Cádiz milenaria

CÁDIZ MILENARIA

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Cádiz es una de las ciudades más antiguas de Europa. Aunque hay muchos puntos de su historia antigua que no conocemos, se calcula que Cádiz debe tener unos 3.000 años de antigüedad.

SpanishVerbChart.com

It's no surprise that majority of students struggle when dealing with Spanish verbs. Today we are presenting a tool that might help you out once you're on the street and in the need of speaking. Why not having an app on your smart phone for it? This can also be useful in the class or when doing homework as it is an easy and fast way of getting the feedback you nedd.

If you are interested, you can find some more info here.

Here are a couple of pics

Me gusta(n)...

El verbo "gustar", independientemente de si su forma está en Presente, Pasado, Futuro, funciona al revés en comparación con la mayoría de verbos del Español. El sujeto está al final, y no antes del verbo. Eso hace que su forma cambie con el singular y el plurar.

   Verbo   Sujeto Singular
Me gusta ese coche.

  Verbo      Sujeto Plural
Me gustan las almendras

El verbo gustar es un verbo que viene siempre precedido por los pronombres me, te, se, nos, os y les.

LINGUA-FRANCA
Academia de Idiomas

Verb tenses. Pretérito Perfecto Simple de Indicativo, también Pretérito Indefinido

Do you struggle with verb tenses?

Pretérito Perfecto Simple de Indicativo

(Also known as Pretérito Indefinido)

This past tense is nearly the same as the last one, Pretérito Perfecto Compuesto, as they express similar ideas.

On one hand, the "Compuesto" is a tense that tells us several actions in the past with a certain connection to the present; on the other hand, this "Simple" tense expresses actions in the past that aren't connected to the present at all. Anyway, this is use as another past tense.

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Regular Forms

Cantar      Beber     Vivir

Yo            canté       bebí      viví

Tú            cantaste    bebiste   viviste

Él            cantó       bebió     vivió

Nosotros      cantamos    bebimos   vivimos

Vosotros      cantasteis  bebisteis vivisteis

Ellos         cantaron    bebieron  vivieron

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Pretérito Perfecto Simple

The concept this tense represents is what happened or what we did in the past. These are the actions that no longer have an effect in the present. It is commonly confused with the Compuesto, however, the reasons are as follow:

Comí paella el jueves

(I ate paella on Thursday)

Both the paella and Thursday are finished at the time of speaking, that is why we use this tense.

Los niños fueron al zoológico el año pasado

(Kids went to the zoo last year)

Last year is finished and so it takes us to this tense. The opposite would be "han ido al zoológico este año" taking into account this year is not finished yet.

Primero fuí a Granada, luego visitamos a unos amigos en Córdoba...

(I first went to Granada, then we visited some friends in Cordoba)

Storytelling. We can tell our stories and make a long chain of events just by using this tense. The only rule is that you ALWAYS tell what happened from the oldest issue and then you go on chronologically with the rest (to go back in time while we speak we'd need Pretérito Pluscuamperfecto).

CLARIFICATION

The changes of the tense regarding whether the action or the time are finished, represent the standard form of Spanish on this regarding.

However, throught the rich variety of Spanish slangs, dialects and realities, this may change. The rule above represent the general and traditional rule. Spanish from South America, Canary islands, northern Spain and several other regions do not necessarily follow this rule. These speakers will prefer to use THIS tense as the ONLY tense for the past, and they forget the "Compuesto" tense.

Verb Tenses. Pretérito Perfecto Compuesto de Indicativo

Do you struggle with verb tenses?

Pretérito Perfecto Compuesto de Indicativo



This is one of the most common tenses used in Spanish. It is a typical European tense, and as a curiosity, both American English and American Spanish avoid it. In America people prefer simple tenses, but here in the old Europe, we still use compound tenses to express ourselves.

The Pretérito Compuesto uses the verb HABER as an auxiliary verb. The auxiliary will be conjugated in Presente de Indicativo, while the main verb will be in the Past Participle form.

Presente de Ind. HABER + Participio = Pretérito Perf. Compuesto Ind.

HABER                  PARTICIPIO

He                     Cantar: Cantado

Has

Ha                     Beber: Bebido

Hemos                  Vivir: Vivido

Habéis

Han

Participle refers to the completed action of the verb. The endings are related to each group

(-AR: -ado; -ER: -ido; -IR: -ido)

However, Spanish is full of irregular participles, here are some examples:

Hacer: Hecho; Ver: Visto; Decir: Dicho...

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Compound tenses are very easily formed as they tend to change less than other tenses.

Pretérito Perfecto Compuesto de Indicativo is half way between the Past and the Present. We use this tense to refer to past actions with a present result.

Present result according to the action:

He limpiado mis zapatos

(I have cleaned my shoes)

I did the action in the past, and I can only say it if the shoes are still clean now (a present result)

Hemos cocinado un pastel de chocolate

(We’ve cooked a chocolate cake)

We can only say it if we still have some more cake left to offer (a present result, but not when somebody has eaten it all!

Present result according to the time:

He visto la televisión hoy.

(I’ve watched telly today)

The time expressed, today, is not finished yet, and that’s make it to the present.

Este año hemos visitado a los abuelos.

(We’ve visited our grandparents this year)

This year is still going on so we can only use Pretérito Perfecto Compuesto de Indicativo.

He escalado en Everest.

(I have climbed the Everest)

Achievements in life are always expressed in this tense as if you’re speaking, your lifetime hasn’t finished yet.

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In many other situations, the action or the time are finished. That means somebody has already eaten the cake or that the time is finished (yesterday). In those situations we’d use the Pretérito Perfecto Simple de Indicativo (also known as Pretérito Indefinido) and we will study that tense in our next article about tenses.

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This is a Lingua–Franca article

www.lingua-franca.es

http://wanna-learn-spanish.blogspot.com/



Verb Tenses. Presente de Indicativo

DO YOU STRUGGLE WITH VERB TENSES?

PRESENTE DE INDICATIVO

Verb tenses represent one of the weakest points for all Spanish learner. No need to say they are extemely important for speaking and understanding, if you don’t get them because they are too many and probably too weird... this is the right moment to understand them.

We are making an analysis of all tenses with valuable examples and a bit of humour, so you don’t get that bored with them.

Most of my students succeed in tenses once they understand this. In order to reduce space verb forms are not included in this article, if you need them this website may help you.

Spanish verbs are divided into three groups according to their ending in infinitive. The groups are –AR, -ER, -IR. To conjugate other verbs you can remember –or check on the link above- any verb with the same ending.

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Regular Forms

Cantar   Beber    Vivir

Yo            canto    bebo     vivo

Tú            cantas   bebes    vives

Él            canta    bebe     vive

Nosotros      cantamos bebemos  vivimos

Vosotros      cantáis  bebéis   vivís

Ellos         cantan   beben    viven

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Presente de Indicativo

The present is NOT what we are doing now, but what we NORMALLY do or what it ALWAYS happen. It’s used to talk about routines and to describe things, and it refers to things that do not change.

España es bonita

(Spain is beautiful)

You don’t really expect something beautiful to change, do you? Any descriptions are made in present

Nosotros bebemos cerveza.

(We drink beer)

Humans tend to choose a drink in their adulthood and hold on to it for ages. That is a perfect example of the use of the Present.

No me gustan los gatos, pero me gusta tu gato.

(I don’t like cats, but I like your cat)

The verb “gustar” works differently as what you like is the subject of the sentence, so that means you conjugate the verb accordingly to that, and not to the speaker.

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This is a Lingua–Franca article

www.lingua-franca.es

http://wanna-learn-spanish.blogspot.com/