Learn present tense of the indicative mood can be used to give a command
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Beatriz: Buenos días, me llamo Beatriz. |
| Joseph: What’s up? I’m Joseph. “Present Command”. |
| Beatriz: Bienvenidos todo el mundo. |
| Joseph: Hola Beatriz, ¿qué hay de nuevo? |
| Beatriz: Nada pues. Con ganas de comenzar otra lección en SpanishPod101.com |
| Joseph: Welcome, everyone, to another edition of the Verb Conjugation Series. |
| Beatriz: Today, we have lesson 8. |
Lesson focus |
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| Joseph: That’s right. Today we’re going to continue with our study of the Present Tense, this time focusing on how it can be used to express commands. |
| Beatriz: Mandatos. |
| Joseph: Mandatos, así es. In this lesson, we’ll also look at the formation of the verbs “dar” – “to give”, “ver” – “to see” and “oír” – “to hear”, giving you the low down at how to remember their forms. |
| Beatriz: And providing you with examples that makes this verbs easy to understand. |
| Joseph: So, one of the things that’s interesting about the usage that we’re looking at today is that it can replace “el Modo Imperativo” – “the Imperative Mood”. |
| Beatriz: Claro, y en muchos casos resulta más cortés usar el modo presente del modo indicativo en vez del modo imperativo. |
| Joseph: That’s just where I’m getting at. As we’ll see in today’s lesson, in many cases, it’s more polite to use the present command in place of the Imperative Mood. It kind of softens the command a little bit. |
| Beatriz: ¡Qué bueno que podamos estudiar cada uso del tiempo presente! |
| Joseph: De acuerdo. Studying each usage of the Present Tense is extremely useful. Even for all of you more advanced students. I mean, even though you may know how to conjugate the verbs we’re looking at, you might be surprised to learn about the usages that we’re covering here. |
| Beatriz: Bueno, ¿empezamos ya? |
| Joseph: Pull on your hats and join us for another lesson of Spanishpod101. |
| Beatriz: Entonces, ¿cómo es que el tiempo presente puede expresar un mandato? |
| Joseph: How can the Present Tense express a command? |
| Beatriz: Yes. |
| Joseph: Digamos que estás en un café. Let’s say you’re in a café. |
| Beatriz: Okay. |
| Joseph: And you want to order “un café cortado”, this is kind of like a mini cappuccino. |
| Beatriz: Okay, all right. |
| Joseph: And, it’s kind of a nice place, so you’re inclining to speak to the waiter formally, address the commands “usted”, how about you order it? |
| Beatriz: Bueno, podría decir “deme un café cortado, por favor”. |
| Joseph: Right. “Deme un café cortado”. Now, what’s the verb here? |
| Beatriz: It’s “deme”. |
| Joseph: “Deme”. And literally this means “give me”, right? |
| Beatriz: Yup. |
| Joseph: And, what’s the mood of this? |
| Beatriz: Es el imperativo. |
| Joseph: Exactly. It’s the Imperative Mood, “deme”. And if this café were a place where there’re more younger people and the overall feel of it is more informal, how would you order your “café cortado” addressing the waiter informally? |
| Beatriz: Okay. That would be “dame un café cortado, por favor”. |
| Joseph: Right, “dame un café cortado, por favor”. So here we see the informal command “dame” instead of the formal one “deme”. And in both cases we’re using the verb “dar” – “to give”, aren’t we? |
| Beatriz: We are. |
| Joseph: Okay. Now, how do you say “you give me” in the formal sense? |
| Beatriz: Sería “usted me da” o simplemente “me da”. |
| Joseph: Right. It would be either “usted me da” with the personal pronoun “usted” or without it, just “me da” – “you give me”. And informally? |
| Beatriz: “Me das”. |
| Joseph: Right. So, here we’re looking at the second person singular, the informal “you”, “tú me das” – “you give me”. |
| Beatriz: Right. |
| Joseph: Now, let’s suppose that you want to order this café cortado and you still want to do it formally, but this time you want to soften your command a bit. I mean, you want to tell him what to give you, but you don’t want your order to sound so bossy. |
| Beatriz: En este caso podría decir “¿me da un café cortado, por favor?” |
| Joseph: Nice. “¿Me da un café cortado, por favor?”. And here the verb “da” is in what mood? |
| Beatriz: Now, it’s in Indicative Mood. |
| Joseph: And what tense? |
| Beatriz: The Present Tense. |
| Joseph: And it’s still a command, right? |
| Beatriz: It is. |
| Joseph: And if you want to give the same kind of order, softening it a bit, but this time even a little more informally. What might you say? |
| Beatriz: “¿Me das un café cortado, por favor?”. |
| Joseph: “¿Me das un café cortado, por favor?”. And again, we see that the verb “das” is now in the second person singular, the two form, that informal “you” and it’s in the Present Tense of the Indicative Mood, right? |
| Beatriz: Right. |
| Joseph: And we’re still expressing a command even though we’re not using the Imperative Mood? |
| Beatriz: Así es. |
| Joseph: So, in light of this we can say that the Present Tense of the Indicative Mood can be used with an Imperative value. |
| Beatriz: ¡Claro! Con el presente como mandato describimos una acción que alguien tiene que realizar según nuestro pedido. |
| Joseph: Bien dicho. When we use the Present as a command, we describe an action that someone else must carry out on account of our order. |
| Beatriz: Ahora a las formaciones. |
| Joseph: Me parece muy bien. Let’s take a look at how the verbs “dar”, “ver” and “oír” are formed in the Present Tense of the Indicative Mood. |
| Beatriz: ¿Y dónde empezamos? |
| Joseph: Let’s begin with the irregular first conjugation verb “dar” – “to give”. Now, the interesting thing about this verb is that its stem is simply the letter “d” and that in the first person singular it has that “oy” ending which we also saw with “estar”, “estoy” and “ser”, “soy”, and also with “ir”, “voy”. You should also know that there’re no accent on the verb “dar” in this tense and mood. Okay, Beatriz. Shall we run through the conjugation? |
| Beatriz: Yes. |
| Joseph: Okay. |
| Beatriz: Let’s go. “Dar”. |
| Joseph: “To give.” |
| Beatriz: “Yo doy”. |
| Joseph: “I give.” |
| Beatriz: “Tú das”. |
| Joseph: “You give.” |
| Beatriz: “Él da”. |
| Joseph: “He gives.” |
| Beatriz: “Nosotros damos”. |
| Joseph: “We give.” |
| Beatriz: “Vosotros dais”. |
| Joseph: “You all give.” |
| Beatriz: “Ellos dan”. |
| Joseph: “They give.” All right, great. And now, if we could come up with a couple of examples to make this easier to remember? |
| Beatriz: “Él me da la mano”. |
| Joseph: Okay, “He gives me his hand.” |
| Beatriz: “Yo le doy mi apoyo”. |
| Joseph: “I give him my support” or “I give her my support.” |
| Beatriz: “Él da mucha energía”. |
| Joseph: In this case, we would say “He gives off a lot of energy.” Well, that’s really great, Bea. That makes it easier to remember. And now, with the irregular second conjugation verb “ver” we see something similar to what we saw with “dar”. With “ver”, the stem is simply the letter “v” and the first person singular has a very interesting form. |
| Beatriz: ¡Claro! |
| Joseph: Here we’ll see the ending “eo”, “veo”, and with the verb “ver” in this tense and mood, there are no accents on any of the forms. All right, Bea. Shall we begin? |
| Beatriz: Okay. “Ver”. |
| Joseph: “To see.” |
| Beatriz: “Yo veo”. |
| Joseph: “I see.” |
| Beatriz: “Tú ves”. |
| Joseph: “You see.” |
| Beatriz: “Él ve”. |
| Joseph: “He sees.” |
| Beatriz: “Nosotros vemos”. |
| Joseph: “We see.” |
| Beatriz: “Vosotros veis”. |
| Joseph: “You all see.” |
| Beatriz: “Ellos ven”. |
| Joseph: “They see.” Okay. And now, a few examples to really get this to stick. I can say “Veo por donde vas” – “I see where you’re going.” |
| Beatriz: Yes. And another one, maybe like very figurative “Yo veo el horizonte”. |
| Joseph: “I see the horizon.” Okay, that’s a good one. So, with ver you have that sense of perception. You can also say “Ya veo”. And that means “I see” or “I understand”, right? |
| Beatriz: Right. |
| Joseph: Okay. And now, moving on to the verb “oír”. This one is pretty irregular. In the Infinitive we see that the “i” has an accent, “oír”, and in the first person singular we have a really interesting form “o-i-g-o”. It’s pretty irregular. It doesn’t really follow too many patterns. And there’s an interesting thing that happens with this verb “oír”. The “i” sometimes switches to “oi” and that happens in the second person singular, the third person singular and then again in the third person plural. And in all of the other cases, except for the first person singular, the “i” is accented. Okay. Beatriz, can we run through this conjugation? |
| Beatriz: Of course. “Oír”. |
| Joseph: “To hear.” |
| Beatriz: “Yo oigo”. |
| Joseph: “I hear.” |
| Beatriz: “Tú oyes”. |
| Joseph: “You hear.” |
| Beatriz: “Él oye”. |
| Joseph: “He hears.” |
| Beatriz: “Nosotros oímos”. |
| Joseph: “We hear.” |
| Beatriz: “Vosotros oís”. |
| Joseph: “You all hear.” |
| Beatriz: “Ellos oyen”. |
| Joseph: “They hear.” Okay. And Beatriz, if you would be so kind and give us a couple of examples with the verb “oír”. |
| Beatriz: “Yo oigo un ruido”. |
| Joseph: Okay. “I hear a noise.” That’s a good one. We could also say “¿Me oyes?”. |
| Beatriz: That’s right. |
| Joseph: Right. “Do you hear me?” |
| Beatriz: Yes. “Tú oyes la música”. |
| Joseph: Okay, “You hear the music.” And we can also mention as we’re explaining this that “oír” and “escuchar” have similar meanings. “Escuchar” means “to listen”, while “oír” means “to hear”. |
| Beatriz: Yes, “to hear”. And this comfortable word “oído”. “El oído” is “the ear”. |
| Joseph: That’s right, “oído” is “ear.” And another really useful word to learn as long a we’re looking at the verb “oír” is “oye” and we don’t translate that as “Hear”, but as “Hey.” And “oye” is the informal command and the formal command is “oiga”. And, again, it means “Hey.”. |
| Beatriz: Yes. It’s pretty interesting, right? |
| Joseph: It is. Bea, yet again, this has been another great lesson. |
| Beatriz: Sí, ya hemos estudiado varios usos en el tiempo presente. |
| Joseph: Yes, and by studying all of these different usages, we’re starting to get a bigger picture of the possibilities of this tense. |
| Beatriz: Claro. Sure. |
Outro |
| Joseph: All right. We’ll see you soon! |
| Beatriz: See you soon! |
| Joseph: ¡Hasta luego! |
| Beatriz: Bye bye! |
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