Complete Spanish

Track 48

1. The line in the past: -ía for -er and -ir verbs Rule

The other half of the tense. Take off the -er or -ir ending and put -ía. Yes, the same sound as would.

comer → comía  ·  vender → vendía

Comía · Lo vendía · Se vendía · Lo rompía · Se rompía · Se rompían

2. How to tell "would" from the past Rule

Both use -ía, so the difference is entirely in what you attach it to. For would you add it to the whole "to" form. For the past you strip the ending first.

comería
I would eat: added to comer
comía
I was eating: comer stripped first

Lo vendería / Lo vendía · Lo rompería / Lo rompía · Lo romperían / Lo rompían · Se vendería / Se vendía

3. se vende, and the creative uses Vocabulary

Some of the most common signs you will see in a Spanish-speaking place are exactly this structure.

se vende
for sale, literally "it sells itself"
se habla español
Spanish spoken
¿cómo se dice?
how is it said? how do you say?

¿Cómo se dice? is the one to use when treating a friend as a dictionary. Do not say "¿cómo dices?", which asks how that individual personally says it.

So se is doing a lot of work in Spanish. Sometimes it wraps up a sentence with no other object. Sometimes it changes the meaning outright, as quedar becomes quedarse. And sometimes it is quite creative, as in se vende.

4. decir is a little irregular Grammar

dice
he/she says
dices
you say
dicen
they say
decimos
we say

As usual the "we" form escapes the irregularity, because the accent sits elsewhere, so it goes back to decir.

5. quedar for "having some left" Rule

Another inverted structure, like gustar. I have one left is it remains to me one.

me queda uno (I have one left)
me quedan dos
I have two left
le quedan dos
he/she has two left
no me quedan
I don't have any left
uno / dos
one / two (English duo)

The verb agrees with the thing remaining, so two gives quedan. In a shop you may hear either no me queda or no me quedan, depending on what the speaker has in mind.

Do not confuse this with the reflexive. Me queda uno is I have one left, but me quedo is I stay. Same verb, different structure, different meaning.

6. Going to break, and staying in the past Grammar

The se travels wherever the verb goes.

Se va a romper / Va a romperse · Se queda · Se quedan · Se quedaban · No se quedaban aquí · No me quedaba aquí · Nos quedábamos aquí · No nos quedábamos aquí

No nos quedaba, or no nos quedaban, for we didn't have any left.