Semana 5 – Pastimes, colours and more about verbs

 

Verbs: pastimes (verbos: pasatiempos)

Let’s start the week with some new vocab that we can use to talk about hobbies and pastimes.

cantar en la ducha	To sing in the shower
tejer en el tranvía	To knit in the tram
surfear en la playa	To surf at the beach
nadar en la piscina	To swim in the swimming pool
bailar en una discoteca	To dance at the disco
pasear / patinar por el parque	To walk, to skate in the park
mirar – la televisión en casa / una película en el cine	To watch TV at home / a film at the movies
mirar – el atardecer	To look at the sunset
jugar – a los videojuegos en casa de un amigo	To play videogames at a friend’s house
jugar – al fútbol, al tenis, al baloncesto…	To play football, tennis, basketball…
tomar – el sol	To sunbathe (literally to take the sun)
tomar – un café, una copa, algo	To have a coffee, a drink, something
tocar – un instrumento	To play an instrument (though in general TOCAR means to touch)

Words keep piling up! Don’t forget to keep working on your vocab!

And now, let’s move on to the colours…

^{Colours (Los colores)}

amarillo/a	yellow
rojo/a	red
blanco/a	white
negro/a	black
verde	green
naranja – anaranjado/a	orange
azul	blue
gris	grey
rosa – rosado/a	To play videogames at a friend’s house
marrón – café	brown
morado/a	purple

Colours are adjectives… they describe nouns. That’s why they just follow the rules of adjectives when agreeing with the noun they describe in gender and number.

Out of all the colours in the list above, rosa, naranja, marrón or color café, gris, verde and azul don’t change for gender, only for number:

 

The others make the masculine in -o and the feminine in -a.

¡OJO! Note that there are two possibilities for: pink (rosa and rosado), orange (naranja and anaranjado) and brown (marrón and color café). These varieties are regional, and you can use either.

 

Conjugaciones regulares en presente de verbos terminación -ER, and -IR

 All the present regular verb conjugations, -AR, -ER, -IR

 

We have already seen how to conjugate REGULAR -AR verbs. You drop the infinitive ending -AR, and then you add the different endings according to the subjects.

yo	amo
tú	amas
él / ella / usted	ama
nosotros/as	amamos
vosotros/as	amáis
ellos / ellas / ustedes	aman

Regular -ER and -IR verbs work exactly the same, even though the endings are slightly different. Here you have an example of each with the verb beber and vivir:

yo	bebo
tú	bebes
él / ella / usted	bebe
nosotros/as	bebemos
vosotros/as	bebéis
ellos / ellas / ustedes	beben

And here you have the conjugations of the three in the same format so you can easily compare: amar (to love), beber (to drink), vivir (to live)… (not a bad plan for the weekend, by the way!)

yo	vivoo
tú	vives
él / ella / usted	vive
nosotros/as	vivimos
vosotros/as	vivís
ellos / ellas / ustedes	beben

¡OJO! Be careful with the accents in the vosotros form!

Irregular present conjugations (Conjugaciones irregulares en presente)

Queridos amigos y amigas… don’t hate us for the next… we only teach Spanish. Still, we don’t make up the rules … Unfortunately, in Spanish, as in pretty much any other language, some irregularities mess up the rules. Or rather, you need to learn the irregularities and get used to being on top of the rules. Some of these “system malfunctions” (languages are living machines) affect how we conjugate verbs. And they most often affect extremely common verbs. The good news is that even in chaos, there is a bit of order, and we are going to try to give you some rules for irregular conjugations…

BEAR with me!

This week we’ll just introduce a couple of common irregular verbs, one with a sort of “soft” irregularity and a second one that is totally crazy.

Let’s have a look at JUGAR, a verb of the first (-AR) conjugation that means “to play”:

yo	jueg-o
tú	jueg-as
él / ella / usted	jueg-a
nosotros/as	jug-amos
vosotros/as	jug-áis
ellos / ellas / ustedes	jueg-an

As you can see, when we conjugate JUGAR, we not only change the ending as per usual, but we also change the vowel U in the first part of the verb. This first part is called the STEM in English and the RAÍZ (root) in Spanish. This U in the STEM changes from U to UE in the 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd person singular and the 3^rd person plural. This is “normal” behaviour for a group of verbs called “stem-changing” verbs. They are irregular verbs, yet they fall into some “regular” patterns and sets of rules. We’ll devote a fair chunk of time to those in the incoming weeks.

… And then you have your maverick verbs… the crazy oddballs that follow no rules at all. Fortunately, there are not many of them. Unfortunately, the few that exist, are essential for your Spanish.

Let’s introduce one of these: IR (“to go”). It is conjugated as follows:

yo	voy
tú	vas
él / ella / usted	va
nosotros/as	vamos
vosotros/as	vais
ellos / ellas / ustedes	van

Now, if you wonder how from an infinitive ending IR we get a YO form VOY, ask the Romans… IR’s conjugation is a mixture of three Latin verbs!

Anyhow, you need this one straight away. You can imagine how important it is to use “to go” in Spanish or any other language.

It is actually even more important than you just thought IR means to go when followed by the preposition A plus a place. 

So, every time someone goes somewhere, ellos (they) VAN A…

HOWEVER, we can also use IR as a periphrastic verb, that is, followed by another verb to create a new meaning:

The periphrasis IR A + infinitive verb works in a way that is very similar to the equivalent English structure. We use it by conjugating IR according to the subject and then adding A + infinitive verb. With this structure, we express future plans and intentions.

¡OJO! Note you can use IR after IR A, as in “Voy a ir a la playa” (I’m going to go to the beach)

And that’s all, folks, for the week. Learn your IR and brace for the storm of irregular verbs that is brewing!!!

At this level of learning, we start having people who can conjugate and people who can’t. The first group is the one we all want to be in!

¡Hasta pronto!