Hola amigos. ¿How is everything going on? This is the third and last article of this series. So let me ask you this question again:
Guys: ¿Do you know how to make a Wh. question in inglés? ¿Do you start the question with an action word (verb), with the subject (subject), with the helping guy (auxiliary), with something else (the rest) or with a Wh. word? Let’s see:
¡Feliz Año Nuevo gente! = ¡Happy New Year people! I hope you had a Feliz Navidad and everything is all right.¡Bendiciones=Blessings!
Students and friends always tell me that they don’t know how to put the things together in Spanish. Well, let’s start the year learning that, ok? ¡It’s time to begin linking your words together!
Hola amig@s. ¿Todo bien? Today this column is celebrating one year of being around. Muchas gracias for reading it, and saying good things about it. You can find this and the other 11 (once) articles on this website: www.OsCostaRica.com
Last month there were two little (but VERY important) mistakes in some of the patterns we learned. Specifically #2, the –ER Pattern and #3, the –IR Pattern.One of the endings shown there, instead of being an “A” it should have been an “E”. (Just for the record, the endings of a verb are called CONJUGATIONS). Let’s review the three patterns we learned last month very quickly.
Today I’m gonna steal some phrases from a book named: “Madrigal’s Magic Key to Spanish”. It’s a good one, I recommend it 100% to those who want to learn and gain some confidence in Spanish; I hope Margarita Madrigal (the author) doesn’t mind…
At this moment you know several thousand Spanish words even if you have never seen or heard a Spanish word before. You are not aware of these words simply because they have not been pointed out to you. And today I’m gonna show you some of them…
This month we are gonna talk about ¿Who’s who? We are gonna define the Personal Pronouns, just for the record a Personal Pronoun is a word that we use to substitute persons or things when they are the subject of the sentence.
For example:
Marcela eats a lot. I don’t want to say “Marcela” any more so I can say: She eats a lot. “She” is the Personal Pronoun that I used to substitute for “Marcela” (a person).
The house has two garages. I don’t want to say “The house” any more so I can say: She has two garages. “She” is the Personal Pronoun that I used to substitute for “The house” (a thing).
I did NOT say It has two garages –not in Spanish-. In Spanish “The house” is a “she”. “The house” is not a person (I now that) but “The house” has a gender which is femeninA. In Spanish “The house” is a “she”.
I know it is hard to swallow but you will get used to this concept soon. Believe me, there are more important things to worry about… (Like VERBOS for instance).
This is the octavo-eighth month that I write in a row, so I have decided to do a little “test-review” of some of the stuff we have been reading and learning in SPANISH SUCKS…
Say 1, 2, 3, en ESPAÑOL… ¡WOW! Now say and write the numbers between 0 and 10 en ESPAÑOL.
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¿Can you do it backwards?
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¿Can you do the same thing between 20 and 0?
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Say and write your telephone number in pairs:
88 Ochenta y ocho 22 Veintidós
29 Veintinueve 36 Treinta y seis
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Count by hundreds between 0 and 1.000.
¿Can you do it now en ESPAÑOL? Write the #’s:
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There used to be 30 letters (“ch”, “ll” and “rr”) in the Spanish alphabet. Look at them:
A “a” B “be” C “ce” Ch “che” D “de” E “e” F “efe” G “ge” H “hache” I “i” J “jota” K “ka” L “ele” Ll “elle”/”doble ele” M “eme” N “ene” Ñ “eñe” O “o” P “pe” Q “cu” R “ere” Rr “erre”/”doble ere” S “ese” T “te” U “u” V “uve” W “doble uve” X “equis” Y “i griega”/”ye” Z “zeta”
You know the days of the week en español, don’t you? Nooo? Why am I not surprised? Joke….Ok, let’s learn them:
Domingo (Sunday) de Ramos, everybody gets a piece of palm to welcome Jesucristo. El lunes (Monday), el martes (Tuesday) and el mièrcoles everything is normal until midnight when some people of the municipalidades are working (hard to believe but it is true, jajaja) and closing the liquor cabinets and cantinas with tape because it is prohibido to sell booze during el Jueves (Thursday) Santo and el Viernes (Friday) Santo. Tranquil@, you can come back to your favorite bar el sábado (Saturday) at 11 a.m. and el Domingo de Resurrección you can eat red meat again in case your familia is very católica and they decided to do abstinencia during the Holy Week.
Now let’s learn how to say “The” en español (AGAIN)… There are 4 ways to say “The” en español. There are 4 “words” that equal “The” en español. They are NOT interchangeable, ok?. Let’s learn ALL of them today:
Word # 1 * the = el * when the following word is masculinO.
Book = Libro * The book = El libro.
El taco, el amigo, el hombre, el reloj.
Word # 2 * the = la * when the following word is femeninA.
Table = Mesa * The table = La mesa.
La empanada, la amiga, la mujer, la pared.
Word # 3 * the = los * when the following word is masculinO and PLURAL .
BookS = LibroS * The bookS = LoS libroS.
LoS tacoS, loS amigoS, loS hombreS, loS relojES.
Word # 4 * the = las * when the following word is femeninA and PLURAL.
TableS = MesaS * The tableS = LaS mesaS.
LaS empanadaS, laS amigaS, laS mujerES, laS paredES.
Last month we learned that en español, Things have gender, remember? Well they also have PLURALS but this part is very easy and similar to el inglès.
Hola amigos: Happy New Year! – Feliz Año Nuevo! I hope you had a Feliz Navidad and everything is all right.
Did you have any trouble during your X-mas shopping understanding some numbers-números? Problems with the totals-totales? Still struggling to understand how much the bill-la cuenta is? You can’t even get a telephone number? You can say uno-dos-tres and that’s it?…Let’s fix that…Now-Ahora!