¿De qué países son ustedes? (What countries are you all from?) Did anyone have any problems with the phrase ¿de qué?…?

Mariposa,

Thanks for the comment! Of course its possible to include the gender of nouns in the PDF. I just went in and made the changes. We’re trying to do this for all of our vocabulary lists. Somehow, this one got past us. Thanks for pointing it out. I know how important it is for students. Good luck with the lessons, and, as always, let me know if you have any other questions!

Saludos,

Joseph

Mariposa,

No problem. Like I said, gender is a standard for our vocab lists. If you find other words without it, by all means, point it out. It would be much appreciated. I agree. It’s really helpful to note the gender, seeing that concordance (i.e. agreement) is so important to the Spanish language.

Now, here’s a question to keep the wheels turning: what’s the difference between the concordance of nouns and adjectives and that of verbs and subjects?

Good luck!

Joseph

Mariposa!

Where are those false friends? so I can watch my back too.
There are also true friends somewhere!

Yo soy de la ciudad de Mexico pero ahora vivo en los Estados Unidos en Nueva York. S_R_C

Hello there,

I just thought you might like to know that there is a thread in our forum that discusses false cognates between Portuguese and Spanish.

http://www.spanishpod101.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=23

Boa sorte!

Joseph

Max,

Great observation! You’re absolutely right. The word “que” has come up a lot and, as you’ll notice, it will keep on coming up. I don’t think that you’re confusing the usages, but rather encountering it with different usages. There are many, many usages for “que”, so let me take this opportunity to point of a basic distinction.

1) que: relative pronoun
example: “ella dice que la comida está lista” (she says that the food is ready)

2) qué: interrogative pronoun
example: ¿qué buscas? (what are you looking for?)

3) qué: exclamatory adjective
example: ¡qué buena comida! (what good food!)

Notice that when the word “que” is used in questions and exclamations it receives the accent, and this accent is both graphic and prosodic, which means that “qué” is pronounced with greater emphasis than “que”. This may sound impossible to distinguish, but it’s really not hard once you get used to it. See if you can tell the difference in pronunciation when you hear this word appear and reappear. Does this explanation help? I hope so. And again, I just want to emphasize that this is merely an introduction to the topic. If you look up “que” in a Spanish language dictionary, you’re likely to find around 25 definitions of its usage! So, let’s start with this and develop on it as we go.

Again, great question!

Joseph

Hyunwoo Sun,

¡Muy bien! ¡Sí, es correcto! (Very good! Yes, it’s correct!).

Veamos la palabra “coreano” en todas sus formas:
(Let’s look at the word “coreano” in all of its forms:)

Singular:

coreano (masculino)
coreana (femenino)

Plural

coreanos (masculino)
coreanas (femenino)

¿Puedes hacer otros ejemplos con “coreano” usando otras formas del verbo “ser”? (Can you make other examples with “coreano”, using other forms of the verb “ser”?)

For example:

“Las chicas son coreanas” (The girls are Korean).

I hope this helps!

Saludos,

Joseph

Hyunwoo Sun,

¡No hay de qué! (There’s nothing to it!)

Sí, se dice “puede ser” o “puede haber”, pero en este caso no se dice “puede estar”.

Es interesante tu ejemplo: “La mayoria de mis amigos son coreanos.”

Me parece que el sujeto es “mayoría” en singular, pero has conjugado el verbo “ser” a la tercera persona plural en tiempo presente. Si lo analizamos bien, podemos empezar a dudar de la conjugación, pero a la vez “mayoría” puede ser “colectivo”. O sea, puede comprender múltiples personas y, por lo tanto, el verbo puede ser conjugado en plural. ¿Entiendes?

Por ejemplo:

“La mayoría de los habitantes aquí es coreana” (”mayoría” concuerda con “coreana”… singular y femenino)

“La mayoría de los habitantes aquí son coreanos” (”habitantes” concuerda con “coreanos”… plural y masculino)

Otra cosa: ¡me encanta el Kimchi! ¿Sabes prepararlo? Hace muchísimo tiempo que no lo como.

¡Que sigas haciendo preguntas! Preguntando aprenderás.

Saludos,

Joseph