, someone, something. |
| Natalia: Ninguno, ninguna, nada. |
| Carlos: None, no one, not, any, nothing. |
| Natalia: Poco, poca, poco. |
| Carlos: Few. |
| Natalia: Mucho, mucha, mucho. |
| Carlos: Many. |
| Natalia: Demasiado, demasiada, demasiado. |
| Carlos: Too many. |
| Natalia: Todo, toda, todo. |
| Carlos: All, everyone. |
| Natalia: Otro, otra, otro. |
| Carlos: Another. |
| Natalia: Mismo, misma, mismo. |
| Carlos: The same one. |
| Natalia: Tan, tanto, tanta, tanto. |
| Carlos: So much, so many. |
| Natalia: Bueno Carlos, I gave you the singular noun. You should tell me with a pleural. |
| Carlos: Sure. As long as you give it in English, that’s a lot to me here. |
| Natalia: You know, you know the sound of your own voice. |
| Carlos: I am not arguing that. I am just trying to think of teaching. |
| Natalia: Entonces. |
| Carlos: Plural. Algunos, algunas. |
| Natalia: Some |
| Carlos: Ningunos, ningunas. |
| Natalia: No one, none. |
| Carlos: Pocos, pocas. |
| Natalia: Few. |
| Carlos: Muchos, muchas. |
| Natalia: Many. |
| Carlos: Demasiados, demasiadas. |
| Natalia: Too many. |
| Carlos: Todos, todas. |
| Natalia: All and everyone. |
| Carlos: Otros, otras. |
| Natalia: Others. |
| Carlos: Mismos, mismas. |
| Natalia: The same ones. |
| Carlos: Tantos, tantas. |
| Natalia: So much, so many. Good. Now, they are those with two forms. |
| Carlos: What about those with singular form? |
| Natalia: Alguien, someone, nadie, no one, demás, the rest. |
| Carlos: Let’s look at some example sentences. |
| Natalia: ¿Mariana, te sirvo algo? |
| Carlos: Mariana, can I serve you something? |
| Natalia: ¿Buscas a alguien en particular? |
| Carlos: Are you looking for someone in particular? |
| Natalia: Algunos dicen que el problema se va a resolver solito. |
| Carlos: Some say the problem will resolve itself. |
| Natalia: Ayer te di todos mis billetes y ya no me queda ninguno. |
| Carlos: Yesterday I gave you all my bills and I don’t have any left. |
| Natalia: A cualquiera le gustaria ir de vacaciones. |
| Carlos: Anyone would like to go on a vacation. |
| Natalia: Quienquiera que seas, no pongas la música tan alta. |
| Carlos: Whoever you are, don’t play the music so loud. I’ve heard that one before. You know I have heard that one before. |
| Natalia: Carlos, todos dicen lo mismo. |
| Carlos: Everyone says the same thing. I think that makes everything clear. |
| Natalia: Now there is something to remember. |
| Carlos: What’s that? |
| Natalia: Remember that the indefinite pronouns are very similar to the indefinite adjectives. |
| Carlos: What would you say is the main difference then? |
| Natalia: The main difference aside from formation is that the adjectives modify the noun in an indefinite way while the pronouns replace the noun and express the same sense of vagueness. |
| Carlos: Oh well, when you say like that. |
| Natalia: For example, we could say: algunas personas dicen. In which case we use the indefinite adjective algunas. Notice that it modifies personas or we could say algunos dicen. in which case we are using the masculine plural form which acts as the neuter. |
| Carlos: I think a trip to the grammar bank might be in order. |
| Natalia: Definitely but do you see the difference? |
Outro |
| Carlos: Oh mos def! I got it down cold but you know what, now that I have it down cold and I am freezing, that just about does it for today. |
| Natalia: Okay. |
| Carlos: Bueno, nos vemos. |
| Natalia: Nos vemos luego, chao! |
| Carlos: Chao! |
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