Intermediate - Going on Vacation

Hi everyone! ¡Cuánto me encantaría ir a las playas de Puerto Rico! ¿Sabe alguien qué tiempo hará en el caribe? (btw, Estibaliz did the recordings for today's lesson on the Dialogue, Vocabulary, and Expansion pages. You‘ll notice her European Spanish pronunciation. For those of you who aren't familiar with European Spanish pronunciation, it's very close to Latin American pronunciation. The main difference is that /z/, /ce-/ and /ci-/ are pronounced with the [θ] (theta), which is the same /th-/ sound in the English words "think" and "thanks." The rest of the sounds are more are less the same!)

¡¡¡Cómo me gustaría poder bañarme en esas azules aguas del Caribe!!! Tumbarne en la playa, con mis gafas de sol y tomar el sol tranquilamente. ¿Quién se apunta al plan? Cuantos más, mejor, jeje.

Yo voy contigo Esti! Playa, mar y una cerveza en la mano!

JP, No entiendo un parte de '¿Sabe alguien qué tiempo hará en el caribe?'. ¿Qué significa en inglés 'qué tiempo hará'. ¿Porqué 'qué y no que? Saludos

Mi pecado capital es la pereza y el tuyo? ha ha My deadly sin is sloth and yours?

Yo tambien quisiera poder disfrutar la playa y el sol... aqui donde vivo acaba de empezar a nevar. Si no puedo ir a la playa, por lo menos espero que tendramos un poco de nieve durante la Navidad :) (lo escribi correctamente? Con el subjuntivo despues de 'esperar'?) Ay, Liliana, when you said "you're the expert" to PJ, it sounded as "you're the expert in los pecados capitales :D:D Somehow it's hard to imagine (and hilarious). Creo que mi pecado es la gula, porque yo tambien muchas veces como de pura gula - hay tanta comida sabrosa en el mundo! :)

mharbus, I think "que tiempo hara" means "what the weather *could* be (there) like", "I wonder how's the weather there". I seem to remember that the future tense in questions often means an uncertainty, something you're wondering about (like in: Me parece que pesara un 70 kilos - I think he/she might weigh about 70 kilos). Que is with an accent because it's a question, not a statement: que (with an accent) tiempo hara? - what the weather could be like? and not: Me parece que (no accent) hara buen tiempo - I think the weather should be fine. But that's just a layman's opinion. I'd be very grateful if someone from spanishpod verified it :)

Oolung, Gracias por tu intento pero hay un problema con tu traducción. La primera parte de la oración pregunta 'sabe alguien' (do you know anybody/somebody/anyone)...no se puede decir en inglés ..'Do you know anyone what the weather could be like there....? Saludos

¿Sabe alguien qué tiempo hará en el caribe? In English, we talk about what the weather "is like," in Spanish, we say what weather is it doing: "¿Qué tiempo hace?" I use the simple future here, because it doubles as a "probably present." What weather is it probably doing? What do you think the weather is like? There's some grammatical rules I could quote you, but for now, I want you to know that qué means "what?" and que (no accent mark) means "that." ______ Sigh. No one has answered my question yet.... ¿Sabe alguien qué tiempo hará en el caribe? ; )

Penso que hará lluve en Puerto Rico, pero solo una conjetura. (I think I butchered that one)

¿Llueve hoy en Puerto Rico? Bueno, es posible...

You can also say. "Pienso que ahora llueve en Puerto Rico" I think it is raining now in Puerto Rico.

Whoops - accidentally slipped Italian "penso" instead of "pienso". Gracias Lilliana. JP - Comprobé weather.com y aprendí era lloviá. Como se dice "I cheated"?

I need a little help in my confusion about ¿Sabe alguien....? When I read the sentence I thought it was asking...Do you know anyone.....?...and therefore I was expecting que (who/that), not qué, to follow. If I wanted to say 'Do you know anyone who ..? would the construction be ¿Sabe a alguien que......? Also, could one say ¿Alguien sabe qué....? Saludos

fimperial To say "I cheated you say" "hice trampa", which comes from the verb "hacer trampa."

mharbus, You can say ¿Alguien sabe qué...?, it sounds great to me. What I did in ¿Sabe alguien qué...? was to swap the subject and verb, just like you do in English when you ask "Do you know...?" instead of "*You do know...?" Languages like English and Mandarin Chinese rely on word order to code who-does-what in a sentence. Spanish does not rely on word order; Spanish has things like subject-verb agreement and noun-adjective agreement to help you keep track of who-does-what. That means in Spanish, we can take a lot more liberty in switching stuff around. As for your "Do you know anyone who..." question, it would be "Conoces a alguien que..." and notice that the "que" does not have an accent mark. So in fact that question's grammar is totally different from what we've been talking about. Hope that helps! :)

Gracias JP...por fin todo queda muy claro. Lamentablemente, yo continúo confundirme con los usos de saber y conocer.

mharbus Que bien escribes español! Tienes alguna idea para una lección. Algo que te interese en particular?

Hola JP y Liliana, ¡Me encanta SpanishPod¡ Buen trabajo, y muchas gracias por un sitio tán chévere. ¡Por favor esbriban lecciones avanzadas muy pronto!

Hola Grammargirl: Gracias por tu comentario. Pronto tendremos lecciones mas avanzadas, pero si tienes alguna sugerencia o alguna idea del tema de la lección deja tu comentario. Saludos

Hola Liliana, Gracias por tu complemento. Si posible, me gustaría una lección sobre la preposición 'de'. Por ejemplo, ¿se usa siempre en esta estructura...adjetivo + de + infinitivo? También, me gustaria una lección sobre los muchos usos de la palabra 'llevar' y una lección sobre la diferencia entre 'sentir' y 'sentirse'. Y en cuanto a tema, me gustaría uno sobre béisbol. Saludos y feliz navidad....

Gracias Liliana - trataré no hago trampa.

Hola a SpanishPod y todos. Gracias por estas lecciones buenísimas! Qué es la diferencia entre Deseo que sea navidad? Y Deseo que fuera navidad? Para decir "I wish...." Simpre he usado: Ojala que fuera navidad. O Ojala que estuvieras aquí. Tal vez me equivoque.

docmolly, "Ojalá" + imperfect subjunctive implies a regret in the present. So "Ojalá que fuera navidad" is something like 'if only it were Christmas (now).' "Ojalá" + present subjunctive implies a wish for the future. So Ojalá que llueva café is something like 'may it rain coffee (soon).' As for your "deseo" sentences, "deseo" is in the present tense, so it triggers either the present subjunctive sea, or the present perfect subjunctive haya sido. Here, sea works best. If you had the trigger were in the past (e.g., "deseaba"), you would use either the imperfect subjunctive fuera or the present perfect subjunctive hubiera sido. In summary, the choice of which subjunctive depends on the past-ness (or non-past-ness) of the verb in the triggering clause. We can talk more about this, if you're interested; it's relatively advanced!

JP, You're brilliant. You answered my questions perfectly. Thanks so much!

Oh...y me encanta que te refieras a la famosa canción de Juan Luis Gerra.

Well, I've begun dipping my toes into the Intermediate level, and as I expected, the dialogue has begun to sound as baffling and rapid-fire as when I hear spanish spoken around me in the three dimensional world. The material world as opposed to the virtual one. that's a tip of the hat to Buddhist thought, not to our dear national icon Madonna. Anyway, I'm trying to relax and understand what I'm able to, with the help of JP and Lili and a repetition of the dialogue. And I'm learning good bits and relaxing about what I don't get, and then going on to the next lesson. Works for me, more or less. And after all those newbie and elementary lessons, it's such a treat to listen to Lili speaking almost entirely in spanish. It's a revelation, as if a much fuller dimension of her comes out this way, the full person. That alone is worth the price of feeling a little stupid while trying to understand everything. Human beings are so amazing, and language is such a rich way to understand just how amazing, how rich we all are. But enough cosmic sentimentality! One thing that amused me greatly was you guys' explanation of the Seven Deadly Sins as we most usually call them and the Spanish language version, pecados capitalies. Though I understand the sense in which Lili's saying that the idea is that together these seven comprise the "head" of the body of human crimes and misdemeanors, a sort of metaphorical sense, my feeling is that it's also related to the English term capital crime. And here, "head" is used literally. A capital crime in the U.S. justice system is one for which the death penalty is available, in those states where capital punishment is still done. About 37 of our 50, I think it is. and this use of "capital" is literally the head, from Latin, source of the title of a Mafia capo, or the musical notation da capo (from the head, the beginning) and the Spanish cabeza. It has to do with cutting off the head. See French Revolution. So a capital crime is one for which the perpetrator may be executed. A capital offense. And, though I'm only a lay observer of Catholicism, I'm pretty sure that the sense of the sins in that list is similarly serious in terms of the attempt to intimidate. After all, behind the gentle, forgiving Jesus of the New Testament is Jehovah the Old Testament father, who flies into a rage and doles out quite a lot of lethal punishment to those who offend Him by contravening His instructions and taboos. So I say let's give the Devil his due, as it were. Capital sins, indeed. fortunately Catholicism incorporates ritual ways of expiating sin and receiving pardon, as does Judaism during the services on the day of Atonement where the entire congregation chants together their admission of having committed one brievous sin after another, finally asking God to forgive the transgressions and inscribe them in the Book of Life for the year to come. sorry for the digression, but the mind goes to these places. What I lack in Spanish fluency I fill in by such mental activity, I think. It's all good.

In both high school and college, I was taught "se me olvidó."

I've also had two people correct me for using this construction, saying that it should be "lo olvidé," like in this dialogue.

Is it a regional thing (I was taught Mexican Spanish)? Am I just old and out-of-date?  Or what?

2penhuizc

Solo una idea:

Diciendo "lo olvide' " uno asume la culpa de que el mismo fue quien olvido' algo

Diciendo "se me olvido' " uno se quita la responsabilidad de haber olvidado algo, enfatizando que la cosa se le olvido' por si misma jeje

Digan lo que digan, la segunda frase definitivamente me cae mejor jeje

 

Y para los que se preguntan "Que es lo mas correcto de todo?, Cual es la unica palabra/frase lo que sea.. correcta y oportuna?", ahi les va un dicho que siempre se lo digo a mis estudiantes "preguntones" y "perfeccionistas"

"Adonde fueras, haz lo que vieras!"

Saludos

¡Hola karinioshka!

Creo que no existe esa diferencia entre "lo olvide" y "se me olvido", pero el idioma es algo vivo y no quita que pueda haber personas que hagan esa diferencia incoscientemente.

lo olvidé = I forgot it.

se me olvidó = it slipped my mind.

Buenos días SpanishPod,

 

Como todos los demás me gusta mucho las playas, sobre todo para nadar, o hacer el ‘windsurfing’. Ahora mismo vivo cerca de la costa, pero aquí el agua se pone casi helado en el invierno. Hay mucho viento también, entonces en este momento hay que viajar a algún lugar tropical para disfrutar una playa!

 

S