Coffee Break Spanish - CBS 2.34 | Conditional tense in a café setting

Episode Date: February 15, 2011

In lesson 34 we’re continuing our ‘soap opera’. This week María-José is taking her friend to a restaurant, so we’ll be revisiting the language we learned previously in the course. We’ll also take the opportunity to look at the conditional tense or ‘mood’. Please note that lesson 34 of Season 2 was originally known as lesson 234 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, Buenos days, what'stale-estaz. Welcome to lesson 74 of Coffee Break Spanish. In this lesson, Andrew and Maria Jose are in a cafe, and they're ordering drinks. We'll be looking at the conditional tense, saying things like me would like. I hope you enjoy this lesson. Now, the dialogue in this lesson is actually fairly straightforward, and we really wanted to use this one just to introduce the concept of the conditional tense or the conditional mood.

have a listen to the dialogue and Kara I'd like you to try and identify what does Maria Jose order and what exactly does the dish contain which is suggested to Maria Jose and her friend by the waiter Hello, So can eat here? Yes, she can come here. Do you want a mesa for two persons? Yes, a mesa for two, for favor. Nos try the card, for favor?

Sure, here you have? Thank you. I want a bocadillo of hamon and Kesa and a Coca-Cola light, for favor. Something more? Yes, my amiga

a salad of pollo and a ration of potatoes fritas. And for to bever? A bottle of water. With gas or with gas?

With gas, for favor. You have have tried the tortilla Spanish? I, Yes, but my amiga no.

Never has ever been. Lever Woebos, potatoes and onions? Do you want to

do you? Yes, we'd like much. Thank you. So, as I said,

is a fairly straightforward dialogue. Kara, did you work out what Maria Jose

ordered? I did. She ordered a ham and a diet cook.

A Coca-Cola light and a bocadillo of hamony and cheese. hamon, ham and queso cheese.

Very bien. Now, there was a dish suggested to Maria Jose and her friend by the waiter. This dish was tortilla Española, and the waiter explained what it contains. What he la. It has eggs, potatoes, and onions. Exactly. Webo's eggs.

Patatas, potatoes, sometimes known as papas in certain parts of the Spanish-speaking world. And cebojas. Ceboyas being onions. Now, there were a few things that we're going to pick up in this dialogue, and the first of these is, se pui. Now, it's something we've come across before. Se used impersonally.

So, can one do something? Se puide come here? How would you say can one smoke here? Se puade fumar here? Se pulde fumar here. exactly. Now, how would you say something like, can one speak English here? Yeah, se poise abler English here. Yeah, se boe de la inglese. Now, using this say impersonally, you can also see something like, se abla ingles. Now, literally, that would be

one speaks English, or perhaps more correctly, English speaks itself, or English is spoken here. And that's the kind of sign that you might see. on perhaps a tourist shop or something like that. Say, Abla English spoken. Although it probably would make more sense for that sign to be in English.

Perhaps se able to Spanish in a shop in a non-Spanish speaking area. But that's just another example of using this say impersonally when it's turning it almost in a sense into a passive voice. Say, Abla English. English is spoken here. Okay.

The waiter asked, An probado La Tortilla Españe Try saying that. An Probado

La Tortilla Sporado comes from Probar, which means To try? To try, yeah. So,

have you tried? Unprovado and he's using the Usteedest form because it's a formal situation. Anprovado

La Tortilla Spanish The answer is My Amiga No, Nunca La

A probado. Nunca la has probado. Very well. Now, Nunca means I don't know if we've done that. It means never.

Okay. There's actually two words for never in Spanish. Nunca. And, Hamas. Jamas? Jamas.

Never. Nunca. And you can run the both together to get never ever. Nunca jamas. Nunca jamas. Okay, so never la a probado.

La refers to the tortilla So la a probado It has tried or it she has tried Nunca la has probado So she has never tried it Nunca la provado And again you can hear the way The whole phrase runs together

Nunca la abrovado never has Exactly Now in the conversation We heard a couple of examples of the conditional tense I say conditional tense

Some people do refer to it As the conditional mood It doesn't really matter One with the other And I'm not going to go into The complicated explanations Of the difference between a tense And a mood at the moment

For the time being Think of it as the conditional tense Or the conditional mood But the idea of the conditional is that it explains Or it translates the concept of I would do something, for example, if I had lots of money, I would go around the world, or I would like a glass of lemonade or something like that.

Indeed, in the conversation, we had me-gustaria, and les-gustaria, nos-gustaria. Now, in fact, me-gustaria is probably not the best example to explain the conditional tense with, because me gostaria, like me gusta, it's one of those sort of back-to-front verbs because you're really saying, it would be pleasing to me. Me gustaria, it would be pleasing to me a diet coke or something like that.

So let's look at the verb, Ablaar again, and we're going to add that iya ending to to Ablaar. And just like the future tense, the conditional tense, has iya added to the infinitive. So we have Ablaria Which is I would speak

Ablarias Ablarias You would speak Ablaria Ablaria So that's the same as the first one And that's used for he, she or it As well as I

Ablaria Ablaria, Ablarias, Ablaria Ableria, Ablerias, Ableria Okay, now you can probably guess what's coming next with the we form, Ablariamos.

Now watch the stress there, it's Ablariyamos. Ablariamos. Ablariamos. Ablariamos. And then possibly quite tricky to pronounce

Ablariaiz. Avlariais. Uh-huh. And any guesses as to what the they form would be? Avlarian? Ablarian.

Yeah, it's really, really regular. In a sense, it follows all the same patterns that you expect. So let's do the whole verb. Ablaria, Ablarias, Ablaria,

Ablariamos, Ablariais, Ablaria, Ablaria, Ablaria, Ablaria, Ablaria, Ablariamos,

Ablariais, Ablarian. Exactly. In actual fact, the I, in the written version of this, Ablaria, Ablaria,

it always has an accent on it, and that should help remind you where the stress goes, ablariamos, Ablariais, Ablarian Ablariamos Ablariaeis

Ablarian Okay So that's for an AAR verb And for an ER verb And an IR verb It's exactly the same endings So let's take

Bender the verb Which means To sell How would you say I would sell The house Benderia la Casa

Benderia la Casa Uh huh Very good How would you say she would ask for a mineral water using pedir. Pediria, unacomineral. Perfecto. How would you say we would open the window?

Abriariams the ventana. Yeah, it's quite tricky to say. Just say the infinitive, and then add in your yamos. Abriariamos. Abriariams. Abriariams. ventana.

Abriariams la ventana. Now, you're probably sitting there thinking, or standing there, or jogging there, or running there, whatever you're doing while

you're listening to this, I would do something if something else were the case. And that's where it gets a little tricky, because in Spanish, you need to use

a special part of the verb for the if something else were the case part. And without getting into too many complicated explanations here. Basically, that part needs to be put into, did I say it, the imperfect subjunctive. Don't worry about this. I'm going to give you an example and you can just learn this one and you will impress everyone with this. I can guarantee it. So it's kind of like

in English where you say, if I were rich, I would buy a house or I would travel around the world or I would buy a car or something like that. In actual fact, in English, we say if I were rich, I would buy a house or I would travel around the world or I would buy a car or something like that. In actual fact, in English, we say if I were rich, but you might well hear if I was rich, I would do such and such. Where in English is indeed the subjunctive. But you don't need to worry about that in English either. I'm going to teach you one word in Spanish and that is all you need to know, and that is fuerra. That is the imperfect subjunctive form of ser. So if I were rich, if I were rich, if were a rich, I would say rica, I would buy a car. How would you see that? Compraria a coach. Or in Latin America, Compraria a car.

Compraria a caro. Okay, what's your double R? Carro. Caro. Okay. Hopefully everybody practiced their double-R sounds recently. Compraria

a car. Compraria a car. Okay. So, Fuera is the If I wear

part. If Fuer Rico, let's say I would travel throughout the

world. If were rich Piajaria Very good. Very well. If were a rich or rica, would beajorie

for all the world. If were rich, would bea for all the world. If were rich, would beajara for all the world. Okay. Let's try another one.

If I were rich, I would go to Las Vegas. If Yeah, that's it. A Las Vegas. Las Vegas. Spanish names are Las Vegas.

Las Vegas. Okay, if were a Rico, iria a Las Vegas. If were aica, iria, a Las Vegas. So you now know that the conditional of ear, or indeed the future stem of ear,

is ear. It works regularly like the other ones. Okay, we'll be back in just a more. Now if you'd like to get more out of your coffee break Spanish experience, then you can sign up for the full premium version of our course, and that includes video versions of our lessons where you'll see the words and phrases on the screen of your device while you listen. There's also a set of lesson notes for every lesson with vocabulary and additional examples and bonus audio. All of our premium courses are available at the coffeebreakacademy. That's at coffeebreakacademy.com. Okay, let's get on with the lesson. Okay, so let's go back to one of the irregular ones from last time

when we spoke about Acer and DeCIR taking irregular future stems. How would you therefore say, I would do my homework? Yeah, that's it. So you use the conditional endings, the I-I-A-I-A-Mos-I-S-I-I-S-I-A with the future stem, the H-A-R in this case. I'll be my deberes. Arria my tiberes. Now we covered last time,

Podremos, and that would be the future tense of we will be able to. Podremes to go to the play. How would you say we would be able to? Podriamos. Podriamos.

Podriamos. Yeah. Podriamos to get to the play. Podriamos. to go to the playa. Okay. Now the same thing happens with a verb like

Saber. Saber means To know. So, Saber in the future stem, the future stem of Saber, it drops the E,

just like Poder and becomes S-A-B-R. Sabre in the future, Sabria in the conditional. So how would you say I will know everything?

Sabre-to-do? How would you say I would know everything? Sabria to do all. Savriya to dodo. Perfecto. Now, there's one other group of verbs that I'd like to mention that is a kind of group of irregular future stems. And that's a group of verbs where this random D comes into play. So let's think, for example, of benir.

Benier means to come. To come. In the future, or the come, conditional, the future stem drops the I of the infinitive, Benir, so you take out the I, and you put a random D in. So it becomes

bendre. Bendre. Or bendria. Bendria. And what is the difference between bendre? I will come, as opposed to Benderé, which is I will

sell? Yeah, from Bender. Benderé. La Casa, I will sell house, vendre manna, I will come tomorrow. So, benir becomes bendre, bendria. Bendre, bendria. Tener to have

becomes tendre, tendria. Tendre, tendria. And one other one in this group, Salir becomes Saldre, Saldre, Saldria. Saldre,

Saldria. So let's test these ones. How would you say we will go out? So that's the future of Salirme? Very well, salremes. How would you say they would

go out? Sal'drian. Very well. What about he would come? Vendria. Bendria. He would come. Very well. One more. How would you say

you, plural, used in Spain, you will have. Tendreys? Very well. Tendres. Now there's lots more practice of this in this week's bonus podcast. Let's listen to the restaurant conversation one more time at natural speed. Hello, can eat here?

Yes, can eat here. Do you want a mess for two people? Yes, one mesa for two, for favor. Nos try the card, for favor? Sure, here you have. Thanks. I want a bocadio of hamony and cheese and a Coca-Cola light,

for favor. Something more? Yes, my amiga wants a ensalada of pollo and a ration of patadas frithas. And, for better? A bottle of water. With gas or sing gas?

With gas, for favor. You have tried the tortilla Spaniola? I, but my friend, no. Never has ever. Leverveveboes, patata, and pebbles. Does like to prove a little?

Yes, we'd like a much, 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. Mucha gratis and hasta pronto. This is the production of the Radiolingua Network. Find out more at Radiolingua.com.