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| PROLOGUE |
| ¡Bienvenidos! |
| ¡Bienvenidos! |
| ¡Bienvenidos! |
| ¡Sean bienvenidos! |
| Transmitiendo desde Spanishpod101.com |
| ¡Qué chiva que está! |
| ¡Hola chicos! |
| ¿Qué tal todo el mundo? |
| ¿Qué onda todos? |
| Dylan: We’re doing something a little more, shall we say, practical here? |
| ¡Vaya! |
| Me parece muy útil. |
| ¡Pero será posible! |
| Más útil no puede ser. |
| Lógico. |
| a thousand times. |
| ¡Qué dicha! |
| Lógico. |
| INTRODUCTION |
| Lizy: Muy buenos días, me llamo Lizy Stoliar. |
| Alan: Alan La Rue here. Introduction, Lesson #5 – “Building structures that last” Lizy and Alan back again. |
| Lizy: Alan, ¿cómo estás? |
| Alan: Great, Lizy. It’s sunny day, no traffic. How was your weekend? |
| Lizy: It was good and I took advantage to really clean my house. |
| Alan: Wow. You really have an interesting idea of what constitutes a good time, Lizy. Anyway, it’s great to be back. Muy bien, bienvenidos. |
| Lizy: Gracias, Alan. |
| Alan: Now, today’s lesson is an introduction to the Beginner Series. |
| Lizy: El ciclo de nivel principiante. We’re coming to you via podcast from Spanishpod101.com, an innovated and revolutionary way to master Spanish. This way you can study anytime and at your own place, anywhere. |
| Alan: This series is designed for those of you who studied some Spanish in the past, but definitely need a refresher before moving on to more advanced lessons. Here, at Spanishpod101 we recognize that you, our listeners, you all have different needs, and we design our lesson plans to best suit this variety. It’s the only place around where the core’s curriculum is based of your feedback. |
| Lizy: Here’s how it works. Just like we saw in the Newbie Series, in each lesson we listen to a short conversation, first in Spanish at normal speed, then in Spanish at a slower speed, and then at normal speed in Spanish with an English translation. After that, we break down some of the vocabulary that came up in the lesson so that we can hear each syllable, each sound. |
| Alan: That’s right. Completely dissected. And from there, we’ll talk about how some of these words are used. And then we’ll look at how some different phrases are put together. |
| Lizy: ¡Así es! |
| Alan: We’ll see exactly what makes them do what they do. Now the real trick to make in the most out of these lessons is to listen to the podcast and then stop by Spanishpod101.com. Remember, these lessons are designed to be used in tandem with the learning tools found in the premium Learning Center at Spanishpod101.com. |
| Lizy: Nuestra casa es su casa. |
| Alan: So, stop by and sign up for your free seven day trial. |
| Lizy: Now, Alan, what is the goal of the Beginner Series? |
| Alan: Lizy, muy buena pregunta. Great question. Well, the goal the Newbie Series is for you to get comfortable listening to Spanish and pronouncing it. In the Beginner Series, you’ll learn more about how to build phrases, how to express actions in the Present, Past and Future. And most importantly, how to set up a system that works for you. So, the goal of this series is to learn how to start building phrases on your own. And to help you do this, in the Beginner Series we’ll be giving more words and phrases in Spanish. Always with the translation, of course. |
| Lizy: Me parece muy bien. Sounds very good to me. |
| Alan: A mi también. To me, too. |
| Lizy: Should we listen to today’s conversation? |
| Alan: Yes, but before we do, make the most of this medium and press the central button on your IPod to see the transcripts of today’s lesson conversation in the display. Okay. Should we jump in? |
| Lizy: ¡Vamos! |
| Alan: Let’s go! |
| DIALOGUE |
| AMANDA: ¡Hola! ¿Qué tal, César? |
| CÉSAR: Todo bien, Amanda, gracias. Y a ti, ¿cómo te va? |
| AMANDA: Me va bien, felizmente. |
| CÉSAR: ¡Qué bueno verte después de tanto tiempo! |
| AMANDA: De igual manera. |
| Alan: And now, slower. |
| Lizy: Una vez más. Esta vez lentamente. |
| AMANDA: ¡Hola! ¿Qué tal, César? |
| CÉSAR: Todo bien, Amanda, gracias. Y a ti, ¿cómo te va? |
| AMANDA: Me va bien, felizmente. |
| CÉSAR: ¡Qué bueno verte después de tanto tiempo! |
| AMANDA: De igual manera. |
| Alan: And now, with the translation. |
| Lizy: Ahora incluimos la traducción. |
| AMANDA: ¡Hola! ¿Qué tal, César? |
| Lizy: “Hey, what’s going on, César?” |
| CÉSAR: Todo bien, Amanda, gracias. Y a ti, ¿cómo te va? |
| Alan: “Everything’s going well, Amanda. Thanks. How’s it going for you?” |
| AMANDA: Me va bien, felizmente. |
| Lizy: “It’s going well, fortunately.” |
| CÉSAR: ¡Qué bueno verte después de tanto tiempo! |
| Alan: “It’s great to see you after such a long time.” |
| AMANDA: De igual manera. |
| Lizy: “Like wise.” |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Alan: What are the most important things to do as you start to study Spanish is to look for opportunities to speak at: to meet native speakers, to put yourself in an environment that requires you to use and develop your skills. The good thing is that this also lets you meet new and interesting people from an area of different backgrounds. |
| Lizy: And when you meet one of these people, you can ask “¿Qué tal?” |
| Alan: Claro, en la frase “¿Qué tal?” significa “¿Cómo te va?”. It means “How’s it going?”, “What’s up?”, “What are you up to?” And, Lizy, is this the kind of phrase that I want to say to someone close to me or to someone I meet for the first time? |
| Lizy: It can be used for both. |
| Alan: So, this phrase isn’t reserved one of the other, but it can be used in both informal and formal conversations. These are some of the kinds of distinctions we’ll be making in this Beginner Series. |
| Lizy: By listening to this series, you’ll have a reason to speak with native Spanish speakers. |
| Alan: Right. Because you’ll have something to say. Muy bien, Lizy. Now, with this point, we’ll turn our attention to the vocabulary that came up in today’s conversation. Lizy is going to pronounce these words. Then, I’ll give an English translation. After that, she’ll break the word down syllable by syllable and we’ll hear one more time at normal speed. Ready, Lizy? |
| Lizy: Sí, Alan. Yes. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Alan: Okay. So, first, we have... |
| Lizy: “Ir”. |
| Alan: “To go.” |
| Lizy: “Ir”, “ir”. |
| Alan: Then... |
| Lizy: “Ver”. |
| Alan: “To see.” |
| Lizy: “Ver”, “ver”. |
| Alan: Now we have... |
| Lizy: “Tanto”. |
| Alan: “So much”, “such” |
| Lizy: “Tan-to”, “tanto”. |
| Alan: And finally... |
| Lizy: “Tiempo”. |
| Alan: “Time.” |
| Lizy: “Tiem-po”, “tiempo”. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Alan: Lizy, the word “tanto”… |
| Lizy: Yes. |
| Alan: What a great way to add emphasis. In the conversation we heard “después de tanto tiempo”. |
| Lizy: “Después de tantos años”. |
| Alan: Right. “After so many years.” And we can also use this word to emphasize actions. |
| Lizy: How’s that? |
| Alan: For example, I say to my wife “te amo”, “I love you” and she says “¿me amas no más?”, “You just love me?”. So, I have to say “te amo tanto, tanto, tanto”. Let’s look a little closer how some of these words are used in the conversation. In this section, we put words and phrases in context so that you can see what they mean when they’re used in certain ways, in ways which we’ll describe and give examples of, in ways that you can understand. |
| Lizy: Where should we begin? |
| Alan: Well, let’s start with the phrase that anyone can use when they’re seeing someone they’ve met before. Last lesson, Amanda and César met for the first time and now they’re meeting again. César says “Great to see you.”. Let’s look at this. |
| Lizy: Muy bien, let me ask you. If you tell me that you won the lottery and I responded “¡qué bueno!” would you think that I’m sharing your joy or envious if it? |
| Alan: Well, of course that you’re sharing, sharing my joy with me. |
| Lizy: Right. “¡Qué bueno!”, it’s like saying “How great.” |
| Alan: Right. Or “That’s great” or simply just “Great.” Okay. So far we have “¡qué bueno!”, but there’s more to this. Next we have the verb “verte” and here we’re actually looking at two words which are joined together. Now, the verb “ver” means? |
| Lizy: “To see.” |
| Alan: Right. “Yo te veo” - “I see you.” “Tú me ves” - “You see me.” So, when we say “qué bueno verte” we mean “Great to see you.” |
| Lizy: So, these are the kinds of things that we’ll be looking at in this part of each core curriculum lesson and at Spanishpod101. When we refer to the core curriculum, we’re talking about the Newbie, Beginner and Intermediate Series. |
| Alan: The Beginner Series is where you learn enough grammar so that you’re capable of constructing enough phrases to participate in a conversation, to express your ideas, your thought, your opinions and to ask questions. We also have an in depth Regional Series here at Spanishpod101, where the regional forms of speech are compared with standard Spanish. Basically, with the regional series we bring the Spanish speaking world to you, the listener, and we show you what allows a native Spanish speaker to associate a particular form of speech with a region. But, we’ll talk more about the regional series in another episode of this course introduction. For now, let’s move on to the grammar. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Lizy: La gramática. |
| Alan: La gramática. Today’s topic: the verb “to go”. So, Lizy, in today’s conversation César asks “Y a ti, ¿cómo te va?” and Amanda responds “Me va bien, felizmente”. Let’s start with the question. What’s the verb being used here? |
| Lizy: It’s “ir”. |
| Alan: Which means? |
| Lizy: “To go.” |
| Alan: And when we say “How’s it going for you?” it’s kind of like asking “How’s life been treating you?” I mean, the subject of the action here it’s not “you”, but something unnamed which we just call “it”. “How’s it going for you?” |
| Lizy: Right. “¿Cómo te va?” |
| Alan: And the word “cómo” here in this question means? |
| Lizy: It means “how”. |
| Alan: Right. “How”, “cómo”. And then we have the expression “te va”, literally translated “For you it goes”. So, you’ll notice that the word “te” here is place before the verb “va”, “te va”. “For you it goes”. But when we think about this in English, the indirect object comes after the verb. “How’s it going for you?”, “¿cómo te va?”. Y Lizy, “¿cómo estás hoy día?”, “How are you today?” |
| Lizy: “Estoy bien, gracias Alan”. “I’m great. Thanks, Alan.” |
| Alan: And if you’re great, then we could also say that it’s going well for you. |
| Lizy: Claro, “me va bien”. |
| Alan: Literally, “it for me goes well”, but we will translate this as “It’s going well for me.” And now, looking at it, the other way around, Lizy, how would you translate the response “It’s going well for me”? |
| Lizy: “Me va bien”. |
| Alan: And how did you translate the word “it”? |
| Lizy: I inferred it. |
| Alan: You inferred it. |
| Lizy: Right. The verb form “va” in the third person singular, is also used with impersonal expressions. |
| Alan: Exactly. “Me va bien”. “For me it goes well.” “It’s going well for me.” “Me va bien”. |
| Lizy: ¡Qué bueno! |
Outro |
| Alan: Now, you can start to get an idea of what we work on here. And the Grammar Bank in the premium Learning Center it’s the next step. There, you’ll find a concise explanation and grammar module that builds in what we talked about in the podcast. The audio, on its own, would surely be more challenging. So, stop by Spanishpod101.com and sign up for a free seven day trial and check it out for yourself. |
| Lizy: While you’re there, you can also check out the line by line audio transcripts of today’s lesson conversation and the vocabulary list with audio, too. |
| Alan: It’s a great way to insure memorization. Plus many more tools you can use to develop your own method, the method that works the best for you. That’s really one of the most important things to do as you begin to learn Spanish: you find what works for you. When I studied Spanish in the University, for example, Lizy, I remember we had to go to the language laboratory. Now, I mean, technology allows you to have an IPod and you can listen to it anytime. You can have a language laboratory in your car, in your bedroom, on the bus. It’s really a wonderful, wonderful tool. |
| Lizy: Now, that you’ve listened to this lesson, pick up the PDF at Spanishpod101.com. In there, we have a detailed write up of the content covered in today’s lesson. |
| Alan: And leave us a comment on the forum. We’d love to hear your questions, complements or even your complaints. We’re confident here, at Spanishpod101, we can take it. |
| Lizy: Okay, Alan. That’s all for today. I’m going to go back to my nice clean house. |
| Alan: Take it easy, Lizy. Have a good time, ok? ¡Chao a todos! |
| Lizy: ¡Chao Alan! ¡Chao a todos! |
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