| Learn Spanish Verbs |
||||
| Home
Free
Spanish Online Learn Spanish Today! Spanish
Learning Tools
|
Spanish Verbs Spanish verbs strike fear into the heart of even the best students and for good reason: the Spanish verb system is large and exactly what kind of lunatic decided that the subjunctive should be used all the freakin' time? But fear not, its bark is worse than its bite. You will undoubtedly learn the verb system in less time than you thought once you get past the initial feeling over being overwhelmed by all the rules, rules, rules. I've broken down the most notorious of the problems pretty much every Spanish learner seems to come across sooner or later for your reading pleasure. Ser vs. Estar Preterite vs. Imperfect Indicative vs. Subjunctive Tu vs. Usted Verbal Idioms Ser vs. Estar Ser is used for permanent states of being. He is tall (ser). She is pretty (ser). The verb basically says "that's the way things are" and they will never change: you don't normally become short nor (we hope) ugly overnight. You would also use it to express personality traits: Ella es simpática (she is nice and always has been). Ser is also used to express time. ¿Qué hora es? Son las dos de la tarde. Estar is the verb for temporary states and locations. If you said "Ella está simpática" you would basically be saying "She's sure is nice today (which is surprising because she's usually not all that nice)". You can see how such a back-handed compliment could be dangerous for your health. Fortunately, most people will tend to take such a comment as meaning "She's especially nice today (even more so than usual)" so your chances of permanent injury are somewhat lessened. Nevertheless, be careful. The other major use of estar is to express location: "José está en Los Angeles." This usage makes perfect sense for estar because while José is currently in LA, there's nothing forcibly keeping him there. He can move to Canada tomorrow if he wants. Thus, it fits our "temporary states" rule. More confusing is the statement "Los Angeles está en California." Huh? Isn't the location of a city pretty permanent? Well, yes. So why, you may ask, do I have to use estar? The answer is simple: you just do. Get over it. You must always use estar when expressing location no matter how permanent. I've seen various "logical" explanations of this usage before but you're better off just memorizing the rule and using those extra brain cells to cure cancer. Preterite vs. Imperfect The face-off between the preterite and imperfect tenses was the hardest for me to overcome, personally. But only because we have nothing like it in English, as there is nothing really difficult about it. The main thing you have to keep in mind is that the preterite is used for one-time occurrences while the imperfect is used for repeated actions. For instance, say you were walking down the street someday. Which tense would you use? In this case, the "someday" is a dead giveaway that the preterite is needed because it implies a specific time. Caminaste por la calle. (preterite) But suppose you walked down the street every day for years on your way to work. Then you would need the imperfect. Caminabas por la calle todos los días. (imperfect) In this case, "todos los días" is a dead giveaway because it flat out says that this was an everyday thing. You always walked down this street: it was part of your routine. Now suppose on your way to work someday, you ran into an old friend of yours. Observe: Caminabas (imperfect) por la calle cuando encontraste (preterite) a un amigo. It makes perfect sense, right? The walking provides an action backdrop for the meeting: it describes something in the background, something you just happened to be doing. This is probably the best way to think about the difference between the preterite and imperfect. The imperfect usually denotes background action. It doesn't matter if this background action lasts a few seconds or a few centuries. It only matters that it was a continuous action. And then, along comes your friend. You only met him on a certain day, so you have to use the preterite to describe it. So you should think of the preterite tense as describing separate, discreet events. You may meet your friend on more than one walk, but they aren't related: they are completely separate events. You'll have to get in the habit of making this distinction every time you talk about a past event in Spanish, which will be difficult at first. After all, English doesn't make use choose. The phrase "I ate cereal for breakfast" doesn't clarify when or how often you ate cereal. It could be just once or it could be every morning for a decade. You don't have to say in English. Spanish simply forces you to make this distinction every time you talk about the past in the verb itself. In this way, there's no need for extraneous words like "yesterday", "every day", "last year", etc. It's quite elegant, actually. If you say "Caminaba por la calle" the Spanish ear will immediately understand that it wasn't simply a one-time thing without the need for further explanation. Indicative vs. Subjunctive This is one of those eternal questions that just won't go away and I don't see dispelling it once-and-for-all here. So when exactly do I use the subjunctive? When you don't know something. Let me clarify, the subjunctive is for when what you're talking about isn't a known fact. Say you have an emergency and need somebody who speaks English to help you out. So you wander into a bar and ask: ¿Hay alguien que hable inglés aqui? You have to use the subjunctive form of hablar here because you simply don't know if anybody here speaks English yet. If you knew, you wouldn't have to ask. Same thing goes when you need to know if any of the stores around here have a restroom: ¿Hay una tienda por aqui que tenga un baño? This is sometimes referred to as the "Traveler's Subjunctive" because asking if something or other exists is a pretty common thing for a traveler to ask. You would do well to learn this usage of the subjunctive asap if you want to be able to find that restroom when you need it. So far so good, but asking about things that may or may not exist is only part of the story. The subjunctive is also used to express wishes, commands, hopes, dreams and the like. After all, wishing the train to arrive on time won't necessarily make it so. Ojalá que el tren llegue a tiempo. We hope that the train arrives on time, but it may not. It may not even arrive at all, for that matter. And until it actually does, we must speak of its arrival in the subjunctive. I find that this is the easiest usage to learn. Quiero que nos encontremos más tarde. -> I want to meet up later. Ella espera que gane buenas notas. -> She hopes she gets good grades.
One last little trick of the subjunctive I find amusing is that you can use it to express the -ever suffix in English: cuando quieras -> whenever you want lo que sea -> whatever lo que digas -> whatever you say etc... Tu vs. Usted This one isn't hard at all but some people have trouble with it. Basically, if you would use Mr, Mrs, Sir, Ma'am, etc in English, use usted. Otherwise, use tu. You would never use usted with your best friend and conversely, you would definitely want to use usted with the nice judge about to fine you for speeding. In Spain, I almost never heard anybody use usted, in fact, but I hear it's still common in much of Latin America. But if you want to be on the safe side, there's no problem with using usted all the time until told to do otherwise. People will just think you're really, really polite. Verbal Idioms Idioms are aspects of a language the way they are simply because that's the way they are. They don't make literal or logical sense and you shouldn't try to force them to. Just memorize them and be done with it.
Expressing Obligation To express obligation in Spanish in the sense of "he has to do something" simply use tener que. This idiom implies that you simply don't have a choice; you have to do it. Tengo que estudiar. -> I have to study. Tenemos que pagar nuestros impuestos. -> We have to pay our taxes. This works the same for any tense, indicative and subjunctive alike.
Breaking Stuff Spanish speakers, for whatever reason, are extremely loathe to admit a mistake. Say you broke one of your mother's expensive china plates. How would you tell her about it? You would sweeten it up a bit to lessen the blow. Spanish, luckily, has a built-in way of doing this: the reflexive! Instead of saying: Rompí el plato. -> I broke the plate (implies it was on purpose) you would say: Se me rompió el plato. -> I was just kinda standing there and I kinda, accidentally broke it. Same rule applies for forgetting important dates. You didn't really forget it, it just kinda forgot itself on you (which is what you are literally saying). Useful for when you forget your girlfriend's birthday.
Future of Uncertainty Here's a handy little trick for expressing probability without having to repeat "probablemente" over and over. Say your friend Bob couldn't come over to play poker with the guys tonight. You ask where he is and the response is that "he's probably studying for his test in the morning." To express this in Spanish, you would actually use the future tense of estudiar to express that "he's probably studying". ¿Dónde está Bob? Estudiará para su examen mañana en la mañana. or you could just say: "Probablemente está estudiando para su examen." Whatever floats your boat, although resorting to the latter is sure to make you sound like a tourist. If you want to express what somebody was probably doing in the past, just use the conditional instead of the future. What was Bob doing yesterday? Estudiaría para su examen -> He was probably studying for his test.
See any mistakes? Email Me and let me know. Thanks! Home | Email Me | Disclaimer
|