Semana 2

¡Hola! Did you have a good weekend (fin de semana)? This week (semana) we will learn greetings, how to describe people, and how to express negation in Spanish.

Let’s begin! ¡Empecemos!

El verbo “ser”

Today we are going to go more in-depth with the verb “ser” = to be.

USES:

“ser” is a verb used to express identity, origin, occupation, religion, and characteristics. We use it frequently to introduce ourselves. For example:

	Yo soy Michael. Soy estadounidense. Soy profesor. Soy activo.
Ella es Griselda. Es ecuatoriana. Es guapa. Es trabajadora.
	Nosotros somos esposos. Somos felices. Somos padres y abuelos. Somos activos.
¿Y tú?

Engage the class in a brief discussion about the concept of identity and characteristics. Discuss how people describe themselves and others. 

These are the conjugations of “ser” in the present tense.

Ser-to be

*Just in Spain

Notice the first column is only singular, the second column is plural. The first line is first person (includes you), the second and third lines are second person (someone to whom you are talking directly), and the last line is third person (someone about whom you are talking). In the future, lines 3 and 4 may be combined, since the conjugations for each are always the same.

A little joke!

Now, go back to your own description in English, and try translating it into Spanish. Look up the words you don’t know – wordreference – or ask your teacher.

Colores y números – Colors and numbers^[1].

Los Colores:

Los números:

Los números

Género y número de los sustantivos – Gender and number of nouns.

Do you know what a noun is?

A noun (sustantivo) is a word used to identify any of a class of people, places, or things (common noun – boy, mountain, house), or to name a particular one of these (proper noun – Marc, St. George).

Let’s see if it makes sense:

Gender (género) in Spanish:

Nouns in English in Spanish are very similar ways, however, there is a key difference between the nouns of the two languages: ALL Spanish nouns have gender (feminine/ masculine).

This gender is arbitrary, this means that a male can use a feminine object. For example: A man wears a tie – Un hombre lleva una corbata. In this example, “man” is masculine whereas “tie” is feminine. A woman wears a dress – Una mujer lleva un vestido. Here “dress” is masculine.

So, how do we know if a noun is masculine or feminine? We need to memorize these generalizations:

There are always exceptions, a few include: el día, el problema o la mano, la foto(grafía), la moto(cicleta).

There are a group of exceptions. Most words in Spanish come from Latin. Those that come from other languages are generally masculine.

There are a group of words that we use that come from Greek, and so are masculine. Most of these are cognates* in English: el problema, el drama, el síntoma, el sistema, el poema, el tema, el profeta, el mapa, el planeta, etc.

*Cognates (cognados)

A cognate o cognado is a word that looks like, sounds like, and means the same thing as a word in English. El problema is a cognado. Cognates help us recognize words that are similar and thus help us in understanding and learning words quickly.

This does NOT mean you can make up words by making is sound “Spanish-y”. BEWARE, there are also false cognates (cognados falsos). Embarazada looks like embarrassed, kind of sounds like embarrassed, but means pregnant.

Number (singular or plural) in Spanish:

In Spanish the nouns also have number: singular or plural.

The singular form is the standard one and it is the one that appears in the dictionary.

On the other hand, in the plural form the nouns end in –s or –es.

So, when do we use -s or -es to form the plural forms?

The plural form of nouns is formed on the basis of its singular form:

• when a noun in its singular form ends in a vowel, the plural is formed by adding at the end –s.
  • casa > casas
• when the singular form of a noun ends in a consonant, the plural form is formed by adding at the end –es.
  • profesor > profesores

There are also exceptions:

• Singular nouns ending in –s do not change in the plural.
  • el lunes > los lunes.
• Nouns ending in -z, it changes to –c resulting in a –ces ending.
  • lápiz > lápices.
• add -es if the noun ends in í or ú.
  • el jabalí = los jabalíes

La Ropa – Clothes

Did you know that it is common in Spanish speaking countries to dry one’s clothes by hanging them outside the window?

La ropa

Watch this video to learn about clothes in Spanish.

To help you memorize these words, why don’t use practice with these flashcards?

If you want to practice more, this website has more autocorrect activities: https://arche-ele.com/la-ropa-vocabulario-aprende-espanol-clothes-spanish

ser/colores/números/género y número/ropa