Lesson 1 (Lección 1) - Greetings (Saludos)

DIÁLOGO - DIALOGUE

Yuko conoce a Marck - Yuko meets Marck

Yuko is a japanese student who has recently arrived to Madrid to improve her Spanish. At her Languages School there are lot of people from other countries who are interested in learn Spanish.
The first day she arrives a few minutes earlier and there's just a boy at the classroom, so she decides to practice Spanish with him:

 - Yuko: ¡Hola!                                                        - Hello!
 - Marck: ¿Eh? Ah, ¡hola!                                       - Eh? Ah, hello!
 - Yuko: Me llamo Yuko, encantada.                        - My name is Yuko, nice to meet you.
 - Marck: Un placer, yo me llamo Marck.                - Plesure, my name is Marck.          
 - Yuko: ¿Marck?... ¿Eres americano?                      - Marck?... Are you American?
 - Marck: No, soy inglés, de Londres.                      - No, I'm English, from London.
    ¿De dónde eres tú?                                                - Where are you from?
 - Yuko: Soy japonesa, de Tokio.                              - I'm Jaspanese, from Tokio.

                                          (The bell rings.)

http://blip.tv/file/get/JaviLaquese-YukoMeetsMarck442.mp4


VOCABULARY: 

hola: hello                                                                                          tú: you
llamarse: to be called                                                                        yo: I
encantado/encantada (de conocerte): nice to meet you                   
 japonés/japonesa: Japanese     
un: a/an                                                                                            
dónde: where                                  
placer: plesure                                                                                   
de: from  
soy: I'm                                                                                               
no: no
americano/americana: American                                                     
  inglés/inglesa: English


GRAMATIC 


1. Me llamo "X"

When we want to say our name in Spanish, we use the common expression "Me llamo...". Literally, "me llamo" means I'm called; in English we use "I'm ..." or "My name is...". In Spanish we use these two expression and other one which is "me llamo...". So, to say our name we can say in these ways:

- Me llamo Yuko. ("I'm called Yuko")
- Mi nombre es Yuko. (My name is Yuko)
- Soy Yuko.  (I'm Yuko)


2. ¿Cómo te llamas?

"What's your name?" Literally, it mean "how are you called", but don't try to think that you can build the sentence in Spanish from English, forget the English structures and try to find the sense in Spanish. The first steps are difficult, but once you're used to the Spanish gramatic, it would be easier. 
So, remembrer when you want to ask somebody what's his/her name, you just have to say "¿cómo te llamas?".
That's the informal way, when you want to ask for somebody who is older than you or a teacher/professor/boss; the formal way is: ¿cómo se llama? 
Have you seen? You just have to change "te" by "se" and change the ending of the verb, "llamas" by "llama". Easier right? But let's forget the formal way, we'll learn it later.

3. ¿De dónde eres?

It mean, "where are you from?". "De" means "from", "dónde" means "where" and "eres" means "(you) are".
You don't have to be worried about the structures right now, we'll study them later. Just, memorize the expressions. 
When somebody ask "¿de dónde eres?" and we want to know where is he/she from; it isn't necessary to repeat "¿de dónde eres?", we can just say, "¿y tú?", it means "and you?". That's valid to lot of questions like "what's your name?", "how are you?", etc.

4. Soy japonés/ Soy de Japón

We can answer in two ways. We can say "soy japonés/japonesa", it means I'm Japanese. Or, we can say "soy de Japón" too, it means "I'm from Japan".


Soy americano/americana - Soy de Estados Unidos (I'm amercan/I'm from USA)
Soy inglés/inglesa - Soy de Inglaterra  (I'm English/I'm from England)


5. ¿japonés or japonesa? ¿inglés or inglesa?

Maybe you're wondering which word you should use, easy to answer. If you are a boy you have to use japonés/inglés/americano, and when you're a girl you have to use japonesa/americana/inglesa. Why? Because in Spanish, the adjective have to ways, male way and female way. We'll learn more about it in future lessons. But right now, when the adjective ends at "-a", it's usually female.

6. Japonesa, de Tokio.

When you want to say your nationality and furthermore, add the city where you're from, you just have to say "from Tokio, from London...", "de Tokio, de Londres,...". So easy! 

7. Encantado/encantada de conocerte./ Un placer.

How to say "nice to meet you"? "Encantado (male)/encantada (female) de conocerte." But this long expression sometimes doesn't sound very natural and we say just "encantado/encantada". Shorter and more natural! We can use "un placer" too, "a plesure". Remember this, in Spanish there are lot of ways to say everything! But don't worry, you'll get it everything! 
A good way to answer when somebody say "encantado" or "un placer" is to say "igualmente". Igualmente means like "the same" so it's like to say "nice to meet you too".

LOAN WORDS

 coreano/coreana: Korean                 Corea del Sur: South Korea
 francés/francesa: French                  Francia: French
 alemán/alemana: German                 Alemania: Germany
 italiano/italiana: Italian                      Italia: Italy
 chino/china: Chinese                          China: China
 canadiense: Canadian                        Canadá: Canada

 Buenos días: Good morning               Adiós: good bye
 Buenas tardes: Good afternoon         Hasta luego: see you later
 Buenas noches: Good evening/nigt     Hasta pronto: see you soon

HOMEWORK

1. Please, translate to Spanish:


  a) (girl): I'm Korean.                  _________________________
  b) Hi, where are you from?        _________________________
  c) I'm from Italy.                        _________________________
  d) (boy) I'm Chinese.                 _________________________



2. Please, complete with the words below. 

     coreana / hola / italiano / encantado / igualmente / mi nombre es 

    Piero: ¡Hola!
    Suzy: ¿Eh?... ¡___!
    Piero: Me llamo Piero, _______.
    Suzy: _________ Suzy, ________.
    Piero: ¿De dónde eres?
    Suzy: Soy ________, de Seúl. ¿Y tú?
    Piero: Yo soy ________, de Roma. 




3. Answer the questions: ¿Cómo te llamas? ¿De dónde eres?



Please send an email on spanish_m.teacher@hotmail.com with the answers and I'll reply you with the corrections! And please, if you like my work or just want to me to explain something or to correct some Enlgish word, please, leave a comment on the blog! I hope my work is useful for you!
Hasta pronto!
  
 









      

Introduction to Spanish!

HI EVERYBODY!

This is the first chapter of our adventure through the Spanish-study. At first, we should start by the Spanish history. The Spanish language comes form the Latino, the accient language which was spoken at the Rome Empire. Through the centuries, that language changed step by step until our days. That's the reason why Spanish has got common words and gramatic with other languages like French or Italian, which come too from the Latino.
Spanish is one of the most sponken languages on the world, not just in Spain. Spanish is spoken in South America too, from Mexico to Argentina (except Brazil). That's the reason why to know this language is so important.
But like British and American English, there are lot of differences between Spanish (from Spain) dialect and the dialects from South America. In fact, in Spain, the dialect from the south (from Andalucia), sounds different from the centre and north dialect. Furthermore, in Spain we've got three languages more, Catalan (from Catalonia), Galician (from Galice) and Euskera (from Basque Country) which are spoken just in those regions. This is a summary of the actual situation of the Spanish.

But now, it's time to start, and our first step is, in my opinion the most important step. Read Spanish! You should now that have a perfect pronunciation isn't the most important thing. There are lot of dialects with their special pronunciation so, which is the best? Well, all of them are right, they are acepted. But here, we're going to learn the standard Spanish, but if you're a beginner, take it slowly, it's the best way to improve step by step. Let's start!

EL ABECEDARIO 

Spanish Alphabet isn't very difficult, here it's:

a - b - c - d - e - f - g - h - i - j - k - l - m - n - ñ - o - p - q -  r - s - t - u - v - w - x - y - z

How to pronounce it? Here is a video: 

Here guys, you've got a video to learn how to prounounce the alphabet and how the letters are pronounced in a ordinary spanish word.  Easy! Don't you think so?

HOMEWORK!

Well I think is time to a homework and enjoyment, please take a look to this song who everybody knows, and try to sing! Is a good way to improve your pronunciation and be used to hear Spanish! Have fun singing "El ciclo sin fin" from "El rey león (The lion king)"! The lirycs appear on the video!

See you next time in Lesson 1! Bring paper and pen because you'll need it! xD Que te diviertas!