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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.
Dialogo – Los Verbos | |
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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
El Vocabulario – Viajar | ||||
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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:
Gramática – El presente regular | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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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:
- Take the ending off of the infinitive. This is either an -ar, -er, or -ir.
- Without the -ar, -er, or -ir, the verb is in its base form.
- 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.
Gramática – El verbo hacer | |||||||||||||||
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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 Tiempo | The Weather |
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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 Tiempo | The Weather |
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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 semana | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday |
el lunes | el martes | el miércoles | el jueves | el viernes | el sábado | el domingo |
- The Spanish week begins on Monday (el lunes), unlike the English week (which begins on Sunday/el domingo).