Dialogue

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Vocabulary

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Lesson Transcript

INTRODUCTION
Dylan: Hola, hola everybody. This is Dylan, ¿cómo están?
Carlos: What’s going on Pod101 world? My name is Carlos - Spanish imperfect irregular verbs. Oh, he was so handsome. In this lesson you’ll learn about irregular verbs in the imperfect tense.
Dylan: This conversation takes place on the phone.
Carlos: This conversation is between Sylvia and Mariana.
Dylan: The speakers are friends. Therefore, the speakers will be speaking informally.
Carlos: Let’s listen to the conversation.
DIALOGUE
SILVIA: ¡No sabe con quien me encontré!
MARIANA: ¿Con quién?
SILVIA: ¿Se acuerda de Julio... del colegio?
MARIANA: Ah tiempos dorados... Tan guapo que era Julio.
SILVIA: Él mismo.
MARIANA: ¿Y fue así en la calle?
SILVIA: No, ¡por internet!
MARIANA: ¡No sabía que fueras cybernética!
SILVIA: You have no idea whom I ran into!
MARIANA: Who?
SILVIA: Do you remember Julio...from high school?
MARIANA: Ah the golden years...so handsome Julio was...
SILVIA: That same one.
MARIANA: And so was it on the street?
SILVIA: No, on the Internet!
MARIANA: I didn't know that you were cybernetic!
POST CONVERSATION BANTER
Dylan: Well, you know I have run into a lot of people of my high school over the internet.
Carlos: On the internet, what about like real life, everyday situations?
Dylan: No. No, actually I have run into them more on the internet. Cause I searched through like my high school, and the year I graduated, and all that sort of things.
Carlos: Yeah. I do that too.
Dylan: Seriously?
Carlos: Not really too much.
Dylan: How you going to bump in to your high school friends and feel living Costa Rica, Carlos? They’re in New York.
Carlos: Well, it’s true, but hey! You have to put it into prospective. There are double the people in New York City and they are in your entire country.
Dylan: Ok, good. I get the prospective. Maybe you’ll run into one of them.
Carlos: No, no, no. I wasn’t trying to be critical. I was just saying, like I would think it would be easier to run in this for somebody here who you went to high school with than it would be if I was at home and I went to high school with.
Dylan: That’s true, if I went out more.
Carlos: True, noted. Let’s take a closer look at the vocabulary for this lesson.
VOCAB LIST
Dylan: “Acordarse”.
Carlos: “To remember.”
Dylan: “A-cor-dar-se”, “acordarse”. “Colegio”.
Carlos: “School”, “high school.”
Dylan: “Co-le-gio”, “colegio”. “Dorados”.
Carlos: “Golden.”
Dylan: “Do-ra-dos”, “dorados”. “Guapo, guapa”.
Carlos: “Handsome”, “beautiful.”
Dylan: “Gua-po, gua-pa”. “Guapo, guapa”. “Ser”.
Carlos: “To be.”
Dylan: “Ser”, “ser”. “Cibernética”.
Carlos: “Cybernetic.”
Dylan: “Ci-ber-né-ti-ca”, “cibernética”.
VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE
Carlos: Ok, let’s have a closer look at the usage of some other words and phrases from this lesson.
Dylan: This first word we’ll look at is “acordarse”.
Carlos: A reflexive verb, “to remember”.
Dylan: Always brings back memories.
Carlos: I think that’s the point.
Dylan: But our example from the conversation is an important question to learn.
Carlos: “¿Te acuerdas de Julio, del colegio?”
Dylan: “Do you remember Julio, from high school?”
Carlos: You know, that is a very common question to ask. I mean minus the specific of Julio and high school.
Dylan: “¿Te acuerdas cuando fuimos a la playa?”
Carlos: “Do you remember when we went to the beach?” ¿Te acuerdas algo?” “Do you remember something?”
Dylan: “Yo no me acuerdo de su nombre”.
Carlos: I don’t remember your name. Oh! Man, that’s an embarrassing, embarrassing situation when that happens. But you know what? I always think and use the verb “recordar”.
Dylan: “Recordar” also means “to remember”.
Carlos: Ok. Next up?
Dylan: A place you used to work.
Carlos: A restaurant?
Dylan: No.
Carlos: A juice bar?
Dylan: No, a high school.
Carlos: Ok, “colegio”..
Dylan: Right. A masculine noun that means not only “high school” but also “school.”
Carlos: Ah! And we already heard our example in our conversation.
Dylan: That important question, “¿te acuerdas de Julio, del colegio?”
Carlos: “Do you remember Julio, from high school?”
Dylan: The farther you get away from high school, the weirder it is when you run into people.
Carlos: You’re telling me, but Facebook has changed everything. I mean you are never this connected.
Dylan: True, we should be spokes people here on SpanishPod101.
Carlos: I was thinking the same thing, but it’s all over this conversation. I mean my mom has a page and she is connected with people she hasn’t seen in thirty years.
Dylan: It’s stranger when you see someone you knew as a baby start school.
Carlos: I haven’t experienced that yet.
Dylan: “Mi sobrino tiene quince años y va al colegio”.
Carlos: “My nephew is fifteen years old and he goes to high school.” That must be surreal.
Dylan: It is. You get reminded of how stupid high school was.
Carlos: And, how important it was you thought at that time.
Dylan: There is a more common word used for school, though.
Carlos: Right “la escuela”, “school.”
Dylan: “¡Ahh!, tiempos dorados”.
Carlos: “Ah, the golden years.” Man, you just jumped into that one.
Dylan: Well, our next word is the adjective “dorado”, “golden”, and I couldn’t think of a better suited example than the one from our conversation.
Carlos: Can’t argue with that.
Dylan: But you could think of another sample sentence.
Carlos: Hmm, Ok. “Mi novia se compró unos zapatos dorados”.
Dylan: “My girlfriend bought golden shoes.” No comment.
Carlos: No, no, no. I know how it sounds, but she can pull it off.
Dylan: Says you, blinded by love. “Plateado” I can take, but ¿“dorado”?
Carlos: “Silvery”, “golden”… both precious metals.
Dylan: Pero… ¿se ve guapa?
Carlos: Yes, she always looks beautiful.
Dylan: Now, our next word which I just used “guapa” is an adjective which was just translated as…
Carlos: “Beautiful.”
Dylan: But applied to a man as in our conversation, it means…
Carlos: “Handsome”, “¡tan guapo que era Julio!”.
Dylan: “So handsome Julio was!”
Carlos: Now, we could also relate “lindo”, “linda”, “good-looking” or “hermoso”, “hermosa”, “beautiful”.
Dylan: Although, as we know, we generally know we do not call a man beautiful.
Carlos: True, that is a rare case.
Dylan: Next, we have the verb “ser”.
Carlos: “To be”, kind of basic, no, Dylan?
Dylan: Not how it’s been used here.
Carlos: Why not?
Dylan: In our conversation we heard “no sabía que fueras cibernética”.
Carlos: “I didn’t know that you were cybernetic.”
Dylan: Here we see “ser” conjugated twice, but the example we are focusing on is “fueras” which is “ser” conjugated in the imperfect tense in the subjunctive mood.
Carlos: Oh, well, you know, not you mentioned it, that it wasn’t so easy.
Dylan: No, it isn’t.
Carlos: So, do you have another example?
Dylan: “Si yo fuera presidente, ayudaría a las personas pobres”.
Carlos: “If I were president, I would help the poor.”
Dylan: But we will get into the subjunctive in another lesson.
Carlos: Ok. And we are ready know that the related verb that can never ever, ever be separated from “ser”.
Dylan: “Estar”. Last but not the least, we have an adjective that is quite new.
Carlos: Oh yeah?
Dylan: Yes, the adjective “cibernética”.
Carlos: “Cibernética”, “cybernetic”. Yeah, that is new.
Dylan: “No sabía que fueras cibernética”.
Carlos: “I didn’t know you were cybernetic.” Weird used here.
Dylan: Here it’s designating someone as being tech savvy.
Carlos: I have a complete different association.
Dylan: What do you associate with?
Carlos: “Matrix es una película sobre la época cibernética”.
Dylan: “The Matrix is a movie about a cyber-age.” Yeah, I can see that.
Carlos: And we have a related word?
Dylan: Something that has changed the world.
Carlos: And, what’s that?
Dylan: “El ciberespacio”, “cyberspace”. Let’s take another look at the imperfect tense.
Carlos: An important one, and you know, once you get the basics of the regular verbs in the imperfect, understanding comes in like flashes. I mean, at least for me.
Dylan: Right. But as you just pointed out, those are just regulars.
Carlos: True.

Lesson focus
Dylan: So, today let’s take another look at the formation of irregular verbs in the imperfect tense. Since, we heard an example in our conversation.
Carlos: We did, didn’t we?
Dylan: Yes, but before we get into what it was specifically, let’s go through the formation.
Carlos: Ok, let’s specify what the imperfect tense is once again.
Dylan: The imperfect tense expresses an incomplete action.
Carlos: Thus, im-perfect.
Dylan: It’s really, really important to remember that we have no direct equivalent in English.
Carlos: You know, that definitely makes things slippery, no frame of reference.
Dylan: The translations that we use will vary based on…
Carlos: Context, always context of the given word.
Dylan: There are three main uses for the imperfect tense.
Carlos: Yes, three. It’s used in the action or state, viewed as being in progress in the past. This means that we don’t know when it started or stopped but we know that it happened before the moment of speech.
Dylan: It’s also used to indicate a customary or repeated action or state in the past.
Carlos: That’s when we used it as “I used to walk”, for example.
Dylan: Right. And, last but not the least, it’s used to give descriptions in the past in relation to another past tense.
Carlos: And which tense is that?
Dylan: Most likely that would be the preterit tense.
Carlos: Got it.
Dylan: Now the good news.
Carlos: I like good news.
Dylan: There are only three irregular verbs in the imperfect tense.
Carlos: Three?
Dylan: Yes, three that’s it.
Carlos: What are they?
Dylan: “Ser”, “ver”, “ir”.
Carlos: Ok. “Ser”, “to be”, “ver”, “to see”, and “ir”, “to go”.
Dylan: Let’s check the paradigm. “Ser”, “to be”. “Yo era”.
Carlos: “I used to be.”
Dylan: “Tú eras”.
Carlos: “You used to be.”
Dylan: “Él/ella/usted era”.
Carlos: “He used to be”, “she used to be”, “you used to be”, formal.
Dylan: “Era”.
Carlos: “It used to be”, neutral.
Dylan: “Nosotros éramos”.
Carlos: “We used to be.”
Dylan: “Vosotros erais”.
Carlos: “You all used to be” - informal.
Dylan: “Ellos/ellas/ustedes eran”.
Carlos: “They used to be”, masculine, “they used to be”, feminine, “you all used to be”, formal.
Dylan: “Eran”.
Carlos: “They used to be”, neutral.
Dylan: Good job. Now “ver”, “to see”. “Yo veía”.
Carlos: “I used to see.”
Dylan: “Tú veías”.
Carlos: “You used to see.”
Dylan: “Él/ella/usted veía”.
Carlos: “He used to see”, “she used to see”, and “you used to see”, formal.
Dylan: “Veía”.
Carlos: “It used to see”, neutral.
Dylan: “Nosotros veíamos”.
Carlos: “We used to see.”
Dylan: “Vosotros veíais”.
Carlos: “You all used to see”, informal.
Dylan: “Ellos/ellas/ustedes veían”.
Carlos: “They used to see”, masculine, “they used to see”, feminine, and “they all used to see”, formal.
Dylan: “Veían”.
Carlos: “They used to see”, neutral.
Dylan: Almost there. Once we get through these you know all of the regular verbs that in the imperfect tense. “Yo iba”.
Carlos: “I used to go.”
Dylan: “Tú ibas”.
Carlos: “You used to go.”
Dylan: “Él/ella/usted iba”.
Carlos: “He used to go”, “she used to go”, “you used to go”, formal.
Dylan: “Iba”.
Carlos: “It used to go”, neutral.
Dylan: “Nosotros íbamos”.
Carlos: “We used to go.”
Dylan: “Vosotros ibais”.
Carlos: “You all used to go”, informal.
Dylan: “Ellos/ellas/ustedes iban”.
Carlos: “They used to go”, masculine, “they used to go”, feminine, “you all used to go”, formal.
Dylan: “Iban”.
Carlos: “They used to go”, neutral. Ok, Dylan, let’s make this a little clearer with some sample sentences.
Dylan: “Iban al cine el viernes”.
Carlos: “They always used to go to movies on Fridays.”
Dylan: “Yo veía una película cuando me llamaste”.
Carlos: “I was watching a movie, when you called me.”
Dylan: “Éramos cinco en la mesa”.
Carlos: “We were five at the table. There were five of us at the table.”
Dylan: And our example from our conversation today.
Carlos: “¡Tan guapo que era Julio!”
Dylan: “So handsome Julio was.”
Carlos: Now, there were some accents thrown around in there, huh?
Dylan: For the verbs “ser” and “ir”, the only accents that causes the first person plural. For example “éramos”, “íbamos”. All the imperfect tense forms of “ver” receive in accent.
Carlos: Ok.
Dylan: Remember the imperfect tense does not have a direct correlation with the English language and, therefore, we have multiple options when we translate it.
Carlos: For example?
Dylan: For example “nosotros veíamos” could be translated as “We were seeing”, if the action is interrupted by another past action; “We saw”, if we don’t know whether the action started or stopped, or “we used to see” if the action was habitual in the past.

Outro
Carlos: Thanks for clarifying, Dylan. Ok, guys, that just about does it or today.
Dylan: Bye, everybody.
Carlos: ¡Chao, nos vemos!

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