Lesson 3

Text

Here are a couple of sentences and short dialogs about people planning/doing leisure activities. Besides the new vocabulary you should also have a look at how the verbs are conjugated depending on the subject of the sentence.

Flaga Hiszpanii

DialogoLos Verbos

Maria viaja a México
Luis: ¿Qué hacen por la noche?
Ana y Carmen: Nosotras bailamos en la fiesta.
Raúl: ¿Qué haces mañana?
Carlos: Mañana practico al tenis.
Marco mira la televisión porque hace mal tiempo.
Pedro y Mario toman unos refrescos.
Rosalía escribe a sus padres los domingos.

As you may see, each verb is bolded. These verbs are conjugated, that is, changed by the person(s) to which they are referring. Notice that subject pronouns are not necessary.

Vocabulary for text

Spanish Flag

El VocabularioViajar

Travelling
viajar
hacer
la noche
bailar
la fiesta
mañana
practicar
mirar
porque
buen tiempo
mal tiempo
tomar
beber
el refresco
el domingo
escribir
los padres
to travel
to do, to make
night
to dance
party
tomorrow
to practice
to watch, to look at
because
nice weather
bad weather
to take, to drink
to drink
soda, soft drink
Sunday
to write
parents

Regular Verbs

Spanish has three different types of regular verbs: -ar, -er, and -ir verbs. The subject pronoun is not necessary and in conversational Spanish it is only used for emphasis. For this lesson, we will omit it. One can still use pronouns, however. The conjugation pattern is the following:

Spanish Flag

GramáticaEl presente regular

Person-ar-er-ir
Infinitivehablarcomervivir
Englishto talkto eatto live
1hablocomovivo
2hablascomesvives
3hablacomevive
4hablamoscomemosvivimos
5hablaiscomeisvivís
6hablancomenviven

As one can see, the endings for each person are different. This is similar to other Romance languages, such as Portuguese and Italian (the notable exception is French). This is the reason why we may omit the pronouns while we speak. Remember that sometimes it is best to clarify whether él, ella, or usted is speaking, because they share the same form. However, the context of the rest of the sentence sometimes clarifies this. There are a few steps involved with conjugating a verb. Here are the steps involved:

  1. Take the ending off of the infinitive. This is either an -ar, -er, or -ir.
  2. Without the -ar, -er, or -ir, the verb is in its base form.
  3. Add the appropriate ending to the base of the verb.

Notice that there are only two differences between the conjugations of -er and -ir verbs. The nosotros (4) and vosotros (5) forms are the only differences. Those forms have an “i” in the stem instead of an “e.”


“G” Verbs

The verb hacer means to do or to make. Hacer is irregular in the first person singular form (I) of the present tense only. The irregular form is hago. Hacer is one of the many verbs in Spanish which add a “g” in the first person singular of the verb. This is the present indicative of the verb hacer.

Spanish Flag

GramáticaEl verbo hacer

PersonVerb form
1hago
2haces
3hace
4hacemos
5haceis
6hacen

Note that the verb hacer is translated as to do and to make when referring to activities. But it can also be used to talk about some weather conditions:

El TiempoThe Weather
Hace buen tiempo.The weather is good.
Hace mal tiempo.The weather is bad.
Hace frío. (also: Está frío)It’s cold.
Hace fresco.It’s chilly.
Hace calor.It’s hot.
Hace sol.It’s sunny.
Hace nublado.It’s cloudy.
Hace viento.It’s windy.

But:

El TiempoThe Weather
Está fresco.It’s chilly.
Está caluroso.It’s hot.
Hay sol/está soleado.It’s sunny.
Hay nubes/está nublado.It’s cloudy.
Hay viento/está ventoso.It’s windy.

When speaking about the weather using hacer, the Ud. form (third singular form) is always used.

El vocabulario (Vocabulary) – Los días (Days)

Los dias de la semanaMondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFridaySaturdaySunday
el lunesel martesel miércolesel juevesel viernesel sábadoel domingo

  • The Spanish week begins on Monday (el lunes), unlike the English week (which begins on Sunday/el domingo).
Share via
Copy link