Elementary - Picnic

Love picnics fresh, freash air, barefoot, nice sun...

So the question of the day is: ¿Qué te gusta comer en tu picnic?

What do you like to eat at a picnic?

I like wine, cheese, bread, grapes, sandwiches, watermelon and something sweet, like a brownie maybe. Perfect combination.

Hi

The sentence below is from the "Expansion" section

No lleves mucha comida.
Please expain the grammar of the word lleves here. I thought it shoud be  lleve or lleva or even llevas

Gracias

Hi.  This is the imperativo (mandato) in the negative form using tu.

Translated would be...don't take a lot of food.

No lleve would be the same but changed for ud.

Speaking matter of factly you would use lleva and llevas.

No lleva/llevas mucha comida.  You don't take much food.

H

thanks for your interesting lessons.Only you confuse me with the pronunciation of llevo...I was taught a different sound for ll something like llievar

Hi hypersport

Sorry I am really confused with this "lleves"

below is all the conjugation of the verb llevar in the imperativo.

There is no "lleves" anywhere!

Imperativo

Puedo uso el verbo “traer” en lugar de “llevar”?  Creo que “llevar” significa en ingles “to take” mientras que “traer” significa “to bring”, o son los ambos los mismos?  O es el verbo “llevar” más coloquial?

I think it's a typo here in Elementary land.

lleves es:

2ª persona singular (tú) presente subjuntivo

That would be something like: you shouldn't take much food.

Lo siento, acabo de leí el vocabulario y veo que el significado es el mismo.   

Hola anabarfo.

Don't worry, there's a little trick here and once you know it, things get a lot easier.

The imperative is really important, we use it ALL the time whether with friends, family or work, it always comes up.

So learning the commands is really helpful when it comes to speaking, and just as important are the negative commands.

You're right, when you look at the conjugation chart it shows what you've posted for the imperative form, but it doesn't show the negative imperatives.

Ok, here's where the negative imperatives get easy, they follow the same conjugation as the present subjunctive.

If you look at the present subjunctive form for tu with the verb llevar, you see lleves.  This is the same as the negative imperative.

Look at this example with the verb hacer.

Do it.   Tu.   Hazlo.
Do it.   Ud.  Hagalo.
Do it.   Uds.  Haganlo.

Don't do it.   Tu.   No lo hagas.
Don't do it.   Ud.   No lo haga.
Don't do it.   Uds.  No lo hagan.

Hola rachaelt.

As speakers of English this is easy to confuse because we change the two verbs around a lot.

It's more clear cut in Spanish.  Here, they're going on a picnic, so they are going to take stuff. (llevar)

We might say "you bring the drinks and I'll bring the chips" but they don't do it like that in Spanish.

If you are with a friend and you want her to take something to another friend you have to use llevar where if you want her to go get you something then you use traer.

Think of traer in Spanish as something that is always being brought to you.  This is a case where you really have to learn to think in Spanish as the English thinking will get you saying it wrong.

A correction if you don't mind....acabo de leer.

Rachaelt

Llevar vs. traer is a tricky one.  I read about this in Breaking Out of Beginner's Spanish,which I can’t find right now but I am pretty sure I remember it correctly.  Traer is toward the speaker and llevar is away from the speaker.

If I leave my book at your house I can call you and say “¿Puedes traerme mi libro?” – “can you bring me my book” (toward the speaker) and you might answer “Si te lo llavaré” – “Yes I will bring it to you” (away from the speaker)

Hypersport & Stevestr - gracias!  That has helped to clarify the differences between the two for me a lot, so thank you.  And also thanks for the correction - always welcome!

Stevester and hypersport!

Wow!! You were amazing explaining this! Want to come and work at SpanishPod! hahahah great job guys!

I couldn't have done it better myself.

Lili

thank you

rachaelt

you are welcome

Hola hypersport

Muchas gracias. This is the first time I ever heard that conjugation of negative commands is different from normal commands

How could you people keep up with all these forms for every verb!

Best regards

Hey no problem.

They get easier the more you use them. The nice thing is that the majority follow patterns, so once you understand the construction, you can usually guess how something is said when a new verb comes along.

hmmmm interesting . . .

This would make a negative command more of a request.

a could you not do that instead of DON'T, would it not?

Hypersport:

If you look at the present subjunctive form for tu with the verb llevar, you see lleves.  This is the same as the negative imperative.

Look at this example with the verb hacer.

Do it.   Tu.   Hazlo.
Do it.   Ud.  Hagalo.
Do it.   Uds.  Haganlo.

Don't do it.   Tu.   No lo hagas.
Don't do it.   Ud.   No lo haga.
Don't do it.   Uds.  No lo hagan.

The usted/es versions being the same directed and negated, the Tu version changes,  I assume the vosotros follows suit with

Do it.          Vos.     Hacedlo.

Don't do it. Vos.    No lo Hacías.

This  would seem to be a polite nice bit you extend to those you know.

cobre

Para un mandato de vosotros:

Hacedlo

No lo hagáis

Todos los mandatos negativos usan el subjuntivo.

Ay, lo siento por el error ortográfico.

No se disculpe por cosas así. 

Es humo cometer errores

;)

Hola cobre.

A negative command is not a request.  It only shares the conjugations with the present subjunctive, so for learning purposes you can think of that part of the chart and you don't have to learn another ending.

No empieces.  Don't start.
No lo hagas.  Don't do it.
No vayas a pensar que todo...  Don't go and think that everything....
No lo contestes.  Don't answer it. (el telefono)
No me grites.  Don't yell at me.

I did not mean it was not a command, only that it might sound a bit more polite. In most other uses it would give wiggle room, and even if you know it is a command. You might still hear the option even though you know it is "almost certainly not a good one"

Una sugerencia desde el capitán es un comando.

and I think we have wandered off "the deep end" for an elementary lesson.

and speaking of "the deep end", dp, you still out there?

Cobre

sí, todavia estoy aqui. 

me alegro que no me olvides. 

¡No me olvides! ;-)

Hey Hypersport & Stevestrv,

Thanks for the very handy tidbit on Traer vs Llevar. me traes/te llevo , si?

That's the stuf that makes this site rise above the others. Great teachers, great hosts AND great users!

russ huntley

your are welcome

Cuando yo estudiaba en España, vivía con una familia española.  La señora hacía las mejores bocadillas: el pan delicioso y la tortilla riquísima .  Mmmm!  Me gusta comer eso en mi picnic.

Tengo una pregunta sobre la palabra "integral". En la sección de vocabulario usted lo tradujo como "multi-grain" – más de uno grano. Entonces esto podría tener el trigo, la avena, el arroz, etc. En la sección de extensión usted lo tradujo como "whole wheat bread", solamente uno grano?  ؟