¿Cómo te llamas? y
¿Cómo estás?
ESPAÑOL 1
UNIDAD 1: LECCIÓN 2
La gramática
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As we go through this module, there are a few steps you can take to master our
objectives.
Take notes. These notes will help you on future assignments.
Practice pronunciation. When given time in the lesson, repeat the words as you hear
them.
Use your vocabulary list as we go along. The concepts presented here are presented
using this lesson’s vocabulary list.
Remember the lesson goals and objectives! By the end of this lesson, you should be
able to talk about your daily routine and someone else’s.
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Informal vs. Formal
In English we use the same question to ask someone’s name if they are 8years old or
if they are 80 years old.
What is your name?
In Spanish we use two different forms of this question.
These forms are often referred to as the Tú and Usted forms.
Tú is used for informal situations with people who are younger than you or with
peers.
Usted is used in formal situations with people who are influential or older than
yourself.
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¿Cómo te llamas? Is the tú form
Vs.
¿Cómo se llama Usted? Is the Usted form.
Do you remember which one you would use with your little brother? If you said the
tú form you are correct.
Do you remember which one you would use with the president of the United States?
If you said the Ud. Form you are correct.
¿Cómo te llamas? Is used with younger people or with people in your peer group and
¿Cómo se llama Usted? Is used with older people or with people in influential
positions.
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¿Cómo te llamas?
o
¿Cómo se llama Usted?
Which one would you use with the girl in this picture? If you said the first one you
are correct.
Which one would you use with the man on the right? If you said the ¿Cómo se llama
Usted? You are correct.
Notice that llamas ends in an –as and llama ends in an –a
Starting to notice patterns like this will help you a lot in learning Spanish.
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Let’s look at the next question we have…
¿Cómo estás?
Vs.
¿Cómo está Usted?
Which one would you use with your friends? If you said ¿Cómo estás? Great job! It
means How are you?
And which one would you use with people who are older than you? ¿Cómo está
Usted? Great work!
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¿Cómo estás?
Vs.
¿Cómo está Usted?
Which would you use with the boy on the left?
¿Cómo estás? That’s right!
Which would you use with the man on the right?
¿Cómo está Usted? That’s correct.
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To redirect a question we also use these forms informally and formally 
In an informal situation to say, ‘And you?’ we would say ¿Y tú?
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To redirect a question in a formal situation we would use, ¿Y Ud.?
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We also need to discuss gender or masculinity versus femininity
In English this doesn’t exist, we can’t end a word in a certain letter to know that it
refers to a man or a woman.
However in Spanish we can…
If a word ends in an –o it often refers to a man
If a word ends in an –a it often refers to a woman
Let’s look at this more in depth.
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Nouns and Adjectives
in Spanish
This will be presented more in depth later but you can know the following about
nouns and adjectives in Spanish.
When a noun/adjective that refers to a person ends in an –o it is often talking about
or referring to a boy or a man.
el chico – the boy
encantado – nice to meet you (used by a male)
When a noun/adjective that refers to a person ends in an –a it is often talking about
or referring to a girl or a woman.
la chica – the girl
encantada – nice to meet you (used by a female)
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el/la
El and la both mean the, therefore el chico means the boy and la chica means the girl
If a noun or adjective end in an –e we can use el and la to tell us if the noun or
adjective are for a boy or a girl.
El estudiante means student and because it ends in an -e we don’t know if the
student is a boy or a girl
However, because el is in front of the word we know this student is a boy
The word sociable means sociable in English and can refer to both masculine and
feminine words because it ends in an -e.
If I said la estudiante sociable could you tell me if I am talking about a girl or a boy?
If you said girl you are correct…la estudiante sociable means the sociable student
who is a girl.
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Here’s a word from this lesson that follows this pattern it’s an adjective.
Encantado/a means nice to meet you.
Which one would the man on the left use encantado or encantada? If you said
encantado you are correct.
Which one would the woman use encantado or encantada? If you said encantada
you are correct.
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EL FIN
All images are part of Microsoft PowerPoint image gallery
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