Learn the use of the gerund with the verb "ir" (to go)
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Megan: ¡Bienvenidos a Spanishpod101.com! |
| David: ¡Buenos días! Me llamo David. |
| Megan: And I’m Megan. Iberian Spanish Series, Lesson 31. |
| David: “Me haría mucha ilusión”. |
| Megan: “It would mean a lot to me.” |
| Well, last time José, as we know, literally got caught with his pants down by María, as you said I think “ha metido la tercera pata”, and we’re not translating that! And this week, our two “tortolitas” Carmen and Pedro are all sweetness in light. |
| David: I guess that actually missing their last metro works. |
| Megan: Definitively. That’s a good one! Write that down, people. Oh and before, I forget, this lesson references Newbie Lesson 31 - “Eliana y Ernesto, enamorados”, so be sure to check that out on our website. |
| Megan: Okay, here we go. It’s good to see a little happiness after the dark darkness of our last week’s dialogue. Let’s go back to Newbie Lesson 31 where we hear the following conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| ELIANA: Ernesto, toda mi familia hace la misma pregunta. |
| ERNESTO: ¿Qué cosa? |
| ELIANA: ¿Cuándo, Ernesto, cuándo? |
| ERNESTO: ¿Cuándo qué? |
| ELIANA: ¿Cuándo nos formalizamos? |
| ERNESTO: Por tí, amor, hago cualquier cosa. |
| M3: And now, with the translation. Ahora incluiremos la traducción. |
| ELIANA: Ernesto, toda mi familia hace la misma pregunta. |
| F3: “Ernesto, my whole family is asking the same question.” |
| ERNESTO: ¿Qué cosa? |
| M4: “What’s that?” |
| ELIANA: ¿Cuándo, Ernesto, cuándo? |
| F3: “When, Ernesto, when?!” |
| ERNESTO: ¿Cuándo qué? |
| M4: “When what?” |
| ELIANA: ¿Cuándo nos formalizamos? |
| F3: “When are we going to make it formal!” |
| ERNESTO: Por tí, amor, hago cualquier cosa. |
| M4: “For you, baby, I’ll do anything.” |
| Megan: Okay, I hope all of those hopeless romantics out there are taking notes. Ernesto es super suave. |
| David: Yes. |
| Megan: Okay. Let’s see what’s going on in España with our happy, happy couple. |
| Megan: Pablo, ¿no crees que ya va siendo hora? |
| David: ¿De qué, mi tortolita? |
| Megan: ¿Pues de qué va a ser? ¡De casarnos! |
| David: ¿De verdad crees que es necesario? |
| Megan: A mí me haría mucha ilusión. |
| David: Mi amor, ¡pues por ti nos casamos mañana mismo! |
| -- |
| M3: And now, slower. Una vez más, esta vez lentamente. |
| Megan: Pablo, ¿no crees que ya va siendo hora? |
| David: ¿De qué, mi tortolita? |
| Megan: ¿Pues de qué va a ser? ¡De casarnos! |
| David: ¿De verdad crees que es necesario? |
| Megan: A mí me haría mucha ilusión. |
| David: Mi amor, ¡pues por ti nos casamos mañana mismo! |
| M3: And now, with the translation. Ahora incluiremos la traducción. |
| Megan: “Pablo, ¿no crees que ya va siendo hora?” - “Pablo, don’t you think it’s getting to about time?” |
| David: “¿De qué, mi tortolita?” - “Time for what, my little [turtle dove]?” |
| Megan: “¿Pues de qué va a ser? ¡De casarnos!” - “Well, what do you think? To get married.” |
| David: “¿De verdad crees que es necesario?” - “Do you really think we need to?” |
| Megan: “A mí me haría mucha ilusión.” - “It would really mean a lot to me.” |
| David: “Mi amor, ¡pues por ti nos casamos mañana mismo!” - “Sweetie, for you, tomorrow wouldn’t be soon enough.” |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Megan: Okay, so Carmen and Pablo are pretty “hippie” and “moderno”, they’re hooking up, you know, after the last “metro” but she still wants to get married. |
| David: Yeah, a lot of people here do live together for a while before getting married. |
| Megan: What do you think David? Are relationships in Spain changed a lot since you were a little kid? You were really young during the “transición”, ¿no? |
| David: Right, yeah. Things have changed a lot. Very much. You know, you can’t believe in thirty years things have changed so much. |
| Megan: Right. Like for example, between your parent’s generation and your generation it’s like what the ’60 was like in the United States, but faster. |
| David: Yeah, very much. |
| Megan: It’s insane. |
| David: You can’t imagine that people lived together equaled getting married or having kids without getting married. So many things. |
| Megan: Yeah. Well, let’s see what happens with Carmen and Pablo. |
| David: Okay, let’s go there. |
| Megan: Okay, getting into the grammar a bit. |
| David: “Mi amor, ¡pues por ti nos casamos mañana mismo!” |
| Megan: Now, can you explain why you use “por ti”? |
| David: Okay, since I’m not giving anything to nobody, I’d say “por” because I’m doing something for you but I’m not giving you something. |
| Megan: “Lo hago por ti”. |
| David: Right. “Para” is only when I’m going to give something to someone. |
| Megan: Normally, you know, you say “gracias por...” something, “hacer algo por…”, “you’re doing it for…” It’s complicated. It’s hard... |
| David: Yeah. |
| Megan: It’s one of the things you just have to get used to while hearing it. |
| David: Yeah, but you know, I’ll say, for example, that if I’m not giving anything material, I would say “por”. |
| Megan: “Por”. |
| David: So, I’m doing these for… |
| Megan: And if here is a “regalo para ti”. |
| David: Right. |
| Megan: Because it’s a thing that you’re giving to a person. |
| David: Right. |
| Megan: Okay. And that’s complicated, people just have to practice and listen. Open up your ears for that. I still make mistakes for that, too. |
| David: You have to get accustomed to that. |
| Megan: Here we have a couple of examples of expressions that just don’t translate well in English, so I thought we could talk about that a little bit. |
| David: Oh really? Like what? |
| Megan: First off, we have “ya va siendo hora de”, I translated that as “it’s getting to be about time to do something”. Here in English translation, the verb “to get” just doesn’t translate into Spanish and in this case, we have the progressively, so the verb “ser”, “va siendo”, “it goes being”, which does not translate into English, so you can see that it’s just one of these cases where you have to understand it that one doesn’t translate into the other and you have to find the equivalence. |
| David: So how do you literally translate “ya va siendo hora de”? |
| Megan: “Now it goes being the hour of”, which sounds crazy. |
| David: Worst words like this. |
| Megan: Well, even a simple expression like “mañana mismo” really “me costaba”, I was thinking how can I translate “mañana mismo” because we don’t have an expression like that in English. |
| David: Yeah, that’s true. I guess it literally means “the same tomorrow”. |
| Megan: Yeah, but we don’t say anything like that in English, so I translated it very loosely as “tomorrow wouldn’t be soon enough” which is the basic idea of what we were saying in the dialogue and “mismo” is used a lot like this. Can you give me another example of a time whit “mismo”? |
| David: Yes. “Ahora mismo”, “right now”. |
| Megan: Right. Because here in Spain, we don’t say “ahorita”, like they do in many Latin American countries to mean “right now” or “ahoritita” or any you can get mental out of different ways. |
| David: And anymore? |
| Megan: Well, this week pretty much everything is like this, but because after she says “ya va siendo hora”, Pablo says... |
| David: “¿De qué?”. |
| Megan: And then she says “¿De qué va a ser?” which literally means “for what is it going to be”. |
| David: Yeah, but you can’t say that in English, right? |
| Megan: No, no. We wouldn’t say “for what is it going to be”, that sounds strange. We would say “What do you think?” or “What do you think I’m talking about?” It’s sort of a way of being incredulous that the person didn’t already know what you were talking about which we think Pablo probably did. He’s just playing dumb, right? |
| David: Right. She thinks he’s playing dumb. |
| Megan: Yeah. Any probabilities. So, it’s good to remember that literal translations help us understand what’s going on grammatically, but they don’t get us too far when we’re actually trying to communicate with real people. |
| David: Well, I think the best way to learn is to really listen to what native speakers saying in particular situations then start imitating. |
| Megan: Yeah, that’s right. You have to sort of start like a parrot. |
| -- |
| Megan: Okay, now we’re going to look at a couple of localisms, well I think it’s localisms. I don’t think they use this expression in Latin America like “hacer ilusión” which means “to mean a lot to somebody” or “to make somebody feel excited” or happy. It’s used a lot. Is that an informal expression that would you say? |
| David: No, no, not really informal. You could use it in any situation. But, you know, “hacer ilusión” it’s “to someone”. “Me hace ilusión”, “te hace ilusión”, you would never say “hace ilusión”. |
| Megan: Right. |
| David: You know, it’s “to me” or... |
| Megan: Right, like she says “me haría ilusión”. |
| David: Right. |
| Megan: “That would mean a lot to me”, it’s how I translated it. |
| David: Yeah. |
| Megan: Because it’s kind of what it means or “That would really make me happy”. Más o menos, ¿no? |
| David: Right. |
| Megan: And are there any other expressions with “ilusión” that you can think of? I think that’s a word that it’s used a lot. |
| David: Well, I would say that youngers would say something like “¡qué ilu!”. |
| Megan: “¡Qué ilu!”, yeah. “¡Qué ilusión!”. |
| David: Yeah, “¡Qué ilusión!”. |
| Megan: Which is like “Oh, that’s so exciting!” “That’s so…” But... |
| David: And this case is very... |
| Megan: Young girls can... it’s very like “pija”? |
| David: Oh, maybe... |
| Megan: “Pija” which is kind of “posh” or I don’t know even how to say it in American English, but you know that there is a certain type that “pija” was translated a certain way and “¡Qué ilu!”. And here we have another diminutive, kind of romantic diminutive, “tortolita”, which is very sweet, right? “Little [turtle dove]”. |
| David: Yeah, very much. |
| Megan: And... |
| David: This is a very small kind of bird. |
| Megan: And they like to snuggle together while doing something. |
| David: Right. When you are talking about persons who are kissing each other, always hugging each other, they are “tortolitos”. |
| Megan: “Tortolitos” which is why we call “lovebirds” I think in English, so. And I think it’s important to mention that with diminutives like this they’re used a lot in particular situations, like for example people who are in love, trying to hook up, with children when people talk to children, right? You hear, you know, even when someone would never expect to use diminutives all of the sudden, you know, you don’t want to speak to the birdy guy, might say “Oh, mira el chavalito, y tal…” and with the animals, some people talk to the animals. |
| David: Mi perrito. |
| Megan: “Mi perrito” like with your wife with the little dog you guys adopted, from time to time. So, you know, there’s something that’s sort of situational. And I wanted to bring one last grammatical kind of thing which is, I think we mentioned it in the past that repeating – Spanish can be so repetitive. “A mí me haría mucha ilusión”. |
| David: Right. So I’m saying “Me would be very…”. |
| Megan: “Excited” |
| David: Yeah. |
| Megan: Or “Happy” and that “a mí” is just to reinforce the idea. |
| David: Right. |
| Megan: “Me haría mucha ilusión”, you can say that just to... |
| David: You could say just “Me haría mucha ilusión”, that would be enough. But if you say “A mí me haría” you’re emphasizing a bit that expression. |
| Megan: Yeah, she’s turning the screws a little bit there. |
| David: So please, give it to me. |
| Megan: Give it what I want, I need it! |
Outro |
|---|
| David: Well I think our time is up! |
| Megan: Hey, I think this is our last romance lesson that we’re going to get to see. Guess what’s coming next! |
| David: What? |
| Megan: Gastro and intestinal distress. |
| David: I wonder if the two are related? |
| Megan: Well, sometimes they are, for sure. Just have to come back and find out. See you soon! |
| David: ¡Hasta la próxima! |
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