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Spanish/Lesson 3

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Lessons: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11

Here are a couple of sentences and short dialogs about people planning/doing leisure activities. Besides the new vocabulary you should also have a look at how the verbs are conjugated depending on the subject of the sentence.

Flag of Spain
Flag of Spain
Diálogo - Los Verbos
Maria viaja a México

Luis: ¿Qué hacen por la noche?
Ana y Carmen: Nosotras bailamos en la fiesta.

Raúl: ¿Qué haces mañana?
Carlos: Mañana practico al tenis.

Marco mira la televisión porque hace mal tiempo.

Pedro y Mario toman unos refrescos.

Rosalía escribe a sus padres los domingos.


As you may see, each verb is bolded. These verbs are conjugated, that is, changed by the person(s) to which they are referring. Notice that subject pronouns are not necessary.

Vocabulary for text

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Spanish Flag
Spanish Flag
El Vocabulario - Viajar
Travelling
viajar

hacer
la noche
bailar
la fiesta
mañana
practicar
mirar
porque
buen tiempo
mal tiempo
tomar
beber
el refresco
el domingo
escribir

los padres
to travel

to do, to make
night
to dance
party
tomorrow
to practice
to watch, to look at
because
nice weather
bad weather
to take, to drink
to drink
soda, soft drink
Sunday
to write

parents


Regular Verbs

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Spanish has three different types of regular verbs: -ar, -er, and -ir verbs. The subject pronoun is not necessary and in conversational Spanish it is only used for emphasis. For this lesson, we will omit it. One can still use pronouns, however. The conjugation pattern is the following:

Spanish Flag
Spanish Flag
Gramática - El presente regular
Person -ar -er -ir
Infinitive hablar comer vivir
English to talk to eat to live
1 hablo como vivo
2 hablas comes vives
3 habla come vive
1 plural hablamos comemos vivimos
2 plural habláis coméis vivís
3 plural hablan comen viven


As one can see, the endings for each person are different. This is similar to other Romance languages, such as Portuguese and Italian (the notable exception is French). This is the reason why we may omit the pronouns while we speak. Remember that sometimes it is best to clarify whether él, ella, or usted is speaking, because they share the same form. However, the context of the rest of the sentence sometimes clarifies this. There are a few steps involved with conjugating a verb. Here are the steps involved:

  1. Take the ending off of the infinitive. This is either an -ar, -er, or -ir.
  2. Without the -ar, -er, or -ir, the verb is in its base form.
  3. Add the appropriate ending to the base of the verb.

Notice that there are only two differences between the conjugations of -er and -ir verbs. The nosotros (4) and vosotros (5) forms are the only differences. Those forms have an "i" in the stem instead of an "e."

Exercise: Regular Verbs

"G" Verbs

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The verb hacer means to do or to make. Hacer is irregular in the first person singular form (I) of the present tense only. The irregular form is hago. Hacer is one of the many verbs in Spanish which add a "g" in the first person singular of the verb. This is the present indicative of the verb hacer.

Spanish Flag
Spanish Flag
Gramática - El verbo hacer
Person Verb form
1 hago
2 haces
3 hace
4 hacemos
5 haceis
6 hacen


Note that the verb hacer is translated as to do and to make when referring to activities. But it can also be used to talk about some weather conditions:

El Tiempo The Weather
Hace buen tiempo. The weather is good.
Hace mal tiempo. The weather is bad.
Hace frío. (also: Está frío) It's cold.
Hace fresco. It's chilly.
Hace calor. It's hot.
Hace sol. It's sunny.
Hace nublado. It's cloudy.
Hace viento. It's windy.

But:

El Tiempo The Weather
Está fresco. It's chilly.
Está caluroso. It's hot.
Hay sol/está soleado. It's sunny.
Hay nubes/está nublado. It's cloudy.
Hay viento/está ventoso. It's windy.

When speaking about the weather using hacer, the Ud. form (third singular form) is always used.

El vocabulario (Vocabulary) - Los días (Days)

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Los dias de la semana Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
el lunes el martes el miércoles el jueves el viernes el sábado el domingo


Audio: OGG (157KB)

  • The Spanish week begins on Monday (el lunes), unlike the English week (which begins on Sunday/el domingo).

Una fiesta

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Una fiesta entre amigos. Nosotros bailamos y lo pasamos bien en el jardín de esta casa.
A party among friends. We dance and enjoy ourselves in the patio (garden) of this house.


Lessons: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11