By Os
¡Feliz Año Nuevo amigos! ¿How were your holidays? ¿Did you enjoy them?
Snowball. It is hard to get one around here, isn’t it? Well, not this kind of snowball…
This snowball is made of Spanish. We are gonna start with isolated words and by the end of this article you will be speaking full sentences, actually paragraphs. Sounds cool, doesn’t it?
For our first Snowball we are going to use the first three “Times Tables Verbs”: Hablar, Comer, Vivir. Here we go:
To speak ↔ Hablar
I speak ↔ Hablo
I speak Spanish ↔ Hablo español
To make a negation just put “no” in front of the verb
I don’t speak ↔ No hablo
I don’t speak Spanish ↔ No hablo español
I’m sure you know how to say “much” ↔ mucho
I don’t speak much Spanish ↔ No hablo mucho español
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By Os
¡Hola amigos! ¿Did you watch the games of “La Sele”? They did amazingly great, didn’t they? ¡¡We made historia for sure!!
Last month we learned a super handy rule: The 2 WEEKS rule. ¿Remember how it goes? It goes like this:
The 2 WEEKS rule is a handy rule that we can use to clarify when to use “SER” and “ESTAR” and when not. It is not perfect, it is not always accurate but, as I said it’s pretty handy. This is how it works:
If something might not change in less than two weeks, then we must use “SER.”
AND
If something may change in less than two weeks, then we must use “ESTAR.”
Last month we saw several examples when we can apply the rule. This month we are gonna see some examples of exceptions when NOT to apply the rule. Ready?
SER = TO be #1
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I s oy
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you, s/he, it es
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we s omos
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you all, they s on
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If something might not change in less than two weeks, then we must use “SER.”
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By Os
Parte 1.
SER = TO be
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I s oy
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you, s/he, it es
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we s omos
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you all, they s on
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The 2 WEEKS rule is a handy rule that we can use to clarify when to use “SER” and when not. It is not perfect, it is not always accurate but, as I said it’s pretty handy. This is how it works, if something might not change in less than two weeks, then we must use “SER”.
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ComER = TO eat
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I com o
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you, s/he, it com e
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we com emos
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you all, they com en
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-ER verbs are the second set of verbs that you need to master. You will find that a lot of the verbs that you will use in Spanish are ER verbs… Find an –ER verb, go to the 2 Times Table pattern, pick up the endings, and use the word in context, ¡as often as you can! It’s called “practice”.
¡Let’s practice! Let’s do a brainstorm using the verb comer.
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HablAR = TO speak/TO talk
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I habl o
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you, s/he, it habl a
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we habl amos
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you all, they habl an
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I am pretty sure you know why this verb is important… Right! It is important because it is the pattern that you follow when you have to conjugate hundreds of –AR verbs.
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By Oz
I know, I know. I know that I already gave you (according to me) the twelve most important verbs EVER. I call them “The Times Tables” because as in math, if you learn them by heart you will be able to do bigger operations and; most important, you will know how to play with them the rest of your life.
¡Let’s make them smaller!
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By Os
Feliz día de la amistad y del amor – Happy Valentine’s Day.
Because this is the month of friendship I am gonna introduce you to someone that I think should be your new B.F.F. He calls himself Señor Jordan, he’s from the U.S.A. and he is very humble and funny, kind of brilliant sometimes. I think he is a hard working person, his English is as perfect as yours and his Spanish is as good as mine.
But these are not the reasons I want you to become his friend…
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By Oz
¡Feliz Año Nuevo gente! = ¡Happy New Year people! I hope you had a Feliz Navidad. ¡Bendiciones=Blessings!
I know, I know. I know that this is NOT an article about matemáticas, but I want to start this year giving you (according to me) the twelve most important verbs EVER. I call them “The Times Tables” because as in math, if you learn them by heart you will be able to do bigger operations and; most important, you will know how to play with them the rest of your life. Here we go!!!
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By Os
¡Feliz Navidad amig@s! Quick review, before we start I need you to be sure that you can both understand and say these lifesaving pregunta words.
- ¿Cómo? = ¿How?
- ¿Qué? = ¿What?
- ¿Dónde? = ¿Where?
- ¿Cuándo? = ¿When?
- ¿Cuál? = ¿Which?
- ¿Quién? = ¿Who?
- ¿Cuánt@? = ¿How much?
- ¿Cuánt@s? = ¿How many?
- ¿Por qué? = ¿Why?
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By Os
Hola amig@s. ¿Todo bien? Today this column is celebrating two years of being around. Muchas gracias for reading it, and saying good things about it. You can find this and the other 22 (veintidós) articles on this website: www.OsCostaRica.com.
I saw my friend Tom yesterday and he started to ask me questions about my weekend. Check the conversation…
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By Os
Hola amig@s. ¿Todo bien? ¿Remember what we learned one year ago? I do. Let’s review it pretty quick.
We learned that there are three big types of verbs:
The verbos that end in “AR”, like HablAR;
The verbos that end in “ER”, like ComER;
The verbos that end in “IR”, like VivIR.
We learned three important “action words” or verbs. Notice that they all end in –R and they all mean to do something:
HablAR=TO speak; ComER=TO eat; VivIR=TO live.
We learned that when we “play” with them, we change the endings according to “who” does the action. Just for the record, the endings of a verb are called CONJUGATIONS. Let’s review the three patterns of endings that we learned.
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By Os
I suppose that you have learned and memorized the “to be” words by now, haven‘t you? Well, just in case here they are:
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ESTAR
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TO BE
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SER
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Estoy
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I’m
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Soy
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Está
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you’re, s/he’s
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Es
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Estamos
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we’re
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Somos
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Están
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y’all are, they’re
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Son
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Now fill the box without cheating:
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ESTAR
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TO BE
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SER
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I’m
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you’re, s/he’s
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we’re
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y’all are, they’re
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¿Ready to mingle them?
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By Os
Let’s review what we learned last month. Look at these dialogues and see how “ESTAR” works:
¿Cómo está usted?
– Estoy bien.
¿Está bien?
– Sí, estoy bien.
¿Está mal?
– No, no estoy mal. Estoy bien.
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By Os
Look at these numbers and try to guess the next number in the pattern:
0 – 1 – 1 – 2 – 3 – 5 – 8 – 13 – 21 – 34 – ??
55? ¡Yeah! If you said 55 you figured it out correctly. If you didn’t, maybe knowing that the next number on the list is the result of the sum of the two last numbers may help you to figure out the pattern. Look again:
0 + 1 = 1. 1 + 1 = 2. 2 + 1 =3. 3 + 2 = 5. 5 + 3 = 8.
8 + 5 = 13. 13 + 8 = 21. 21 + 13 = 34. 34 + 21 = 55
Some people like “formulas” or “rules”; some people prefer to see things first and then try to make their own “deductions” or “patterns”.
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By Os
To be, or not to be; that is the question:
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles…
¿To be or not To be? That is NOT the question.
¿Ser or Estar? ¡That’s the question!
Today it’s not about Hamlet or Shakespeare. Today it’s about the verb TO BE.
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