Track 8

1. la is the feminine of lo Grammar

Change the o to an a and lo becomes la. This is one way of making something feminine in Spanish, and you will see others.

So quiero verla is I want to see it, I want to see her, or formally I want to see you. From this one small word plus an s or an a you get a lot of options.

Debo identificarlo · Debo identificarlos · Debo identificarlas

2. Gender belongs to the word, not the object Concept

People talking about languages with gender tend to think the object has the gender. It does not. The word has the gender. You might have two words for the same object, one masculine and one feminine.

Feminine words are usually the ones ending in a, like casa.

3. quiere: he, she, it and formal you band together Grammar

Quiere means he wants, she wants, it wants and you want (formal). Those four band together, not only in words like lo and la but in the verbs too. You saw it already with es, which is it is, she is, he is and you are (formal).

Quiere visitarme · No quiere visitarme

4. Questions are made with your voice alone Grammar

English adds do: "do you want". Spanish does nothing of the kind. You just make it sound like a question with your voice.

Negative questions work the same way, where English gets really complicated and Spanish does not.

¿No quiere visitarme? · ¿Por qué no quiere visitarme? · ¿Por qué no quiere venir a visitarme?

5. New vocabulary Vocabulary

Venir is spelled with a v, and you will hear both /venir/ and, more commonly, /benir/ with a soft b. Hooks for it: conveniente, "with coming", when things come together, and bienvenido for welcome, which is literally the same as the English, bien (well) plus a form of venir.

Debo is I owe, and the useful part is that you can use it for I must: I owe to continue is how you say I must continue. The English word debt, spelled d-e-b-t, has its silent b from exactly this Latin root.

Debo continuar · ¿Quiere venir? · ¿Quiere venir a la casa? · ¿Quiere venir a visitarme?

6. Play it safe with the formal Practical

Whether formal or informal language is used depends heavily on the dialect. The safe approach is to go in with the formal, then watch how people address you and how they address each other in that context, and adjust accordingly.

• In Spain, meeting someone for the first time or going into a shop, the common thing is to start formally, young peers aside.
• In Buenos Aires the formal way of addressing people is almost never used. It turns up more often to insult someone with an extra layer of sarcasm or irony than it does sincerely.

Formally, use lo or la instead of te, for a male or a female.