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| INTRODUCTION |
| Megan: ¡Bienvenidos a Spanishpod101.com! |
| David: ¡Buenos días! Soy David. |
| Megan: And I’m Megan. Iberian Spanish Series, Lesson 23. |
| David: “¿Hablas español?” |
| David: Today’s lesson references Newbie Lesson 23 – “Can you speak Spanish?”, so be sure to check that out on our website. |
| Megan: Also in this lesson we’re going to look at the use of the verb “poder”. |
| Megan: Okay! Let’s get started by going back to Newbie Lesson 23 where we heard the following conversation: |
| DIALOGUE |
| GUILLERMO: ¿Usted puede hablar en español? |
| JUANA: Sí. Yo puedo hablar un poco de español. |
| GUILLERMO: Usted habla bien en español. |
| JUANA: Hablo bien, pero un poco no más. |
| M3: This time with the translation. Ahora incluiremos la traducción. |
| GUILLERMO: ¿Usted puede hablar en español? |
| M3: “Can you speak Spanish, madam?” |
| JUANA: Sí. Yo puedo hablar un poco de español. |
| F3: “Yes, I can speak a bit of Spanish.” |
| GUILLERMO: Usted habla bien en español. |
| M3: “Madam, you speak Spanish well.” |
| JUANA: Hablo bien, pero un poco no más. |
| F3: “I speak well, but just a bit.” |
| David: And now let’s hear what that sounds like in Iberian Spanish: |
| David: ¿Hablas español? |
| Megan: ¡Claro! Pero aún me falta mucho para empezar a sonar como si fuera de aquí. |
| David: ¡Qué exigente eres! Tu español es mejor que mi inglés y seguro que, en muchos aspectos, mejor que mi español. |
| Megan: ¡Hala! ¡Qué exagerado! Aún tengo que mejorar mucho. |
| E: Once again, slowly. Una vez más, esta vez lentamente. |
| David: ¿Hablas español? |
| Megan: ¡Claro! Pero aún me falta mucho para empezar a sonar como si fuera de aquí. |
| David: ¡Qué exigente eres! Tu español es mejor que mi inglés y seguro que, en muchos aspectos, mejor que mi español. |
| Megan: ¡Hala! ¡Qué exagerado! Aún tengo que mejorar mucho. |
| E: This time with the translation. Ahora incluiremos la traducción. |
| David: “¿Hablas español?” - “Can you speak Spanish?” |
| Megan: “¡Claro! Pero aún me falta mucho para empezar a sonar como si fuera de aquí.” - “Of course, but I need to improve a lot before I sound like I’m from here.” |
| David: “¡Qué exigente eres! Tu español es mejor que mi inglés y seguro que, en muchos aspectos, mejor que mi español.” - “You’re so demanding. Your Spanish is better than my English and I’m sure that in many ways better than my own Spanish.” |
| Megan: ¡Hala! ¡Qué exagerado! Aún tengo que mejorar mucho.” - “Wow, what an exaggeration. I have so much to work on, still.” |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| David: Hola, Megan. ¿Cómo va todo? How is everything going on? |
| Megan: Uy, uf, ¡exámenes! I have my exams, so I’m a little bit stressed. |
| David: Well, it’s not bad that this year we’re having so much rain because otherwise it would be hard to stay at home studying instead of lying on the grass. |
| Megan: That’s so true because normally, at this time of the year, it’s just so sunny and all the students surround in the grass, just laying out their slacking off, but not too sure know it’s been raining a lot. But it’s true, I mean they’re more, I think they’re more students who slack off and plan “botellón” in the grass then there in the classrooms, don’t you think? |
| David: Okay! Well, ¡qué exagerada! |
| Megan: Exaggerated? |
| David: I think you’re becoming very Spanish in those exaggerations. Will you say when it’s hot “estoy deshidratada”? |
| Megan: “I’m dehydrated.” No, but my son does. Okay! Why don’t we start out today with the sound of the “H” letter? Okay, David? |
| David: Perfect! So, about the sound of the “H.” |
| Megan: David? |
| David: Yes? You asked me of the sound of “H” and that is no sound. |
| Megan: That was a really bad joke. |
| David: Okay! We say in Spanish “la hache es muda”. |
| Megan: “The H is dome”, or “silent.” But, that’s true, unlike in English, in Spanish you never pronounce the “H” at all, unless it comes after a “C”, of course, in that case it becomes a “che”. Can you give us some examples with the silent “H” and with the “Che”? |
| David: Of course! Here you have one with both: “Hacha”. |
| Megan: “Axe.” |
| David: “Hacha”. And another one, “hecho”. |
| Megan: “Done” or “fact”. |
| David: “Hecho”. And one with silent “H”: “Hospital”. |
| Megan: “Hospital.” |
| David: “Hospital”. And one with the “Che”: “Chaqueta”. |
| Megan: Great! And do you know, I think today we just have so many “jota” sounds. |
| David: Yes, you’re right, you’re right! It’s “exigente”, “mejor”, “exagerado” and “mejorar”. |
| Megan: Is it really so common that sound in Spanish? I feel like we’re going to destroy the microphone saying all of those. |
| David: Absolutely. You know, when we have work on this lesson, we rolled this Iberian version and we have come up with all these words, so we weren’t looking just for them. They appeared, so… |
| Megan: It’s just normal. |
| David: It’s very common, yes. |
| Megan: And everybody needs to remember that this is a very hard guttural sound and you may need more practice and it may sound stronger in Iberian Spanish than in other regional versions, or even in the Southern Spain, where it’s more “suave”, right? |
| David: That’s right! Yes, I think it’s more, you know, something like “jamón” or more... |
| Megan: Yes, “jamón”, more like an “H” sound, actually, I think in Mexico it’s like that “ha”, it’s more like the regular English “H” sound. Okay, David! I think it’s interesting to compare the first line in both versions. In the Newbie Lesson we heard: |
| M2: ¿Usted puede hablar en español? |
| Megan: Which is translated as “Can you speak in Spanish?” |
| David: Right, and the Iberian version is: “¿Hablas español?” which is literally translated as “Do you speak Spanish?”, though it has the meaning of “Can you speak Spanish?”. |
| Megan: The obvious difference is that in Iberian Spanish you use the form “tú”, while in the standard version they use the form “usted”. |
| David: Right! And you can see that the way the question is made, is different. |
| Megan: Why don’t you use the verb “poder”, which is roughly the Spanish version for “can”? |
| David: Well, “poder” is mainly used when we are talking about an action that there is a possibility that we can’t do, that it might be for some reason impossible for us to do, but not for an ability that we can have or no train. |
| Megan: Okay! I see. So, if we can speak a language, everybody knows that I can speak already and the fact that I speak Spanish isn’t impossible, it’s just a question of how much I’ve studied. |
| David: Right! I would ask “¿Puedes hablar?”, which means “Can you speak?”, if you have had some accident and there is a chance to have suffered, then losing your voice, but I say “¿Hablas inglés?” if I know that you have the ability to speak, but I don’t know if you have studied that language. |
| Megan: Right! “¿Puedes hablar?” is like “Do you have the capacity to actually emit sound.” |
| David: That’s right. Right! |
| Megan: Not can you speak a language. Let’s think of another situation like “¿Puedes venir?”, “I don’t know whether there’s some reason that you can’t come” or “¿Vienes?”, “I know that you can’t come, but now it’s up to you to come.” |
| David: Good! And for example, I could say in some situation “¿Puedes comer carne?”, if I know you suffered an illness and I’m not sure whether you can or can’t eat meat, but I would say “¿Comes carne?” if I know you aren’t ill and it’s just your decision to eat it. |
| Megan: Okay, good! I wanted to bring up one other quick thing that people coming to Spain might notice that instead of “español” it’s often the language is also called frequently “castellano”, right? |
| David: Right. |
| Megan: And almost more, maybe. I don’t know, maybe half and half. Some people might say “Hablas castellano”, ¿no? |
| David: Right, yes! You know, it’s something like a political question, I think that in international situations it’s always called Spanish, but here in Spain you know that it’s not only Spanish that is a language, an official language, it’s “gallego” too and “catalán”, and “vasco”. |
| Megan: So, you can step on some toes if you call “castellano” which is really, was the dialect in Castilla and then developed into this world wide language that we know everywhere. |
| David: Right, so, you know, in some way all of these four languages are “español” too, because they are spoken in Spain. So, you know, just to try to make a difference between these Spanish languages you say “castellano”. |
| Megan: Right! Okay! I think that’s clear. And, David, ¿podemos terminar? |
| David: Of course we can. You know, there’s no reason for doing that. |
| Megan: Entonces, terminamos. |
| David: Sure! |
Outro |
|---|
| David: So, that will do it for today’s lesson. ¡Nos vemos! |
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