November 18, 2006
In this edition:
talking about
your family; the
words for
various
members of
your family;
introducing
people; giving
their names;
pronunciation
tips.
Lesson 05
Notes
Éste es mi marido.
Lesson 05
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 05 you’ll be learning to talk about your
family and introduce your brothers, sisters,
husband, wife, etc. You’ll also learn to give their
name.
Family members
The words for family members are fairly easy to
remember. In many cases the words for
masculine relatives and feminine relatives are
very similar. Let’s look at these words now:
hermano
brother
You’ll notice that these words are identical, apart
from the ending. You may know that, unlike in
English, other languages often have different
genders. In the case of Spanish this means that
some words are masculine and some words are
feminine. This makes sense when you’re speaking
about “brothers” or “sisters” because these words
refer to masculine or feminine concepts: a
brother, a father, an uncle all would be
masculine, and sister, mother, daughter, etc.
would be feminine. The -o ending in Spanish is
very common for masculine words, and the -a
ending is equally common for feminine words.
In future lessons we’ll learn that Spanish also
uses a distinction between masculine and
feminine words for “things”, eg. the word for
“house” is feminine and the word for “village” is
masculine. There’s no reason for this, it’s just the
way it is!
Pronunciation tip: the words hermano and
hermana bring up an important pronunciation
point. In Spanish, the letter h is always silent.
This makes the pronunciation of hermano
“ermano”, etc.
hermana
sister
1
Let’s continue with the words for family
members:
padre
father
mi padre
my father
mi mujer
my wife
madre
mother
Note that the word mujer also means “woman”.
Introductions
marido
husband
To introduce someone in Spanish, you must first
consider whether this person is male or female:
mujer
wife
éste es...
this is (m)
hijo
son
ésta es...
this is (f)
You should also note the accents on both words
because without these accents both words have
other meanings.
hija
daughter
Pronunciation tip: the letter j in Spanish is one
of the sounds which is more difficult to
pronounce for non-native Spanish speakers.
Again, like many sounds in Spanish, it varies
slightly depending on which Spanish-speaking
area you’re familiar with. If you imagine the
Scottish word loch. The ch in loch is created by
putting the back of your tongue up towards the
soft part of the roof of your mouth (soft palate)
and blowing air through the small space created.
The technical name for this is a “voiceless velar
fricative”. The sound is very common in lots of
languages, eg. Dutch, Czech, Greek, Indonesian,
Vietnamese, etc.
Being possessive
You also need to know how to say “my brother”,
“my husband”, etc. and this is extremely
straightforward in Spanish. Whereas some
languages have different words for “my”
depending on whether the word which follows is
masculine or feminine, the singular form of
“my” in Spanish is:
mi
my
Have a look at this conversation which includes
some of the words we’ve covered so far in this
lesson.
Raúl: Hola, buenos días.
Diana: Hola. Soy Diana. ¿Cómo te
llamas?
Raúl: Me llamo Raúl. Ésta es mi mujer, y
éste es mi hijo.
Diana: Encantada. Éste es mi marido, y
ésta es mi hija.
Raúl: Hola. Mucho gusto.
There’s one thing missing from the conversation
above: Raúl and Diana introduce their family
members without giving their names. We’re now
going to learn how to give names.
He/she is called...
You’ve already learned to say “my name is...”: me
llamo... To say “his name is...” or “her name is...”
you use the phrase:
se llama...
he/she is called...
So, this gives combinations such as:
2
Try not to think of the word se as meaning “he”
or “she” or “his” or “her”. In fact this word
means “himself ” or “herself ”, just as the me in me
llamo means “myself ”. Don’t worry too much
about this just now, but if you try to avoid
thinking of se and me in this way it will certainly
help you later on!
Let’s add this last part to the conversation
between Raúl and Diana, and we’ll include some
other phrases from previous lessons.
Raúl: Hola, buenos días.
this conversation quite informally, to give you a
better idea of how the language is used.
Raúl: Hello there.
Diana: Hi. How are you doing?
Raúl: Very well, thanks. What about you?
Diana: Fine. What’s your name?
Raúl: I’m called Raúl. What’s your
name?
Diana: My name is Diana.
Raúl: Where are you from, Diana?
Diana: Hola. ¿Qué tal?
Raúl: Muy bien, gracias. ¿Y tú?
Diana: Bien. ¿Cómo te llamas?
Raúl: Me llamo Raúl. ¿Cómo te llamas?
Diana: Me llamo Diana.
Raúl: ¿De dónde eres, Diana?
Diana: I’m from Salamanca.
Raúl: Really? I’m from Salamanca too,
but I now live in Barcelona.
Diana: This is my husband. He’s called
Gabriel.
Raúl: Pleased to meet you, Gabriel. This
is my wife, Eva.
Diana: Soy de Salamanca.
Raúl: ¿Sí? Yo soy de Salamanca
también, pero ahora vivo en
Barcelona.
Diana: Éste es mi marido. Se llama
Gabriel.
Diana: Hi, Eva. Nice to meet you. This is
my daughter. She’s called María.
Raúl: And this is my son. His name is
Jorge.
Raúl: Mucho gusto, Gabriel. Ésta es mi
mujer, Eva.
Diana: Hola, Eva. Encantada. Ésta es mi
hija. Se llama María.
Raúl: Y éste es mi hijo. Se llama Jorge.
Below is a translation of the above dialogue to
help you. Note that we’ve deliberately translated
Bonus vocabulary
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!
CoffeeBreakSpanish: Lesson 05 - Key Vocabulary
hermano
brother
hermana
sister
padre
father
madre
mother
marido
husband
mujer
wife
hijo
son
hija
daughter
mi...
my
mi marido
my husband
mi hermano
my brother
3
mi padre
my father
éste es...
this is... (m)
ésta es...
this is... (f)
se llama...
he/she is called...
CoffeeBreakSpanish: Lesson 05 - Bonus Vocabulary
tío
uncle
tía
aunt
abuelo
grandfather
abuela
grandmother
primo
cousin (m)
prima
cousin (f)
amigo
friend (m)
amiga
friend (f)
te presento a...
let me introduce you to... (inf)
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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