93/365
27 de junio, 2017
Hola,
Thanks for stopping by today! It’s a great day for your Spanish.
We are at a very exciting point in our studies here at Spanish Blog 365. We have gained tons vocabulary and lots of useful grammar points.
However, the point that we launch off into verbs and get them going in our conversation is super exciting.
We begin to “think” in Spanish and have the ability to create our very own statements and express our very own ideas.
There is a verb in every sentence, so that tells us right there how important verbs are. They greatly open your conversational range and understanding.
At first, verbs may feel like a brick wall, but we are going to climb up and over it together and get to the other side…the conversational side.
Allow yourself 3-4 weeks to really let these settle in. Don’t be upset with your language learning abilities if they are not clear on day one. Keep working them and you’ll see that little light bulb come on. When it does, it is so exciting! We’re having a spontaneous free flowing conversation. Wow! The power of verbs.
We’ve already been working present tense verbs into our Posts without really calling them “present tense.”
We have specifically studied 3 individual verbs in the present tense. These are each unique and irregular so we looked at them one at a time.
Here are the Posts and their dates for ser, estar and hay.
Review Posts:
4/25 & 26 – hay
5/9, 10 & 11 – ser
5/30, 31 & 6/1, & 2 – estar
Today we’ll begin a series of Posts to learn regular present tense verbs.
Example of an irregular verb in English: The verb ‘to be‘ is highly irregular. No other verbs follow the same pattern.
to be – ser or estar in Spanish (See the English of ‘to be‘ followed by ser and estar next to it)
I am – yo soy or yo estoy
you are – tú eres or tú estás
he is – él es or él está
she is – ella es or ella está
we are – nosotros somos or estamos
they are – ellos son or ellos están
You all are – Uds. son or Uds. están
Example of an regular verb in English: these verbs are very ‘regular’ they have a pattern that we can apply to 100’s of other verbs.
to speak – hablar in Spanish
I speak – yo hablo
you speak – tú hablas
he speaks – él habla
she speaks – ella habla
we speak – nosotros hablamos
they speak – eloos/ellas hablan
You all speak – Uds. hablan
You can see how regular this verb ‘to speak / hablar‘ is in English and Spanish, yet how irregular ‘to be / ser or estar‘ is in both English and Spanish.
There are 100’s of regular verbs in Spanish (and English). When we learn regular verbs, we can grab big chunks rather than going at it one verb at a time.
Here we go!
1. In Spanish, there are 14 verb tenses. I’m going to stretch that and say 18 or 19 forms to know.
2. The present tense accounts for approximately 60% of our everyday conversations.
3. If a person knows 3-5 verb tenses they could be conversational in 95+% of all conversations.
4. Learn the present tense really well. Go broad here. Learn your verb vocabulary here and it’ll be easier to learn other tenses.
You’ll already know the vocabulary. You’ll just need to learn new endings and uses.
5. Time references that indicate the present tense. Use them to add detail to your sentences.
Ejemplo:
todos los días – everyday
Yo hablo español.- I speak Spanish.
Yo hablo español todos los días. – I speak Spanish everyday.
hoy – today
mañana – tomorrow
cada día – everyday
cada noche – every night
todos los sábados – every Saturday
todos los veranos – every summer
siempre – always
nunca – never
6. There are 3 groups of verbs in Spanish: -ar, -er, -ir
It’s easy to tell which group they belong to because they end in these letters.
hablar – to talk or to speak
comer – to eat
vivir – to live
which group do these belong to?
leer – to read
escuchar – to listen to
asistir – to attend
Action steps:
1. Get out your Spanish Blog notebook, you’ll really want it here!
2. Note points from above that really stand out to you.
3. Write the 3 groups of verbs down and start collecting verbs that belong to each group. You might take one full page in your notebook and draw 3 columns. Put -ar, -er, -ir at the top of each.
add: comer, asistir, hablar, leer, vivir, escuchar to the appropriate column.
4. come back tomorrow! We are at an exciting point in your studies.
Leave me a comment. Let me know if you have any questions.
Gracias y hasta mañana,
Carolina
