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| INTRODUCTION |
| Megan: ¡Bienvenidos a Spanishpod101.com! |
| David: ¡Buenos días amigos! Soy David. |
| Megan: And I’m Megan. Iberian Spanish Series, Lesson 17. |
| David: “¡Está super nublado hoy!” |
| Megan: “It’s so cloudy out today!” |
| Last time we were at the “playa” getting sunburned and complaining about the crowds. Today we’re going to Asturias, in the North, to talk about fog and clouds. |
| David: Also in this lesson we’ll talk a bit about the use of the “modo subjuntivo”, the Subjunctive Mood, when talking about weather and some rules about the negative sentences. |
| Megan: Don’t forget that today’s lesson references Newbie Lesson 17 – “It’s cloudy out!”, so be sure to check that one out and compare on the website. |
| Megan: Okay! Now we’re ready to get started. Let’s go back to Newbie Lesson 17 where we heard the following conversation: |
| DIALOGUE |
| MARCOS: Hay muchas nubes. |
| FÉLIX: Sí, está nublado. |
| OLIVIA: Siempre hay nubes en Concepción. |
| MARCOS: El cielo está gris. |
| OLIVIA: Hay niebla también. |
| M4: This time with the translation. Ahora incluiremos la traducción. |
| MARCOS: Hay muchas nubes. |
| M4: “There are a lot of clouds.” |
| FÉLIX: Sí, está nublado. |
| M4: “Yes, it’s cloudy out.” |
| OLIVIA: Siempre hay nubes en Concepción. |
| F3: “There are always clouds in Conception.” |
| MARCOS: El cielo está gris. |
| M4: “The sky is grey.” |
| OLIVIA: Hay niebla también. |
| F3: “There is fog, too.” |
| Megan: Okay! Now let’s hear how that turned out in Iberian Spanish: |
| Megan: ¡Está super nublado hoy! |
| David: Y tampoco creo que se vaya a despejar. |
| Megan: ¡Ostras! Queríamos ir a la playa. |
| David: Ya, pero no es nada raro que haya nubes y niebla en Asturias. |
| Megan: Bueno, pues nada, podemos dar un paseíto. |
| David: Si es que no llueve, claro. |
| M4: Once again, slowly. Una vez más, esta vez lentamente. |
| Megan: ¡Está super nublado hoy! |
| David: Y tampoco creo que se vaya a despejar. |
| Megan: ¡Ostras! Queríamos ir a la playa. |
| David: Ya, pero no es nada raro que haya nubes y niebla en Asturias. |
| Megan: Bueno, pues nada, podemos dar un paseíto. |
| David: Si es que no llueve, claro. |
| M4: This time with the translation. Ahora incluiremos la traducción. |
| Megan: “¡Está super nublado hoy!” - “It’s so cloudy out today!” |
| David: “Y tampoco creo que se vaya a despejar.” - “I don’t think it’s going to clear up either.” |
| Megan: “¡Ostras! Queríamos ir a la playa.” - “Chute! We wanted to go to the beach.” |
| David: “Ya, pero no es nada raro que haya nubes y niebla en Asturias.” - “I know, but it shouldn’t surprise you that it’s cloudy and foggy in Asturias.” |
| Megan: “Bueno, pues nada, podemos dar un paseíto.” - “Okay! Well, whatever, we can go for a little walk.” |
| David: “Si es que no llueve, claro.” - “As long as it doesn’t rain, sure!” |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Megan: Oye David, this week we get to talk about Green Spain, la España verde. |
| David: That’s my favorite part of Spain. |
| Megan: One of mine, too. I think most people would be surprised to find out that there’s a part of Spain where rains a lot and it looks a whole lot like Main or Ireland or Scotland, but with bigger snowcapped mountains. |
| David: Yes, and I think there’s a stereotype about the sunny Spain of Andalucía and the Meseta, but the whole Northern part of Spain like Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, the Basque country and Navarra are really green and wet. |
| Megan: And with big rocky coast lines, kind of like Main in the U.S. But, hey, I wanted to bring up something from the dialogue that’s so Spanish. |
| David: ¿El qué? |
| Megan: “Paseo” or the “paseíto” which means going for a walk, usually after lunch or dinner. |
| David: Yes, I think people might go crazy here if they stayed at home all the time. |
| Megan: Let me ask you, what’s your favorite place to take a “paseo” in Madrid? |
| David: Maybe El Retiro, el Parque del Retiro. And yours? |
| Megan: I think I’d have to choose la Gran Vía, the big street that goes right through the center of Madrid. I love walking down that street. |
| David: Yes, so many people, so many different people. Yes, it’s so crowdie. |
| Megan: It’s like a big river of people. |
| David: Yes. |
| Megan: Okay! Let’s get into this week’s conversation. It’s cloudy, but we don’t say “hace nubes”, the way that we say “hace calor”, do we? |
| David: That’s right! We say “está nublado”. In the Newbie Lesson they said: |
| M2: “Hay muchas nubes”. |
| F3: “There are a lot of clouds.” |
| David: And we said: “¡Está super nublado!”. |
| Megan: This time we used the verb “estar”. Can you explain why? |
| David: Porque las nubes vienen y van, no son permanentes. |
| Megan: Clouds come and go, so they aren’t permanent. Now, that makes sense. And is there any difference between saying “está nublado” or “hay nubes”? |
| David: Not really, da lo mismo. |
| Megan: “Da lo mismo” means “it doesn’t make much difference.” It’s like saying that there are clouds and it’s cloudy, which means more or less the same thing in English, too. Okay! Now getting a little bit into grammar, why don’t we talk about the “modo subjuntivo”, the Subjunctive Mood? This mood comes up all the time when you’re talking about weather since it’s hard to know whether or not something is going to happen in the future when you’re talking about the weather. So, let’s compare what they said in the Newbie Lesson: |
| F2: “Siempre hay nubes en Concepción”. |
| F3: “There are always clouds in Concepción.” |
| Megan: And how it turned out in our Iberian version which was: |
| David: “No es nada raro que haya nubes y niebla en Asturias”. |
| Megan: And this it literally translates as “It’s not”, well it’s kind of funny, “It’s not nothing strange that there are being clouds and fog in Asturias.” Obviously, that sounds crazy and awkward and weird. So, I translated it more lucidly as “It shouldn’t surprise you that it’s cloudy and foggy in Asturias.” Can you explain why we have the Subjunctive here when they don’t have it in the Newbie Lesson because the two mean more or less the same thing, don’t they? |
| David: It has something to do with subordinate sentence, something like “es raro que haya nubes”, but you know, I think that the best thing we can do is to learn this just this way, so always we say “es raro que” we have to use the Subjunctive Mood. |
| Megan: Or “es extraño que” which means the same thing. |
| David: Yes, that’s right. |
| Megan: “It’s strange that.” |
| David: “Raro”, “extraño”, is the same thing, yes. |
| Megan: Just memorize those phrases that always take the Subjunctive and then you start to get the idea, but I have to admit I actually made mistakes when I was doing this lesson with some of the Subjunctive, so it takes a really long time to figure it out. And what about the other sentence where the Subjunctive popped up? |
| David: For example, “tampoco creo que se vaya a despejar”. |
| Megan: “I don’t think it’s going to clear up either.” “Despejar” means that the clouds or the weather will clear up and “un cielo despejado” is a clear sky. But going back to the Subjunctive… |
| David: Okay! When you say that you don’t think something is going to happen with the verb “creer” it always goes in the “modo subjuntivo”. |
| Megan: So, if I said “no creo que va a llover”, that would be wrong, right? |
| David: That would be wrong. |
| Megan: So, can you say it the right way for us one more time? |
| David: Yes, I would say “no creo que vaya a llover”, the right way to say that and you use the Subjunctive Mood. |
| Megan: Okay! And if I said “creo que va a llover” that would be in the Indicative, right? We wouldn’t… |
| David: Yes, that’s right! That would be the Indicative. |
| Megan: So, it’s the “no”, it’s the negative that makes it. |
| David: Yes, yes. |
| Megan: Makes it Subjunctive. |
| David: That’s right! Hey, and did you notice something else about these two negative sentences? “No es nada raro que llueva” and “tampoco creo que vaya a llover”. |
| Megan: Well, they both have the verb “llover”. |
| David: Yes, but there’s something else. “Tampoco creo que vaya a llover” is negative that notice that we don’t use the double negative. |
| Megan: ¡Ah, claro! You don’t say “no tampoco creo” or “tampoco no creo”. That would sound really weird, wouldn’t it? |
| David: Right. |
| Megan: But why? Can you explain the rule? |
| David: Oh, sure! Even though Spanish uses the double negative a lot, when you put a negative word before the verb you don’t use “no”. |
| Megan: “Tampoco” which means “neither” or “either”, is a negative word, so is “nadie”, “nada”, “ningún”, “ninguna”, all those type of words, lot of them beginning with the letter “N”, so that’s a clue. |
| David: Right! So, if I “pospongo” or put “tampoco” behind the verb, “no creo tampoco que se vaya a despejar”. |
| Megan: Then you use the double negative “no creo tampoco”, because “tampoco” is afterwards. |
| David: Right! And if I put “tampoco” first, “tampoco creo que se vaya a despejar”, then I don’t need the word “no”. |
| Megan: Okay, I think I’ve got it. But give us one more example just to keep it clear. |
| David: Oh, okay. “Nadie ha ido a clase”, “no ha ido nadie a clase”. |
| Megan: Okay! And they both mean “No one went to class.” “Nadie ha ido” y “no ha ido nadie”. I think we’ve got it! So, just to recap, we use the Subjunctive Mood with a lot of negative subordinated clauses about hypothetical or future situations. |
| David: Right! |
| Megan: And we don’t use the double negative in cases where the negative word goes before the verb instead of after. |
| David: Right! |
| Megan: Okay! Wow, that was some heavy duty grammar. Let’s get into some fun stuff, like localisms. David, I’m going to put you on the spot. Would you like to explain why it is said “¡Ostras! Queríamos ir a la playa”? This literally means “Oysters, we want to go to the beach!” |
| David: Yes, okay! Well, I’ve mentioned before that we love shellfish, haven’t I? |
| Megan: So, what you’re saying is we can just use any random word for sea creatures and interjection so then I could just say “¡cangrejo!”. |
| David: Well, me has pillado. |
| Megan: Which means I’ve got you. Okay! David is really polite and he’s way too polite to say it, but I’m not, okay? So, “¡Ostras!” is a euphemism for a really vulgar expression in Spanish. The word I’m talking about is “Ostia” which literally means the communion way for the host. To explain this to non-Catholics, I’m talking about that circular thing that people are doing communion. |
| David: Yes. Esta palabra es un taco muy, muy fuerte. Pero muy fuerte... |
| Megan: That’s right! It’s a very, very offensive word for many people. So, “Ostras” is just a water down way of saying it, kind of like the word “Chute!” in English which obviously is a standing for something else. |
| David: Yes, exactly! |
| Megan: So, we didn’t want to offend anyone by mentioning it here, but I think it’s really important for foreigners to understand that what’s considered a bad word, totally varies according to the culture in question and Spain obviously has a very long history of being catholic, so most of the words vulgarities here in some way revolve around, we go just imagery to put it nicely. |
| David: Yes, that’s definitely true. And words having to do with the body and bodily functions tend to be less vulgar than in more puritanical countries, I think. |
| Megan: Right, exactly! And I think these nuances are so important because my feeling is that even though it’s tempting at times, those of us who learn a language and are speaking a language that isn’t out native language, should probably avoid using these sorts of words all together, at least until we’ve mastered the culture to the point where we understand every single nuance in contexts and I’m not even sure that’s possible, but… |
| David: Right, yes! Estoy totalmente de acuerdo. |
| Megan: Okay! Now that we have [inaudible 13:18], David, is really, seriously, he’s very polite, he didn’t want to mention it. I forgot to mention. You said “esta palabra es un taco muy fuerte”. Now, any Mexicans who might be listening along might’ve thought that you’re talking about a “taco” that you eat, that’s delicious. |
| David: Yes, es verdad. That’s true! In Spain, the word “taco” means the same as “palabrota”, a bad word or a vulgar word. |
| Megan: Okay! So, no more “tacos” for today, at least not of the vulgar variety. |
| David: Please! |
| Megan: I see in this dialogue that we have the word “super” again. |
| David: Yes, “¡Está super nublado!”. |
| Megan: “It’s super cloudy!” or “It’s so cloudy!” We saw something like this a few lessons back. |
| David: Right! We were talking about the “bocadillo de calamares” and said “están super crujientes”. |
| Megan: “They’re so crunchy.” Could you have said “está nubladísimo” instead of “está super nublado”? |
| David: Right, yes! You could have said “nubladísimo”, the superlative form for the adjective “nublado”. Well, maybe “super” is more informal. |
| Megan: Yes, “está super nublado” sounds more informal, something you would say to your friends more than… |
| David: Yes, right. You know, I wouldn’t say to my boss “This report is super good!”. |
| Megan: Right! It would sound kind of silly. Okay! I think we’ve seen it before, but in this conversation I say “Bueno, pues nada” after you tell me: |
| David: “No es nada raro que haya nubes y niebla en Asturias”. |
| Megan: And when I say “Bueno, pues nada” this is kind of a way of saying “Yes, whatever!”. Sometimes with a little attitude even, isn’t it? |
| David: Right! And then I say “Si es que no llueve, claro”. “Si es que” literally means “If it is that…” |
| Megan: Which I guess we would translate it as “As long as it doesn’t rain”, but it also kind of has a little bit of attitude, too, when you say that. Can you give us another example using “si es que”? |
| David: Yes, I would say we can use “si es que” with the second sentence or be in a negative or affirmative. So, we can say that the second clause of the sentence is in some way conditioning the first clause of the sentence. So, I would say “Voy a salir si es que tengo dinero”. |
| Megan: “I am going to go out as long as I have enough money” or “as long as I have money.” |
| David: This is affirmative, but we can use a negative clause if we say “Voy a dormirme si es que mis amigos no me llaman para salir”. |
| Megan: Right! “I’m going to go to sleep as long as my friends don’t give me a call to go out.” |
| David: Right! |
| Megan: Okay! And how about “claro”? |
| David: “Si es que no llueve, claro”. “Claro” is a really common exclamation, it means something like “Sure!” or “Of course!”. |
| Megan: Yes, “claro” is used so much. I put it right up there with “vale”, which we saw a few lessons back. “¡Vale!” means “Okay!” or “All right!” and “¡Claro!” means “Of course!” or “Sure!”, so these are both like just really useful words. |
| David: Yes, very useful. Vale, pues nada, ya se va haciendo tarde. |
Outro |
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| Megan: Sí, sí, bueno. You’re right! I guess it’s time to go! Okay. See you soon! |
| David: ¡Hasta la próxima! |
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