November 27, 2006
Lesson 06
Notes
In this edition:
talking about
your family giving more
information;
numbers;
names.
Tengo tres hermanas.
Lesson 06
Programme Notes
Welcome to Coffee Break Spanish, the podcast
aimed at independent learners of Spanish. In
Coffee Break Spanish we’ll be guiding you
through the basics of the Spanish language and
helping you to learn to communicate in Spain
and Spanish-speaking countries.
In lesson 06 you’re going to be learning to give
more information about your family. You’ll be
introduced to the phrase “I have” and learn
numbers so that you can talk about how many
brothers and sisters / sons and daughters you
have. You’ll also learn to give their names.
I have...
A very useful word in any language is the word
“to have”. It often forms part of the most basic
expression in the language, and as we work
through Coffee Break Spanish you’ll find that “I
have” is extremely useful indeed:
tengo
I have
1
The word tengo comes from the verb tener,
meaning “to have”. It is used in various idiomatic
expressions, but for the time being we are going
to concentrate on its literal meaning.
We’ve already covered the words for “brother”,
hermano, and “sister”, hermana. In order to say “I
have a brother”, we have to learn the word for
“a”, or “one”. In Spanish, like many other
languages, there are different words for “a” or
“one”, depending on what you’re talking about.
Look at the following examples:
un hermano
a brother / one brother
una hermana
a sister / one sister
The word for “a” or “one” changes, depending
on whether you’re talking about a female or male
person, or a feminine or masculine word. For
masculine words, use un, and for feminine words
use una.
We can now put together the phrase “I have a
brother”:
Forming plurals
tengo un hermano
I have a brother
Equally, “I have a sister” is very straightforward:
Forming plurals in Spanish is extremely easy. In
most cases you simply add an -s to the word:
un hermano
a/one brother
tengo una hermana
I have a sister
We can replicate this pattern with the words for
“son” and “daughter”:
tengo una hija
I have a daughter
dos hermanos
two brothers
The same happens in feminine words:
una hermana
a/one sister
tengo un hijo
I have a son
dos hermanas
two sisters
Counting from 1-10
The numbers from one to ten are as follows:
uno
1
If a word ends in a consonant, -es is added to the
end of the word:
una mujer
a/one wife
dos mujeres
two wives
dos
2
These rules work for 99% of Spanish nouns.
tres
3
Giving names
cuatro
4
You’ve already learned to say “he is called” or
“she is called”. If you’re introducing your
brothers or sisters it’s useful to be able to say
“they are called”. This is very similar to the
construction you already know:
cinco
5
seis
6
se llama...
he/she is called...
siete
7
In the plural form, you add an -n to the end of
the word:
ocho
8
se llaman...
they are called...
nueve
9
Again, remember that the se here does not mean
“they”: instead it means “themselves” because
the phrase literally means “they call
themselves...”.
diez
10
We’ve already learned the words un and una
which are used to mean either “one” or “a”, eg.
un hermano, “a brother”. The word uno is used
when counting, and when not referring to one
specific thing.
2
Building language
One of the best exercises you can undertake to
practise the language you are learning is making
up sentences in the language. If you imagine
each of the phrases you’ve learned so far as
pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, you can take the jigsaw
apart and you’ll see that you can put it back
together in different ways.
Luís: ¿Cómo te llamas?
You’ve come across the word eres before. It means
“you are”. You can now work out phrases like:
eres mi hijo
you are my son
Ana:
Soy Ana. Éste es mi marido. Se
llama Juan.
Luís:
Mucho gusto. Ésta es mi mujer. Se
llama Patricia. Tengo dos hijos y
una hija. Se llaman Miguel, Agustín
y Pilar.
Ana:
Tengo una hija y tres hijos. Se
llaman Lorena, Pedro, Juan y
Carlos.
The word for “your” (informal) is:
tu
your
Below is a translation of the above dialogue to
help you.
Note the difference between this word and the
word for “you” (informal):
Luís: What is your name?
tú
you
Ana:
I’m Ana. This is my husband. He’s
called Juan.
The word “you” is tú, written with an accent.
The accent in Spanish has two purposes: it either
shows where you stress a word, or it allows you to
differenciate between two different words which
otherwise would be pronounced and written the
same. Tu and tú are a good example of this.
Luís:
Pleased to meet you. This is my
wife. She’s called Patricia. I have
two sons and a daughter. They’re
called Miguel, Agustín and Pilar.
Ana:
I have one daughter and three
sons. They’re called Lorena,
Pedro, Juan and Carlos.
To add to the phrase eres mi hijo, we can also
come up with phrases like:
soy tu padre
I am your father
Bonus vocabulary
One other word covered in the lesson today was:
In each edition of Coffee Break Spanish we
cover the basic language you need to
communicate. However we also provide some
additional vocabulary for our listeners who
download the extra materials. The bonus
vocabulary is covered in the top-up podcast each
week so you can improve your pronunciation of
these extra words and phrases!
quién
who
Let’s look at a conversation which brings
together some of the language we’ve covered in
this unit.
CoffeeBreakSpanish: Lesson 06 - Key Vocabulary
tengo...
I have...
un
a/one (masculine)
una
a/one (feminine)
tengo una hermana
I have a/one sister
uno
1
dos
2
tres
3
cuatro
4
cinco
5
seis
6
3
siete
7
ocho
8
nueve
9
diez
10
se llaman...
they are called
tu
your (inf)
tú
you (inf)
¿quién?
who?
CoffeeBreakSpanish: Lesson 06 - Bonus Vocabulary
mamá
mum / mom / mommy / mummy
papá
dad / daddy
zero
zero
¿tienes hijos?
do you have children? (informal)
¿tiene usted hijos?
do you have children (formal)
eres mi hijo
you are my son (inf)
soy tu padre
I am your (inf) father
soy soltero/a
I’m single
estoy casado/a
I’m married
Remember that if you have any questions about anything covered in this lesson, visit the Forum at
http://www.coffeebreakspanish.com and post a question. We’ll answer your question there and the
other users of CBS will benefit from the answer too!
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