Coffee Break Spanish - CBS 2.33 | Talking about birthdays

Episode Date: February 11, 2011

In lesson 33 we continue to follow the story of Andrew and his Spanish friend María-José. In this episode we’ll be introducing the future tense and looking at how verbs are conjugated in the future. Once again, you’ll develop your knowledge and listening skills by listening to this conversation where language is used in context. Please note that lesson 33 of Season 2 was originally known as lesson 233 of Coffee Break Spanish. We have renumbered the lessons of each season as lessons 1-40 to make things more simple for our listeners.This season of Coffee Break Spanish features a total of 40 lessons, all of which will be included in the podcast feed. Just stay subscribed to the podcast to enjoy each episode. If you’d like to benefit from video versions, lesson notes and bonus audio materials, you can access the premium version of Coffee Break Spanish in the Coffee Break Academy.Don’t forget to follow Coffee Break Spanish on Facebook where we post language activities, cultural points and review materials to help you practise your Spanish. Remember - a few minutes a day can help you build your confidence in the language. Access the Coffee Break Spanish Facebook page here.If you’d like to find out what goes on behind the scenes here at Coffee Break Languages, follow @coffeebreaklanguages on Instagram.You can also check out our Coffee Break Spanish Twitter page and the Coffee Break Languages YouTube channel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, good days, how is das? I hope everything's very well today. It's lesson 73 of Coffee Break Spanish, and in this lesson, we're going to be looking at a new tense. We're still with Andrew and Maria Jose. And they're going to be talking about birthdays, and within this context of birthdays, we'll learn to conjugate the future tense.

I hope you find this lesson useful. So it seems that this week, Andrew has been asked for his Spanish class to prepare a dialogue about birthdays, So he's practicing with Maria Jose. And while you're listening to the dialogue, I'd like you to try and pick out three pieces of information. Firstly, when is Maria Jose's birthday?

Secondly, what presents did she get at her most recent birthday? And finally, why can't Maria Jose celebrate Andrew's birthday with him? When is your complete-a-year-year-year-old? My cumplea-year-s is the 18th of March. And tell me, To celebrate your Cumplea-Anews, what do you do you want to do?

Normally, I like to see my family and my friends. Comeemes much a tart of Cumple-Anews

and then I'm my regalos. Your last Cumb-Ans, what received as a

gift? I've a CD, a two the chapatos, a book,

and two entrances to the that that's, that Now, you, when is your Cumbly-Anews?

My Cumbly-Ans is the week that's the second is the 20th of August. That's good, and what you're going to do? I'm going to celebrate my Cumple-Ans with my two friends.

No, we're not going to go to the play. Oye, it'll have much a cold, you know? Yes, I know, but we'll pass our very well.

You want to come you too too too? The I'm the time

next I'm in Seville for the brother of my prima Well,

maybe another day Yes I will I will

the day 23 so we can go to the

day on the So So Kara Did you pick up

when Maria Jose's birthday Yes it was the

18th of March. That's right. She said, My Cumbly-Anews is the 18 of March. Now, what presents did she get at her most recent birthday? I'll remind you of this just in case you forgot. She said, Receivie

a CD, some chapatos, a book, and two entrances at the theater. She got a CD, some shoes, a book, and theater tickets.

That's it. Receiv a CD, a CD, unos, some shoes, probably two, I would imagine, a libero,

and dos entradas at the theater. One entra da'clock is the word literally for an entrance, but it means here a ticket, obviously.

Dos entradas at the theater. Now, finally, the other question was, why can Maria Jose celebrate Andrew's birthday with him?

Did you pick up anything there? She's going to Seville. To Seville? To Seville. to her cousin's boda. I don't know what that is.

Okay, you've picked up the word prima, which means cousin, and it's la boda of my prima. My prima se casa. Okay, casarse means to get married, so the wedding. Okay, so she's going to her cousin's wedding in Seville. Exactly.

She says, Estarée in Sevilla. I will be in Seville. We'll come back to that later. for the gala of my prima for the wedding of my cousin. Okay, now there are some points I'd like to pick up in this dialogue, obviously. The first of these is when she said, normally me gust to be a my family and a mis amigos.

What does that mean? Normally, she likes to see her family and friends. Yeah, exactly. Ver a my family. bear a misamigos. Now, to see my family, you would think that would normally be translated as bear my family and to see my friends,

bear mis amigos, however, because the object of the sentence here, the thing that she is seeing, is a person or are people in the case of my family, you have to use this special a in there. And that's called the personal a. in Spanish. You would say,

meo a Jorge. I see Jorge. Anoche, bi a Marta. Last night, I saw Marta. But you need that a in there because the thing or the

object that you're seeing is a person. If the object was a thing, then you could say be el autobos. I saw the bus. me la casa I saw the house however I saw my cousin

you would say be a mi prima I saw Diego Exactly you need that personal in there and that's in any situation where the object is a person Is a real person We'll come back to that in future

lessons but I thought it would be worth mentioning because Maria Jose had said that in the dialogue. Mark, can I ask a question about the personal a? As long as it's not too difficult. Say it was an animal that was a pet and you were calling it by its name, would you use the personal a? That is a very, very good question. When you're talking about animals that are kind of seen as pets, then there's a tendency to use the a.

So if you were to say, men have er, ah, Fido, my perro, come and see Fido, my dog. Then you would use the A. So come and see, Ven to be a Fido. Okay, not many Spanish dogs will be called Fido. But anyway, if you are talking about the dog or the chicken, like we eat chicken, then it would be Comemos Pollo.

Okay. It would not be, Comeimos a Pollo, whatever we eat our little pet chicken or whatever. That's getting a little too complicated, but basically if it's a pet and you're referring to it by name, then you would use the personal a. If it's just a random animal, particularly an animal that's kind of used for food or used for a practical purpose, then definitely not.

Okay. Now with the birthday cake that Maria Jose mentioned, she talked about tarta de compilagno. And that's how you would refer to birthday cake in Spain. However, in Latin America, you'd be more likely to say torta. Torta. And indeed in some countries you'd also mention the word pastel. Pastel.

And it kind of depends on what the traditions are, what kind of cake is offered for a birthday cake. There are also the traditions, of course, of the piñata, where you hit normally some kind of animal, and the sweets that are inside the animal all fall down, and that's particularly common in Latin America. Now, it's time to look at the future tense, because quite a number of examples of the future tense were used in that dialogue. Let's begin by looking at what Andrew said when he said that we'll have a good time.

He said, Lo passeremos, very bien. Lo passaremos, very bien. Now, the infinitive of that verb is what? Passar. Passar. And notice where the ending is added. Passaremos.

passeremos Okay the endings added onto 10 yeah onto the end of the infinitive the stem you remember when we were talking about forming verbs

and we add the endings onto a stem with the future tense the stem is in fact the infinitive and this goes for regular verbs so let's take the verb Ablar which of course means

to speak and let's add the endings on to Ablar we've already learned that we ending so the first person plural ending is Emos how would you say therefore we will speak

Ablaremos Let's now learn all the parts of this To begin with I will speak is Ablaray Ablaray You will speak Ablaras Ablaras

He's year it will speak Ablarah Ablarah We will speak We will speak, we already know Ablarais Ablaremos. You will speak,

Ablares. Ablareis. And they will speak Ablaran. So those endings are fairly what you would expect, no? Yep. Because they're very,

they're the same patterns that we've been seeing before. So, Ablaray, Ablaras, Ablaras, Ablaray. Ablaremus,

Ablarais, Ablaran. Ablaremos, Ablarais, Ablaran. Okay, now the good news is that ER and IR

verbs form their futures in exactly the same way. So, let's take, for example, a verb that's normally irregular in some tenses, but it's very regular in the future, and that's the verb bedier. Bedier means

To ask. Yeah, so to ask for in a sense. So I will ask for would be pedere. Bedire. I'll ask for a beer. Pedire an Cere a

Cere a Cere a Cereza Okay, you will ask for a mineral water Pedirass an agwineral Pedirass an aguamineral

He, she or it will ask for something Pedirah Pedirah We will ask Pedier us You will ask Pederais

And they will ask Okay, Pedire, Pediré, Pediré, Pederemos, pedirais, Pediran. Pedier, Pediras,

pederas, pederis, pederan. Very well. And let's take an ER verb. Let's take Perder, which means

To lose. Yeah, well done. So I will lose would be, Kara. Perdere. Perderet. You will lose

Perdera. He she or it will lose Perdera What about we will lose Perderemos And you will lose Perderais And they will lose

Perderan Perderan Yeah Obviously you will pick this up From the context And you'll get much more used to it As time goes on Okay, we'll be back in just a moment

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Okay, let's get on with the lesson. Now, it's also important to remember that some verbs are regular in certain tenses, so we've already come across the verb estar, which we know is. slightly irregular in certain tenses. For example, how do you say, I am in the office? Estoy in the officeina. Yeah.

So, I am from estar. However, in the future, estar is perfectly regular, which means I will be as Estre. Just as Maria Jose said, the same next I will be in Seville.

How would she have said, I am going to be in Seville? I'm going to be in Seville. Seville. Seville. Exactly. I'm going to be in Seville. However, in the pure future tense, you would be saying, Estere in Seville.

Estere in Seville. Okay. Now, another thing that she said was, Volveré El Savado Molveré comes from which verb Volver And the E is added to the infinitive

So Bolveré El sabado Bolveray el sabado And what would that mean? I'm going to come back on Saturday Yeah, you could translate it as that But more accurately, it's I will come back, I will return

On Saturday And indeed, there are many, many romantic songs in Spanish, Bolveret, I'll come back or I'll return. Let's not go into that just now. Bolveré el-savado, I will come back on Saturday. Now, these are verbs which in some tenses are irregular. There are other verbs which are slightly irregular in the future. However, even these verbs have regular endings. The bit that's irregular is the future stem. So rather than using the infinitive, which is the future stem for regular verbs, They have an irregular future stem.

Let's look at the verb ather. Ather means... To do or to make. Yeah, and it's the verb that we use for weather. So let's think about how we would say, it will be very hot. It will be very hot becomes ARA. Ara.

Now, that's not Athera or anything like that, which is a wrong form. Ara is the irregular future tense of A-T-E-R. So the future stem is H-A-R. You drop the C and the E of A-T-R, and it becomes

A-R-A. Now, probably at some point in the past, in the history of the Spanish language, it was A-T-R-A-R, but that's been dropped, because it's a very common verb. That's often what happens with the regular verbs. So we've got A-R-A-Much-Colour. Arra, Much-Colour.

How would you say it will be very windy? A lot Biento. Bento. A lot much o'biento. Arra much o'biento. Okay. How will you say we will do our homework?

Aremos Nuestros de verres? That's it. Arremos, Nuestros de verres. Now, just to run through the whole of the verb, it's a re, Aras, Arra

Aremos Arrais Aran Arre Aras, Arra Aremas, Arra Aremus, Arais Aran Okay,

So you've picked up that the endings are identical to the other verbs we've already seen E Asa, Emos Esaan But it's the

future stem Which changes for Acer, it becomes Arra, Aras Arra, Aremos, Arais, Aran. And the same happens with the verb

Decir. Deceer meaning To say. In this case, the D-E-C-I-R of the infinitive becomes D-I-R in the future stem.

So you get Dere, Diras, D-R, D-E-R-E-E-R-E-E-R-N. D-E-R-E-R-E-E-R-E-R-N. Very well. Now, there are a few verbs

which have other types of irregular future stems. But again, these follow patterns. We're going to cover one just now and that's Poder. Poder becomes P-O-D-R and then you're ending. So basically with that one, you drop the E of Poder and it becomes Podre, Podras, Podra. Podremos, Podreys, Podran. Podre, Podrae, Podra. Podremes? Podreys, Podran. Okay.

So when Maria Jose says, Volverer, El Saturday, which is the 23rd, I'll come back on the 23rd, on the Saturday, the 23rd. So we'll be able to

go to the play together on Sunday. So we will be able to go to the beach together on Sunday. So we could go to the play together

the domino. So we We'll be to the playa together. Exactly. Let's hear the conversation again at a more normal, natural speaking speed.

When is your new year? My birthday is the 18th of March. And tell me, for celebrate your year's, what do you do you want to do?

Normally, I like to see a my family and to my friends. Comeemes much a tart of a year and then I

open my regalos? Your ultimate Cumpil-Anews, what received as a gift? I received

a CD, a lot of a little and two entrances to

the theater. That good. Now, you, when is your

your year? My new year is the time that

is the 20 of August. That good and what

you do do you do you do my family we're

to be to the play to hear much cold you know.

Yes, but we'll pass our very well. Do you do you too? The same the

time next I'm going to my wife and my Prima. Well, maybe

another day. Yes, I'll be the Saturday that's the day 23,

so we will go to the play together on the

day. Perfecto. And that's where we're going to leave it today for this edition of Coffee Break Spanish. Thanks for joining us, and we hope it's been useful. You can join the Coffee Break Spanish community on Facebook at Facebook.com slash Coffee Break Spanish and follow at Learn Spanish on Twitter.

Much a gratis and hasta pronto. This is the production of the Radiolingua Network. Find out more at Radiolingua.com.