Learn about using indirect object pronouns
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Natalia: Buenos días, me llamo Natalia. |
| Carlos: What’s going on? My name is Carlos. |
| Natalia: “She likes her tamales hot!” |
| Carlos: What’s going on pod101 world? Welcome back to spanishpod101.com the fastest, easiest and pretty much best all-around way to learn Spanish. I’m joined in the studio today by… |
| Natalia: Natalia. Hi everyone. |
| Carlos: Naty, remember those tamales we ate the other day? |
| Natalia: How could I forget, Carlos? So delicious. |
| Carlos: Looks like Diana and Ligia have gotten a couple for breakfast. |
| Natalia: Lucky them! |
| Carlos: So we answered one question. |
| Natalia: Not necessarily, sisters could speak formally. |
| Carlos: They could but these aren’t. I don’t know how things go in your family. |
| Natalia: Well, we talk very, very proper, you know. I’ll ignore that and let’s just tell our audience that today we are studying indirect object pronouns. |
| Carlos: Let’s just listen to today’s conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| DIANA: Hermanita, ¡mira lo que traje! |
| LIGIA: ¡Tamales! A tiempo para el desayuno. |
| DIANA: Prepara tú el café, yo los voy sirviendo. |
| LIGIA: Recuerda ponerle chile al de mamá. |
| DIANA: Cierto, ¡que a ella le gustan los tamales picantes! |
| DIANA: Look at what I brought. |
| LIGIA: Tamales, just in time for breakfast! |
| DIANA: You make the coffee, I will get to serving. |
| LIGIA: Remember to put chili on mom's tamale. |
| DIANA: True, she likes her tamales hot! |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Carlos: Well, let’s look at the vocabulary for this lesson. Empezamos con un sustantivo masculino. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Natalia: “Tamal”. |
| Carlos: “Tamal”. |
| Natalia: “Ta-mal”, “tamal”. |
| Carlos: Como por ejemplo... |
| Natalia: “Los tamales me gustan en el desayuno”. |
| Carlos: “I like tamales at breakfast.” La próxima palabra is actually an adverbial phrase. |
| Natalia: “A tiempo”. |
| Carlos: “On time.” |
| Natalia: “A tiem-po”, “a tiempo”. |
| Carlos: Y un ejemplo sería... |
| Natalia: “Lo que más me importa es que lleguemos a tiempo”. |
| Carlos: “What matters to me most is that we arrive on time.”Y ahora estudiaremos un verbo. |
| Natalia: “Recordar”. |
| Carlos: “To remember.” |
| Natalia: “Re-cor-dar”, “recordar”. |
| Carlos: A ver un ejemplo... |
| Natalia: “Recuerda poner un ventilador cuando salgas del baño”. |
| Carlos: “Remember to put on the fan when you come out of the bathroom.” La próxima palabra es un sustantivo masculino. |
| Natalia: “Chile”. |
| Carlos: “Chili.” |
| Natalia: “Chi-le”, “chile”. |
| Carlos: Como por ejemplo... |
| Natalia: “¿A vos te gusta el chile o no comés picante?” |
| Carlos: “Do you like chili or don’t you eat spicy foods?” Y la próxima palabra es un adjetivo. |
| Natalia: “Picante”. |
| Carlos: “Spicy.” |
| Natalia: “Pi-can-te”, “picante”. |
| Carlos: A ver otro ejemplillo, Naty. |
| Natalia: “Para mí la salsa es demasiado picante”. |
| Carlos: “The sauce is too spicy for me.” Y la última palabra es un adjetivo, adverbio o interjección. |
| Natalia: “Cierto, cierta”. |
| Carlos: “Certain”, “sure.” |
| Natalia: “Cier-to, cier-ta”, “cierto, cierta”. |
| Carlos: Y el ejemplo sería... |
| Natalia: “¿Es cierto? ¿No querés acompañarnos?” |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Carlos: “Are you sure? Don’t you want to come with us?” Okay, let’s have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Natalia: The first word we’ll look at is... |
| Carlos: “Tamal”. |
| Natalia: “Tamal”. |
| Carlos: “Tamal”, delicious. Do you have a Spanish definition, Naty? |
| Natalia: Sí. “Es una especie de empanada, de masa de harina de maíz, envuelta en hojas de plátano o de la mazorca del maíz y cocida al vapor o en el horno. Las hay de diversas clases según el manjar que se pone en su interior y los ingredientes que se les agreguen”. |
| Carlos: And that’s right, this masculine noun is very diverse. Diverse and scrumptious. |
| Natalia: Or as we see from the conversation “¡Tamales! A tiempo para el desayuno”. “It can be had for breakfast!” |
| Carlos: Or any time for that matter, I know we had some the other night randomly. I eat too. |
| Natalia: Well, try learning this in twos. Remember that the singular is “tamal” and not “tamalei” as you hear most gringos say. Not you, of course Carlitos. |
| Carlos: Of course. Next up. |
| Natalia: “A tiempo”. |
| Carlos: “A tiempo”, “just in time.” And we see that it’s an adverbial phrase, in today’s conversation, how did it sound? |
| Natalia: “¡Tamales! A tiempo para el desayuno”. |
| Carlos: Hmmm excited, no? |
| Natalia: I’m always excited when it comes to tamales, Carlos. Can you think of any related words or phrases that are related to “tiempo”? |
| Carlos: Well, one does come to mind. |
| Natalia: Which? |
| Carlos: “En punto”. |
| Natalia: Which means? |
| Carlos: “On the dot.” |
| Natalia: Let me give you an example sentence. “Hay que llegar a las cuatro en punto”. I think that our audience can figure out the next one. |
| Carlos: Which? Chile? |
| Natalia: Yes, no “chile”, “chili”. “Pimiento”. |
| Carlos: Ah right. That chili. |
| Natalia: Yes, that chili. This masculine noun provides the spice in many Latin American recipes. |
| Carlos: And how was it used in today’s conversation? |
| Natalia: “Recuerda ponerle chile al de mamá”. |
| Carlos: “Remember to put chili on our mum’s tamale.” Mum’s like it spicy. |
| Natalia: Carlos don’t be disgusting! |
| Carlos: How is that disgusting? |
| Natalia: Well if… well anyways, do you know the word “ají”? |
| Carlos: I’ve heard it. |
| Natalia: Well, “ají” and “chile” are both pre-Hispanic. |
| Carlos: Even indigenous people liked it spicy. |
| Natalia: Your innuendos, Carlos. Well, now that you mentioned spicy, perhaps that needs to be our next word. |
| Carlos: Well, “picante”. |
| Natalia: Exactly. |
| Carlos: Well, I know what it means in English but how would you define that in Spanish? |
| Natalia: “Se aplica a lo dicho con cierta acrimonia o mordacidad que por tener en el modo alguna gracia se suele escuchar con gusto”. |
| Carlos: So we will be describing something as spicy. |
| Natalia: Right so, what word class would it be? |
| Carlos: That would make it an adjective miss [inaudible 06:33] |
| Natalia: Right and in today’s conversation “Cierto, ¡que a ella le gustan los tamales picantes!” |
| Carlos: “True, she likes her tamales hot!” Well, do you have any other words that you think we could use with this one? |
| Natalia: Well, the verb “picar”, “to be spicy.” |
| Carlos: Sample sentence with “picante”, Naty. “Eres muy muy picante”. |
| Natalia: Carlos, I don’t think that’s appropriate. |
| Carlos: What? I am talking about your ever changing moods. |
| Natalia: Hmmmm bueno, “cierto, cierta”. “Certain”, “sure.” “Conocido como verdadero, seguro, indubitable”. |
| Carlos: Man, “cierto” has a lot of functions. |
| Natalia: Yes, it could be an adjective, an adverb, an interjection. |
| Carlos: But how was it used in today’s conversation? |
| Natalia: “Cierto, ¡que a ella le gustan los tamales picantes!” |
| Carlos: Okay so we already heard this one, true this example. “True, she likes her tamales hot!” |
| Natalia: There are some words to learn with this one. |
| Carlos: Okay. |
| Natalia: “Certeza”, “incertitud”, “incertidumbre”. |
| Carlos: Okay. |
| Natalia: Bueno Carlos, are you ready for the grammar for today? |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Carlos: Most definitely, I think our audience is as well. |
| Natalia: Remember what we were studying today? |
| Carlos: From the intro? Of course. Indirect object pronouns. |
| Natalia: Well, let’s start with the indirect objects. |
| Carlos: As you wish. |
| Natalia: Well, then I wish for a definition and a “cajeta”. |
| Carlos: The definition I have, the “cajeta” not with me. |
| Natalia: We are done. I’ll settle, I’ll settle. Give me the definition. |
| Carlos: An indirect object tell to or for whom something is done. |
| Natalia: So to whom or for whom the action of the verb is carried out. |
| Carlos: Exactly, wait. Didn’t I just say that? |
| Natalia: Yes, but I just that we should be a little bit more specific you know. But now that this has been established how do we know when we have an indirect object pronoun? |
| Carlos: Well, when the noun that’s acting as an indirect object is replaced by a pronoun well then it’s called an indirect object pronoun. |
| Natalia: Do we know what they are in English? |
| Carlos: I know what they are. |
| Natalia: Okay then, what are they? |
| Carlos: “Me”, “you”, “him”, “her”, “us” and “them.” Now your turn Naty, how does this translate into Spanish? |
| Natalia: Okay, here we go. We can agree that an indirect object pronoun receives verbal action indirectly. |
| Carlos: That would make sense. |
| Natalia: So they don’t tell us what happened but rather for whom it happened and to what it happened. |
| Carlos: I’m with you. |
| Natalia: The thing is in Spanish this subject can be a little bit tricky. |
| Carlos: Why is that? |
| Natalia: So in Spanish, indirect object pronouns do not require a preposition. |
| Carlos: And that would present difficulty. |
| Natalia: Escucha. Depending on the placement of one of these words, this indirect object pronoun and the context in general we will understand the prepositional meaning, implicit in the pronominal phrase. |
| Carlos: Oh well, that clears it up. |
| Natalia: Carlos! After we look at the formation, it will make a lot more sense. |
| Carlos: So let’s see. |
| Natalia: Let’s start with the singular as always “me” and what does this mean? |
| Carlos: “To or for me.” |
| Natalia: Okay, so here’s a sample sentence of the preposition “me”... |
| Carlos: Okay, what is it? |
| Natalia: “Ella me dijo que vendría esta noche”. “She told me that she would come tonight.” |
| Carlos: Okay. |
| Natalia: Now are you getting it? |
| Carlos: Somewhat let’s keep going. |
| Natalia: Okay, so next up on our list we have “te”. |
| Carlos: “To, for you” informal. |
| Natalia: “Te daré todo lo que tengo.” |
| Carlos: “I will give all that I have to you.” |
| Natalia: And the next object pronoun we have is “le”... |
| Carlos: “To for him.” “To for her.” “To for you”, formal. |
| Natalia: “A Mariana la universidad le mandó su diploma”. |
| Carlos: “The University sent to Marianna her diploma.” |
| Natalia: But listen, the above sample sentences show the indirect object with the preposition in English but many times there is no preposition. |
| Carlos: What do you mean? |
| Natalia: For example, “me dijo que vendría esta noche”, where “me” is the indirect object even though it might look like the direct. |
| Carlos: I see, well how can I figure out the indirect object? |
| Natalia: Easy, you can figure out the indirect object by asking to, for whom, what, something is done. |
| Carlos: Always? |
| Natalia: Always. |
| OUTRO |
| Carlos: Alright then you know what, if it’s always, that just about does it for today. Okay. |
| Natalia: ¡Hasta luego! |
| Carlos: Adiós pod101world. |
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