Download Lesson 44 Notes

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In this edition:
making
arrangements
and irregular
verbs
Lesson 44
Notes
¿Qué hacemos esta noche?
Making arrangements
Programme Notes
Coffee Break Spanish notes guide you through the content of each lesson. Lesson 44 is the first of
two lessons in which we’ll talk about making arrangements. This lesson introduces the verb ir
which is an irregular verb.
Regular verbs
Before we tackle the idea of irregular verbs, let’s consider the verbs we have already come across in
the past few lessons. Take, for example, the verb cenar meaning “to dine” or “to have dinner”. The
full conjugation is given below:
cenar - to dine
ceno
cenamos
cenas
cenáis
cena
cenan
We’ve come to recognise these endings (-o, -as, -a, -amos, -áis, -an) as the endings of a “regular -ar
verb” in the present tense. This means that for many verbs we can simply remove the -ar ending of
the infinitive and add the endings to it to conjugate the verb in full.
We’ve also come across some verbs which follow other regular patterns, although we haven’t
covered these in great detail as yet. Think of comer meaning “to eat”, or “to have lunch”. The full
conjugation of comer is given below to allow you to compare it to cenar.
comer - to eat
como
comemos
comes
coméis
come
comen
Note that here the endings are very similar to the -ar endings, but they use “-e-” as the vowel rather
than “-a”, eg. comemos as opposed to cenamos.
Since verbs like cenar and comer follow regular patterns, they’re called “regular verbs”. However, in
most languages, Spanish – and English – included, there are verbs which do not follow the regular
patterns.
Coffee Break Spanish: Lesson 44
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Some English examples
Let’s consider for a moment some examples of regular English verbs.
to walk
I walk
we walk
you walk
you walk
he/she/it walks
they walk
to speak
I speak
we speak
you speak
you speak
he/she/it speaks
they speak
You’ll notice from the tables above that these regular English verbs have only one change: the “he/
she/it” form adds -s to the end of the other forms. Now consider an irregular verb in English:
to be
I am
we are
you are
you are
he/she/it is
they are
In this example there are three completely different words used: “am”, “are” and “is”. This verb
doesn’t follow regular patterns, so it is an irregular verb.
Irregular verbs in Spanish
There are quite a number of irregular verbs in Spanish. Don’t be too concerned, though: even the
irregularities are often regular! This may seem confusing, but as you become more familiar with
irregular verbs, you’ll recognise more and more patterns.
You will also find that it’s often the very common verbs which are irregular. This is the case in most
languages: as languages change over time, it is normally the words which are used most often in
daily speech which change the most over the centuries. The verb “to be” is one of the most
commonly used words or concepts in any language, so it’s hardly surprising that it’s very often an
irregular verb in many languages.
The example used in lesson 44 was another very common verb: “to go”. In Spanish, this is the verb
ir. The full conjugation is given below:
ir - to go
voy
vamos
vas
vais
va
van
If we put aside the fact that the words voy or vamos seem to have very little to do with the infinitive
ir, you can immediately see that even this irregular verb follows familiar patterns.
Coffee Break Spanish: Lesson 44
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Another irregular verb introduced in lesson 44 was hacer, meaning “to do”:
hacer - to do / to make
hago
hacemos
haces
hacéis
hace
hacen
Again, like ir, where the particular irregularity in the conjugation was in the “I” part, hacer becomes
hago in the “I” form. If we apply the theory that it’s the most commonly used forms which change
the most over time, people do tend to talk about themselves, hence the fact that the “I” form is very
likely to be the most irregular form of an irregular verb.
Making arrangements
This lesson introduced the concept of making arrangements. We used the phrase:
¿qué hacemos esta noche?
what are we doing this evening?
This could equally be translated as “what will we do this evening”, even though this English form
implies a future tense and the Spanish form is very definitely the present tense, hacemos. To answer
the question, it is possible to make suggestions using verbs in the 1st person plural, the “we” form:
¿vamos al cine?
“shall we go to the cinema?”
Again, note that this literally means “are we going to the cinema?” or “do we go to the cinema”.
Other examples include:
¿cenamos en un restaurante?
“shall we eat in a restaurant?”
¿vamos a una fiesta?
“shall we go to a party?”
¿estudiamos el español?
“shall we study Spanish?”
We will cover more examples in lesson 45.
A challenge
Using the list of regular verbs below, try to come up with more suggestions in answer to the
question ¿qué hacemos esta noche?
Coffee Break Spanish: Lesson 44
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Some verbs with regular “we” forms
estudiar
to study
hablar
to speak
charlar / platicar
to chat
tocar el piano
to play the piano
jugar al fútbol
to play football / soccer
ver la televisión
to watch television
cantar
to sing
bailar
to dance
For your convenience we have provided the correct “we” forms on page 5. Don’t forget that you
can post your own efforts on the Radio Lingua Network forum:
Direct link: http://www.radiolinguamedia.com/bb/cbf-bb/viewtopic.php?t=74
Coffee Break Spanish: Lesson 44
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Suggested answers
Please note that although the suggested translations all begin with “shall we...” which is actually the
future tense in English, the Spanish verbs are in the present tense, so the literal translation is really
“are we studying Spanish” or “do we study Spanish”. It is perfectly normal to use the Spanish
present tense in this way.
“we” forms for the previous examples
¿estudiamos el español?
shall we study Spanish?
¿hablamos italiano?
shall we speak Italian?
¿charlamos / platicamos con
nuestros amigos?
shall we chat with our
friends?
¿tocamos el piano?
shall we play the piano?
¿jugamos al fútbol?
shall we play football /
soccer?
¿vemos la televisión?
shall we watch television?
¿cantamos una canción?
shall we sing a song?
¿bailamos juntos?
shall we dance together?
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Coffee Break Spanish: Lesson 44
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