January 7, 2007
In this edition:
dealing with
language
problems;
saying if you
understand or
not; asking for
help; talking
about which
languages you
speak
Lesson 11
Notes
Stage 2
Lo siento, no entiendo
Lesson 11
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.
Lesson 11 is the start of Stage 2 of this
programme. In Stage 2 we’ll be concentrating on
the language you’ll need to cope in practical
situations while you’re on holiday in a Spanishspeaking country. In today’s lesson we’ll be
concentrating on how to cope when you don’t
understand what is being said to you.
Antes de empezar...
Before beginning the new learning content for
this lesson, Kara and Mark introduced
themselves for the benefit of new listeners. Here
is the text of their presentations:
Kara: Hola, me llamo Kara. Soy estudiante
de español y vivo en Glasgow en
Escocia. Me gusta la música, me
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gusta bailar y ¡aprender español con
Coffee Break Spanish!
Kara explained that she’s a Spanish student and
she lives in Glasgow, in Scotland. She likes music,
she likes to dance and learn Spanish with Coffee
Break Spanish.
Here is Mark’s presentation:
Mark: Yo soy Mark, me llamo Mark. Soy
escocés también, soy de Escocia, y
vivo también en Glasgow. A mí me
encanta la música, sobretodo la
música española. Me encanta
también tocar el piano, y me gustan
mucho los idiomas.
Mark said that he, too, is Scottish. He used the
word escocés, the adjective “Scottish”. This is
another way of saying soy de Escocia. Look at the
two forms below:
soy escocés
I’m Scottish (masculine)
soy escocesa
I’m Scottish (feminine)
Listed below are some other languages. Note that
all of these use small letters for :
We will be covering these and other adjectives in
future editions of the show.
inglés
English
Mark also used the very useful word, sobretodo.
This literally means “above all”, and is a good
way to increase your range of expression:
sobretodo
above all, especially
francés
French
The final part of Mark’s presentation mentioned
that he likes los idiomas, languages.
alemán
German
Hablo español
italiano
Italian
We covered the phrase for “I speak Spanish” in a
previous lesson:
japonés
Japanese
hablo español
I speak Spanish
You’ll have noticed that the word for “I speak”
ends in -o. Hopefully you’ll have started to notice
something of a pattern with words like hablo.
Hablo forms part of the verb hablar, meaning “to
speak”. To say “I speak” you take off the ending
-ar and add -o. We’ll be looking at this in more
detail in coming programmes.
chino
Chinese
Note that in all the words for languages the
initial letter is lower case: you don’t use capital
letters for Spanish languages.
To say “you speak Spanish”, use:
hablas español
you speak Spanish (informal)
¿Entiendes?
You may well understand more Spanish than you
can speak. You may therefore want to say:
The formal version of this is:
habla usted español
you speak Spanish (formal)
You can change the “you” forms into questions
simply by changing the tone of your voice:
entiendo
I understand
The “you” forms are as follows:
¿hablas español?
do you speak Spanish (informal)
entiendes
(do) you understand (inf)
To make the statement hablo español negative, add
the word no in front of the verb:
entiende (usted)
(do) you understand (form)
no hablo español
I don’t speak Spanish.
However, it’s unlikely that you’ll want to say that
if you’ve been following Coffee Break Spanish.
You could therefore say:
hablo un poco de español
I speak a little Spanish
2
To say you don’t understand, use the following
phrase:
no entiendo
I don’t understand
It’s very common to hear no entiendo with another
phrase: lo siento, which means “I’m sorry”.
lo siento, no entiendo
I’m sorry, I don’t understand
If you want to encourage Spanish speakers to
talk to you but also want to make sure they
realise that you’re just learning, use:
Perhaps you find it easier to understand words
and phrases if you can see what they look like
written down. If this is the case, you can say:
¿cómo se escribe?
how is it written?
The word cómo is also used in the phrase:
estoy aprendiendo español
I’m learning Spanish
¿cómo se dice ... en español?
how do you say ... in Spanish?
¡más despacio!
¿español o castellano?
You often find that if you speak to someone in
Spanish they’ll be so delighted to hear you trying
to speak Spanish that they’ll reply to you with
lots of very fast Spanish! If this is the case, one of
the most important things you should learn is to
ask them to speak more slowly:
¿puedes hablar más despacio?
can you speak more slowly? (inf)
The formal version of the phrase is:
¿puede (usted) hablar más despacio?
can you speak more slowly (for)
Of course, it would add to the politeness of your
request if you added por favor onto this phrase!
If you’re struggling to remember all of this
phrase, you could just say más despacio, por favor
and you’ll achieve the same!
We’ll be coming across the word puedes/puede
quite a lot in future lessons. It means “can you”,
and comes from the verb poder, meaning “to be
able”. The same word can be seen in this phrase:
¿puedes repetir?
can you repeat? (inf)
You may sometimes hear the Spanish language
being referred to as castellano instead of español.
This word refers to the area of Castilla in Spain
and is often used both in Latin America and in
some areas of Spain to refer to Spanish. From
the Latin American point of view it could be
assumed that the preference to use castellano is
because the word español refers primarily to a
nationality, and obviously Guatemalans,
Venezuelans and Mexicans are not “Spanish”.
In Spain the word castellano is used particularly in
areas such as Catalunya, the Basque country and
Galicia, where regional languages (catalán, vasco
or euskera in Basque) and gallego) are spoken. In
this case it is assumed that the term “Spanish”
does not encompass these other regional
languages as they are, in fact, “Spanish
languages”, ie. languages spoken in Spain.
It is very unlikely that you would offend anyone
by referring to Spanish as español. Indeed, if you
want to show that you understand a little of the
linguistic culture in Spanish-speaking parts of the
world then using castellano is probably quite a
good idea. The best advice we can give is to ask
the native speakers which language they speak
and see if they use castellano or español!
The formal form is:
¿puede (usted) repetir?
can you repeat? (for)
Again, a por favor after this question will help.
Vocabulary lists
Listed below are all the words and phrases
contained in this lesson. New words and phrases
included in the conversation are given in the
Bonus Vocabulary section below.
CoffeeBreakSpanish: Lesson 11 - Key Vocabulary
escocés / escocesa
Scottish
sobretodo
above all, espeecially
hablar
to speak
3
hablo
I speak
hablas
you speak (informal)
habla (usted)
you speak (formal)
no hablo
I don’t speak
un poco de...
a little
español
Spanish
castellano
Spanish / “Castillian”
inglés
English
francés
French
alemán
German
italiano
Italian
japonés
Japanese
chino
Chinese
entender
to understand
entiendo
I understand
entiendes / entiende (usted)
you understand (informal / formal)
lo siento
I’m sorry
estoy aprendiendo
I’m learning
puedes / puede (usted)
can you? (informal / formal)
más despacio
more slowly
repetir
to repeat
¿cómo?
how?
¿cómo se escribe?
how is it written?
¿cómo se dice ... en español?
how do you say ... in Spanish?
CoffeeBreakSpanish: Lesson 11 - Bonus Vocabulary
portugués
Portuguese
sueco
Swedish
árabe
Arabic
ruso
Russian
¿hay alguien que hable inglés?
Does anyone speak English?
¿cómo se pronuncia esta palabra?
how do you pronounce this word?
¿puedes escribirlo, por favor?
can you write it down, please? (inf)
¿puede (usted) escribirlo, por favor?
can you write it down, please? (for)
¿lo digo bien?
am I saying it right?
©Copyright Radio Lingua International 2007
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