Learn about using adverbial conjunctions
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Natalia: Hola, soy Natalia. |
| Carlos: What’s going on? My name is Carlos. “The ride of your life.” Well, in this lesson we are going to show our audience what to do if a taxi driver tries to take you for a ride of your life. |
| Natalia: Who is the conversation between? |
| Carlos: It’s between Paul and the taxi driver. |
| Natalia: So then it’s an informal conversation? |
| Carlos: Well, if I remember correctly, it start formal but then things get a little heated. |
| Natalia: And then they must become informal. |
| Carlos: Okay, let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| PAUL: ¿¡A dónde me lleva, señor!? |
| TAXISTA: Es un atajo que conozco. No se preocupe. |
| PAUL: No me gusta la ruta. Estamos entrando a un barrio bravo. Quiero bajarme aquí mismo. ¡Pare el auto! ¡Me bajo! |
| TAXISTA: Usted me debe la tarifa. Son trescientos soles. |
| PAUL: No te dejo nada. ¡Sal de mi vista antes de que llame a la policía! |
| PAUL: Where are you taking me, Sir!? |
| DRIVER: It's a shortcut I know. Don't worry. |
| PAUL: I don't like this route. We're going into a dangerous neighborhood. I want to get out this minute. Stop the car! I'm getting out! |
| DRIVER: You owe me the fare. It's three hundred Soles. |
| PAUL: I'm not leaving you anything. Get out of my sight before I call the police! |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Carlos: Easy story about a taxi driver, right? |
| Natalia: Not one, I have like a million taxi driver stories for you. |
| Carlos: Okay. |
| Natalia: Everything from taxi drivers not wanting to work, to one telling me to get off the car because I didn’t tell him to turn at the right time, so many things. You don’t realize. |
| Carlos: I don’t I guess, wow. |
| Natalia: No, the latest one was in the middle of San José and then I didn’t know where I was going. I get in a cab and I ask the driver I’m like, “hi here’s the address, I’m going to…” and then he tell me “I’ll take you but there’s so much traffic in that area” and I’m like “hey, but I’m paying you!” and he’s like “no, but I don’t want to get in the traffic” and I’m like “sir, I’m going to pay you for the time you are stuck in traffic.” He’s like “what if I give you the direction and you walk there?” And believe it or not, he made me come down the car, like literally. |
| Carlos: Well, it’s funny. That’s hilarious. |
| Natalia: It’s terrible! |
| Carlos: Oh, man. |
| Natalia: I can’t do it, we could actually comment on this lesson, I’m sure everybody has at least one bad taxi driver story. |
| Carlos: But you know what, let’s get into the vocabulary section of today’s lesson. Here we are going to break these words down and give you some key points. Now listen closely. To start off we have a masculine noun. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Natalia: “Barrio”. |
| Carlos: “Neighborhood.” |
| Natalia: “Ba-rrio”, “barrio”. |
| Carlos: And the sample sentence is... |
| Natalia: “Es mejor no pasar por los barrios bravos”. |
| Carlos: “It’s better not to go through the rough neighborhoods.” This time we have another masculine noun. |
| Natalia: “Atajo”. |
| Carlos: “Shortcut.” |
| Natalia: “A-ta-jo”, “atajo”. |
| Carlos: And the sample sentence is... |
| Natalia: “Conozco un atajo por ahí”. |
| Carlos: “I know a shortcut over there.” This time we have a feminine noun. |
| Natalia: “Ruta”. |
| Carlos: “Route.” |
| Natalia: “Ru-ta”, “ruta”. |
| Carlos: And the sample sentence is... |
| Natalia: “Esta ruta es más larga, pero el paisaje es más bonito”. |
| Carlos: “The route is longer but the landscape is nicer.” This time we have a feminine noun. |
| Natalia: “Vista”. |
| Carlos: “Sight”, “view.” |
| Natalia: “Vis-ta”, “vista”. |
| Carlos: And the sample sentence is ? |
| Natalia: “Sal de mi vista, ya no quiero verte más”. |
| Carlos: “Get out of my site I don’t want to see you ever again.” And this time we have an adverbial conjunction. |
| Natalia: “Antes de que”. |
| Carlos: “Before.” |
| Natalia: “An-tes de que”, “antes de que”. |
| Carlos: And the sample sentence is... |
| Natalia: “Llámame antes de que te vayas”. |
| Carlos: “Call me before you leave.” And this time we have a masculine noun. |
| Natalia: “Auto”. |
| Carlos: “Car.” |
| Natalia: “Au-to”, “auto”. |
| Carlos: And the sample sentence is... |
| Natalia: “¿Por qué no me has devuelto el auto?” |
| Carlos: “Why haven’t you given me back my car?” |
| Natalia: Carlos. |
| Carlos: Yes. |
| Natalia: Let’s hear you roll your “r’s” today like in “barrio”. |
| Carlos: “Barrio”. |
| Natalia: No, I want you to say la siguiente. Quiero que digas “querría arreglar el carro”. |
| Carlos: “Querría arreglarre…” |
| Natalia: “Arreglar”. |
| Carlos: “Querría arreglar el carro”. |
| Natalia: Now, say it quickly. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Carlos: “Querría arreglar el carro”. Let’s have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Natalia: Let’s start with looking at the meaning of “barrio”. |
| Carlos: Yes, I learned this one when I was a kid. |
| Natalia: “Barrio”. |
| Carlos: Yes, “barrio”, “neighborhood.” I mean after boys in the hood came out, they had some movies about Mexicans in L.A. and they didn’t say hood, they said “barrio”. |
| Natalia: Okay, see how... Oh my God, I’m not even going to go there but at least you know what “barrio” means. |
| Carlos: Well, I even got the pronunciation, “barrio”. So we can see that with the “-o” in the end it’s a safe bet to say that it’s masculine noun. |
| Natalia: Well, now you are right. En la conversación de hoy escuchamos lo siguiente, “estamos entrando en un barrio bravo”. |
| Carlos: “We are entering a dangerous neighborhood.” Next up we have “atajo”. |
| Natalia: “Atajo” is another great word to know. This one’s a masculine noun as well and it means “shortcut.” |
| Carlos: They are dangerous in Costa Rica, I still can’t figure out some of the shortcuts. |
| Natalia: That’s the thing, I’d say we would rather avoid the shortcut unless you know the shortcut yourself or else they are going to just drive you around everywhere. En la conversación de hoy escuchamos lo siguiente... “Es un atajo que conozco. No se preocupe”. |
| Carlos: “It’s a shortcut I know. Don’t worry.” See that sounds like a horror movie of some sort. |
| Natalia: Carlos, you are going to get all the tourists nervous! |
| Carlos: Okay, moving onto “vista”. |
| Natalia: “Vista”, which means... |
| Carlos: “View”. |
| Natalia: Not a word about your view from your apartment. |
| Carlos: Why should I say anything when you just did? |
| Natalia: Oh my God! The man can’t stop talking about the view from his apartment. En la conversación de hoy escuchamos lo siguiente, “Sal de mi vista”. |
| Carlos: “Get out of my sight.” |
| Natalia: Well, exactly what I have in my head whenever you talk about your other view. So you can also have “un punto de vista”, a “point of view” or a “viewpoint.” |
| Carlos: And you always do have one. |
| Natalia: Moving on. |
| Carlos: “Antes de que”, that’s... |
| Natalia: “Una conjunción adverbial”, “an adverbial conjunction.” |
| Carlos: I was just about to say that. |
| Natalia: La palabra no es nueva para nosotros, pero esta frase sí, significa “before” but in it’s usage, it’s really important as well to see in today’s grammar point. En la conversación de hoy escuchamos lo siguiente, “¡Sal de mi vista antes de que llame a la policía!” |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Carlos: “Get out of my sight before I call the police.” Okay, last but not least... |
| Natalia: “Auto”. |
| Carlos: Masculine noun. |
| Natalia: Como un automóvil o un carro. |
| Carlos: I’ve only heard that here though. |
| Natalia: This is only used in Latin America, if you lived in Spain what do they say there? |
| Carlos: They say “coche”. |
| Natalia: Eso sí, eso lo entenderíamos aquí también, but mostly you would hear “carro”. |
| Carlos: And how did we hear it in the conversation? |
| Natalia: En la conversación de hoy escuchamos lo siguiente, “¡Pare el auto!” |
| Carlos: Today’s grammar point is coming up next. |
| Natalia: Muy bien, gringo. Llegó la hora de estudiar la gramática. |
| Carlos: I’m always down for some grammar. |
| Natalia: Pues tengo una pregunta para ti. |
| Carlos: Shoot. |
| Natalia: What’s an adverb? |
| Carlos: It’s a word that doesn’t change forms. |
| Natalia: Bien, ¿y qué función tiene? |
| Carlos: That’s more than one question, Naty. |
| Natalia: ¡Contesta antes de que te arrepientas! |
| Carlos: Well, when you say it like that, its function is to complement the meaning of adverb of an adjective or another adverb in a certain sequence. |
| Natalia: Okay, and what’s a conjunction? |
| Carlos: You know you really should have started this story with “questions”, plural. |
| Natalia: Carlos, come on. |
| Carlos: Okay, a conjunction is a word that doesn’t change forms and that triggers different types of subordinated clauses or that joins words or sequences that assists syntactically. |
| Natalia: Okay, so let’s put all that information together. |
| Carlos: So then an adverbial conjunction indicates a pending hypothetical action or state in English anyway. |
| Natalia: Okay, so in Spanish the subordinated clauses after an adverbial conjunction are typically formed in the subjunctive mood. |
| Carlos: Now it would be impossible to provide an exhaustive list of adverbial conjunctions. |
| Natalia: But we think you can find this useful as you begin to recognize these phrases in relationship to the tense of the clause which they were subordinated. |
| Carlos: Get ready for some examples. |
| Natalia: “Llámame antes de que te vayas”. |
| Carlos: “Call me before you go.” |
| Natalia: “A condición de que” |
| Carlos: “On the condition that” |
| Natalia: “Iré contigo a condición de que me invites un café”. |
| Carlos: “I’ll go with you on the condition that you buy me a coffee.” |
| Natalia: I like that one. |
| Carlos: That sounds like something you would say. |
| Natalia: Exactly. “A menos que…” |
| Carlos: “Unless…” |
| Natalia: “A menos que me recojas no podré ir”. |
| Carlos: “Unless you pick me up, I won’t be able to go.” |
| Natalia: “A no ser que…” |
| Carlos: “Unless...” |
| Natalia: “No salgo esta noche a no ser que me llame María”. |
| Carlos: “I’m not going out tonight unless María calls me.” |
| Natalia: “Antes de que...” |
| Carlos: “Before…” |
| Natalia: “¡Sal de mi vista antes de que llame a la policía!” |
| Carlos: “Get out my sight before I call the police!” |
| Natalia: “Con tal de que...”. |
| Carlos: “Provided that.” |
| Natalia: “Con tal de que me devuelvas el auto a las cinco en punto, te lo presto”. |
| Carlos: “I’ll lend you my car as long as you bring it back at five on the dot.” |
| Natalia: “En caso de que...”. |
| Carlos: “In case.” |
| Natalia: “En el caso de que te olvides quien eres, mírate en el espejo”. |
| Carlos: “In case you forgot who you are, look at yourself in the mirror.” |
| Natalia: ¡Qué buenos ejemplos! |
| Carlos: Alright, let’s take a closer look at how these adverbial conjunctions trigger is subordinate clause with a verb in the subjunctive mood. |
| Natalia: Hey, I’m following your lead. |
| Carlos: Por ejemplo, “Sal de mi vista antes de que llame a la policía”. |
| Natalia: “Get out of my sight before I call the police.” ¿Cuál es la oración principal? What’s the main clause here? |
| Carlos: Well, here the main clause is “sal de mi vista” and the verb in this clause is “sal”. |
| Natalia: Which is? |
| Carlos: It’s the informal singular command of the verb “salir”, “to get out”, “to leave.” |
| Natalia: Right so “sal de mi vista”, “get out of my sight”, then comes the adverbial conjunction which indicates to us that a subordinate clause is on its way. |
| Carlos: Okay. |
| Natalia: So then in this subordinate the verb is “llame” which has been conjugated to the present tense of the subjunctive mood. It’s important to recognize that even though we are using the present tense since it’s in the subjunctive mood, the action would take place in the future. Hypothetically yes it might be. Do you get it? |
| Carlos: Of course. |
| Natalia: Time for “la tarea”. |
| Carlos: That’s right, before we wrap up today, it’s time to assign today’s homework. |
| Natalia: In today’s grammar point we learned how an adverbial conjunction can trigger the subjunctive mood in a subordinate clause. |
| Carlos: So here’s what you have to do. |
| Natalia: We are going to give you five sentences in Spanish. |
| Carlos: Which will contain a main clause, an adverbial conjunction and a subordinate clause. What you have to do is identify the person, number and tense of the verb in the subordinate clause. Ready? |
| Natalia: ¡Ahí vamos! Número uno, “llámame antes de que salgas”. Número dos, “te acompañaré a condición de que no hagas tonterías”. Número tres, “con tal de que me devuelvan el auto a las cinco en punto, se lo presto”. Número cuatro, “no salgo esta noche a no ser que me llame María”. Número cinco, “a menos de que me recojas no podré ir”. |
Outro |
| Carlos: And remember people you can always get the answers and comments on the answers by checking out the premium audio of the track labelled “tarea”. |
| Natalia: You should apply what you learn. Bueno, es hora de decir adiós. |
| Carlos: We’ll see you later. |
| Natalia: Bye bye. |
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