Vocabulary

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Lesson Transcript

INTRODUCTION
Beatriz: Buen día, soy Bea.
Joseph: Joseph here. “Future of possibility.”
Beatriz: Hola chicos, ¿cómo están?
Joseph: ¿Cómo les ha ido la semana pasada?
Beatriz: ¿Y cómo te ha ido a ti, Joseph?
Joseph: Muy bien. It’s been a great week, Bea. How about you? ¿Cómo te ha ido a ti?
Beatriz: Perfecto.
Joseph: I am really excited about the Lower Intermediate Series. I think Cathy and Ana are really going to take it to the next level.
Beatriz: Bueno, ¿y ahora?

Lesson focus

Joseph: Well, today, in the Verb Conjugation Series, we are looking at the future tense of the indicative mood, when it is used to express “probability”, “la probabilidad”.
Beatriz: La probabilidad.
Joseph: La probabilidad. This usage can be a little tricky for English speakers since there’s no direct translation, but we will look into that in one hot minute.
A: Okay, which verbs will we cover today?
Joseph: “Haber” - “to have”, “venir” - “to come” and “decir” - ‘to say” or “to tell”.
Beatriz: Verbos irregulares.
Joseph: They are irregular verbs. But we are not going to let this intimidate us since we look at how these are formed and what kind of patterns we can recognize.
Beatriz: Before we begin, remember these lessons are designed to be used in tandem with language tools of the Learning Center.
Joseph: And if you don’t already have a Premium Subscription, just stop by Spanishpod101.com and try it out for a week, on us.
Beatriz: Es una invitación.
Joseph: Muy bien, compañera. ¿Avanzamos?
Beatriz: ¡Ahí nos vamos!
Joseph: Empecemos con una pregunta. Let’s begin with the question.
Beatriz: Adelante.
Joseph: Let’s say we're sitting in the kitchen and someone rings the doorbell.
Beatriz: Okay.
Joseph: We're not really expecting anyone, so neither of us has any idea who it could be.
Beatriz: All right.
Joseph: Now, if I say “¿Quién estará en la puerta?” Am I asking “Who is at the door“?
Beatriz: Kind of, but the verb “estará” is in the future tense.
Joseph: Right, “¿Quién estará?”. So, if we translate this literally, we get “who will be at the door?” Sounds strange, huh?
Beatriz: La cosa es que el tiempo futuro del modo indicativo puede expresar probabilidad.
Joseph: Así es. So, because the future tense of the indicative mood can be used to express probability, we can translate this as “Who might be at the door?” or “Who might that be at the door?”
Beatriz: Claro, otro ejemplo. Mira, si me preguntas ”¿Cuánto cuesta la cafetera?” Te puedo responder “costará unos 30 dólares”.
Joseph: Great example, Bea. So, if I ask you “¿Cuánto cuesta la cafetera?” which is "How much does the coffee pot cost?” and you don’t know, but you want to gamble an answer - give a conjecture, in a word you want to express assumption, you can say “costará unos 30 dólares”, which is like saying “It must go for like $30” or “ It’s going to run you around $30.”
Beatriz: Okay, I’ve got a good example.
Joseph: A ver..
Beatriz: Let’s say you are trying to guess someone's age.
Joseph: All right.
Beatriz: But you don’t know for sure.
Joseph: What could you say?
Beatriz: Por ejemplo, “ese chico tendrá unos 20 años”.
Joseph: So, “That guy must be around 20 years old” or “That guy must be 20.” And, another one, if we add past participle after the form of “haber”, we can say “¿Quién habrá sido?”, “Who might that have been?”
Beatriz: Again, we are using the future tense of the indicative mood to express probability.
Joseph: And when we do this, we should also know that the ideals of assumption, conjecture and irresolution are all in play. “¿Quién será?”, right, that’s kind of the archetype here, a model “¿Quién será?” it’s not “who will it be”, but “who might it be.”
Beatriz: Yeah. Or “¿cómo será?”.
Joseph: “¿Cómo será?” That’s another great one.
Beatriz: “¿Cómo será la cosa?”
Joseph: Right. And it’s not “How will that be?”, that’s not the right translation. It’s, “How might that be?”
Beatriz: Okay, ahora sigamos con la formación verbal.
Joseph: Now that we’ve seen how to use some verbs in this usage, let’s take a look at how we form them.
Beatriz: Where do we start?
Joseph: We start with the verb “haber”. Here, we’re going to start with the stem “hab”, spelled “H-A-B”, notice the “H” is silent, and then we going to add and “r” in the endings of the future tense of the indicative mood as we have seen in the previous lessons. So, even though these are quote unquote, irregular, you can see that once you make that little change, all you have to do is add the same endings as the ones that we have been looking at over the last few lessons. So, Bea, why don’t we run thorough the conjugation for the verb “haber”?
Beatriz: Muy bien, perfecto. “Haber”.
Joseph: “To have.”
Beatriz: “Yo habré”.
Joseph: “I will have.”
Beatriz: “Tú habrás”.
Joseph: “You will have.”
Beatriz: “Él habrá”.
Joseph: “He will have.”
Beatriz: “Nosotros habremos”.
Joseph: “We will have.”
Beatriz: “Vosotros habréis”.
Joseph: “You all will have.”
Beatriz: “Ellos habrán”.
Joseph: “They will have.” And we want to remember that, here, we’re translating as “we’ll have” for every form, but, depending on the context, as we’ve just seen on our discussion about the usage, this is not always the case. But we’re just doing that so that you can recognize the verb form in the Spanish. Now, Bea, can you give us a couple of examples with “haber” in the future tense of the indicative mood?
Beatriz: Okay, what about, for example, “cuando tú llegues, yo ya habré comido”.
Joseph: Okay, so, “When you arrive, I will already have eaten.” We talked about one in the last section also, “¿Quién habrá sido?”, “Who might that have been?”
Beatriz: Ahora vamos al verbo venir.
Joseph: Great, great. And this time we have the verb “venir”. To conjugate this one, we’re going to be starting with, “vend”, spelled “V-E-N-D”, and then the letter “r”, and after that the personal endings. So, Beatriz, should we go through the conjugation?
Beatriz: All right, “venir”.
Joseph: “To come.”
Beatriz: “Yo vendré”.
Joseph: “I will come.”
Beatriz: “Tú vendrás”.
Joseph: “You will come.”
Beatriz: “Él vendrá”.
Joseph: “He will come.”
Beatriz: “Nosotros vendremos”.
Joseph: “We will come.”
Beatriz: “Vosotros vendréis”.
Joseph: “You all will come.”
Beatriz: “Ellos vendrán”.
Joseph: “They will come.” Very nice. So, again, you can see the formation, the “vend”, then the “r” and then the endings. “Vendré”, “vendrás”, “vendrá”, never, never, never “veniré”, never. That’ll be “vendré”. And, Bea, what about a couple of examples with “venir” in the future tense of the indicative mood?
Beatriz: All right. “Yo vendré desde lejos”.
Joseph: “I will come from far away.“
Beatriz: “Él vendrá apurado”.
Joseph: “He will come in a hurry.”
Beatriz: “Nosotros vendremos con buenas intenciones”.
Joseph: That’s a very good one. “We will come with good intentions.” Great. All right. Moving right along, why don’t we look at the verb “decir”?
Beatriz: Okay.
Joseph: Okay, with the verb “decir” in the future tense, we’ll always start with the stem, “dir”, spelled “D-I-R”. Now, you can see this is pretty irregular since the infinitive is “decir”. So, after “dir” we’re going to add the future endings just like we've seen for all the other verbs In this tense.
Beatriz: Okay, ahora el verbo “decir”.
Joseph: Okay, adelante.
Beatriz: “Decir”.
Joseph: “To say.”
Beatriz: “Yo diré”.
Joseph: “I will say.”
Beatriz: “Tú dirás”.
Joseph: “You will say.”
Beatriz: “Él dirá”.
Joseph: “He will say.”
Beatriz: “Nosotros diremos”.
Joseph: “We will say.”
Beatriz: “Vosotros diréis”.
Joseph: “You all will say.”
Beatriz: “Ellos dirán”.
Joseph: “They will say.” And, now, a couple of examples to really drive this home.
Beatriz: What about “yo diré lo justo”?
Joseph: “I will say what's right, what’s just.” “Yo diré”. “¿Qué dirán de mí?”.“What might they say about me?”.“What will they say of me?”
Beatriz: Yeah, “nosotros diremos un par de mentiras”.
Joseph: “I will tell a pair of lies. A couple of lies.” Right? In Spanish you say “un par de” for “a couple of”.
Beatriz: Yeah, “ellos dirán la verdad”.
Joseph: “They will tell the truth.” Remember that “decir” means “to say” and “to tell”. So, “dirán la verdad”, “They will tell the truth.” Another thing that we should point out - this came up in a comment, on one of our previous verb conjugation lessons, is the difference between the future tense, right, and the periphrastic construction – it’s a big word. The construction of “ir”, and then the proposition “a” and then the infinitive, right? So, someone asked is it more common to say, for example, “yo diré la verdad” or “voy a decir la verdad”. Right? And I think what we are starting to see from these different usages in the future is that, to express a simple future action, we often use the periphrastic construction. “Voy a ir contigo al cine”, if I say, “I’m going to go with you to the cinema”, Beatriz, you can be the judge here - but to my ear, it sounds more common to say it that way.
Beatriz: “Iré al cine”, es un poco más cuando hablas en un futuro que no es inmediato.
Joseph: Right. And at the same time, it expresses the speaker’s will to go, su propia voluntad de ir, right?
Beatriz: “Comeré”. Si tú dices “comeré”, es un poco más como una afirmación.
Joseph: Exactly, it’s an affirmation.
Beatriz: Es una afirmación. Estás diciendo que lo vas a hacer de todas maneras.
Joseph: Right, I noticed that you said, “que lo vas a hacer".
Beatriz: “Me iré a la calle” o “iré a la calle”.
Joseph: Right.
Beatriz: Es un poco más... “I will go”, definitely.
Joseph: Definitely.

Outro

Joseph: So, that will just about do it for today’s lesson.
Beatriz: Okay, ha sido un gusto.
Joseph: De igual manera, Bea.
Beatriz: Nos vemos muy pronto.
Joseph: Prontísimo.
Beatriz: ¡Que les vaya bien! Bye-bye.
Joseph: ¡Chao, chao!

Paradigms

Quiz

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