28
Basic Spanish for everyday needs by
Jane Cronin
Negatives, questions and “you” forms
First of all we need to check last week’s homework. Here are the sentences I asked you to translate, with the right answers.
I don’t want to speak English. “No quiero hablar inglés” I’m not going to open the door. “No voy a abrir la puerta” I can’t cook very well. “No puedo cocinar muy bien” I need to work a little. “Necesito trabajar un poco”. The first three sentences are negative and therefore start with “No” despite the fact that in each of the English sentences the negatives are formed in three different ways. Obviously in these articles we can’t hear the spoken sentences, but one thing to point out here is that when one word ends in a vowel sound and the next word begins with a vowel sound, they run together when spoken. So “quiero hablar”, would sound like “quieroablar” (as the letter H is silent) and “voy a abrir” would become “voyabrir” with the two “a” sounds merging together. It’s important to get practice at tuning in to spoken Spanish so that you can start recognizing these features of the language. Now let’s see what else we can do
with the words we have covered so far. We have learnt that “I words” (QUIERO, PUEDO, NECESITO, VOY A) can go in front of infinitive verbs to form really useful sentences about what we want, need, can or are going to do. We have also seen that by placing the word “no” in front, we can make these sentences negative. Now we are going to see how these same basic forms can be turned into questions. This is incredibly easy; in fact it’s so easy people are inclined not to believe it and try to complicate things. To make these sentences into questions, all you have to do is give your voice a questioning intonation. When writing we place a question mark at the end and an upside down question mark at the beginning of the sentence, to indicate the same thing. For example: PUEDO ABRIR LA PUERTA means “I can open the door”. If I say exactly the same sentence making my voice sound questioning, I’ve changed it to “Can I open to the door?” which is written in Spanish ¿PUEDO ABRIR LA PUERTA? Yes, it really is that simple! Let’s see what else we can do. “PUEDO VOLVER MAÑANA” “I can return tomorrow.” “¿PUEDO VOLVER MAÑANA?”
“Can I return tomorrow?” “PUEDO CAMBIAR MI DINERO” “I can change my money” “¿PUEDO CAMBIAR MI DINERO?” “Can I change my money? “NECESITO TRABAJAR HOY” “I need to work today” “¿NECESITO TRABAJAR HOY? “Do I need to work today?” “NECESITO BEBER MUCHA AGUA”
“I need to drink a lot of water” “¿NECESITO BEBER MUCHA AGUA?” “Do I need to drink a lot of water? Obviously in the case of ¿Quiero? (Do I want?) and ¿Voy a? (am I going to?) it is more difficult to find sentences that make sense, so as a special little bonus today we will learn the words for “You want” and “You are going to” – which can instantly be used to mean “Do you want?” and “Are you going to?” “You want” is “QUIERES” and “you are going to” is “VAS A” so therefore: “Do you want to cook?” is “¿QUIERES COCINAR?” “Are you going to sleep?” is “¿VAS A DORMIR?” Just to recap what we have just done – QUIERO means “I want”, and by changing the final letter we can turn
it into QUIERES meaning “you want”. Something similar happens with VOY A “I’m going to”, we can turn it into “VAS A” to mean “you are going to”. I think I should mention as well, that these refer to an informal “you”, as in Spanish we can be formal and informal in the way we address people. However nowadays in Spain these distinctions are not so important so we’ll talk in more detail about that later. This all might sound rather simple, but you may not have yet realized just what potential we have opened up already, just by learning these small changes. It is not necessary to learn all the whys and wherefores of how verbs change in order to start forming all kinds of sentences! So far we have only used six verbs and six “I” or “you” expressions so I think next week we’ll need some more verbs and other simple words to spread the net even wider. In the meantime though – here’s your homework: What do these mean in English? No quiero volver a casa hoy. ¿Quieres bailar conmigo? Voy a hablar con mi amigo. ¿Vas a beber vino? No necesito comer ahora. ¿Puedo aprender más? Happy translating and see you next week!
Book Review
Lou's Homecoming by Stephan A. Onisick "Sometimes, art echoes life. The uncanny death of the guest actor in the episode (Remember Me from Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman)resonated deeply within me. It paralleled the deaths of my father and half-brother, Lou." Stephan works as a Sharepoint Developer with Analytical Mechanics Associate contracted to NASA's International Space Station in Huntsville. This story goes back twenty years to 1997 when the first episode of "Lou's Homecoming" was written. Twenty years down the line the draft was revisited, expanded and finally published as an ebook. It was January 1989. Our author was 38, married and living in Birmingham, Alabama when he received an unexpected call from someone called Lou Onisick claiming to be a relative. Stephan's father had been born in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania in 1912. He had worked down the coal mines. His parents had come from Ukraine and they lived in a Polish community. It seemed that the father had been married before and Stephan was aware of having a halfbrother called John. The father had Parkinson's disease and dementia and was living in a nursing home in West Virginia in declining health. Lou had been trying to contact his father. He was 8 when his father left home. He was now 54. Father had provided some child support for Lou and his brother Bill which "could never have satisfied a boy's need for his father." Lou was a info@bookworldpuertobanus.com www@bookworldpuertobanus.com | 952 816 084
plant engineer for a valve company and worked in the same factory as his brother Bill, outside of Charlotte. Stephan was protective of his mother initially who he described as a worrier and a doom and gloomer. He didn't want to mention his newly acquired half-brothers until they had made further contact and planned a visit which was arranged weeks later. Photos were exchanged and a few calls made. The meeting of this extended family caused nerves and anxiety as well as excitement for Stephan and no doubt the others. Although Stephan describes his family in a positive way he seems more at ease with the family pets. "Dogs may be the best part of our shared hereditary." He informs us of his preference for dogs rather than people. Perhaps it's just this: "Their needs are simple, and their agendas are hilariously obvious." We are told about Lou's "uncanny" resemblance to his father, although he was slightly taller and more gentle. He was reserved but also described as being a devoted father and husband which Stephan states was not an Onisick inherited trait! We are told that he was loved and well-respected in his community. As you might expect, the family reunion proved to be an emotional experience considering that Lou had not seen his father for over 45 years. Father was "conscious in spurts" but seemed to recognize Lou who he described as a fire-
cracker which made Lou cry and the others were choked up emotionally. Peggy, his daughter told Stephan that Lou was a forgiving person and very even-tempered. "He didn't have a father model, but yet he became a model father." The ending is inevitably sad but there is a sense of closure and with that, a feeling of satisfaction and forgiveness when we are told that he "had made peace with his past." "Lou had the magnanimity to forgive a father who abandoned him." Perfectly readable but short. It is difficult to engage with Lou sadly because he seems flimsy and it would have been better to have discovered much more about the reasoning behind seeing father before he died and making his peace after such a long time. When you read the story you'll understand the significance of "homecoming" REVIEW it by Carol Naylor. Available as an ebook from Amazon.
Sponsored by Bookworld Puerto España Banus