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Welcome to a new day of learning languages with me, Gabu. I am so excited to be teaching you things today! I wrote this the other day but I didn't think to post it. So here you have it...
Today for el almuerzo I had some lovely pollo with arroz and a little bit of lechuga (lunch, chicken, rice, lettuce --- all things I love to eat!) As you know, my favorite food is macarrones con queso or maybe pizza (mac and cheese and pizza, don’t you know it!) Speaking of food, the word for ‘to eat’ is ‘comer’ from the Latin comedere, which comes from com + edere (the com bit was like an intensifier added to Latin words to give them more umph, and the edere was just the infinitive which was highly inflected [see earlier blog post which mentions inflection], as Latin verbs are wont to, and one inflected form was ESUS, which sounds suspiciously like German ESSEN, which means [surprise surprise] ‘to eat’ ]did you remember that from your limited experience with German?]). If that haphazard divulgence helps you remember, more power to you. If not, it in any case sure was fun).
So. Comer is a regular -ER verb. Can you guess how we conjugate it in the present?
como
comes
come
comemos
coméis
comen
Today I will explain some irregularities in verbs. Let’s see how you like them.
Spanish does this thing I think is really cool where it takes the infinitive form of certain verbs and, when inflecting the verb in certain instances, it changes the stem of that infinitive verb form. We call verbs that do this stem-changing verbs. (now is the appropriate time to link you with the following webpage, which also endeavors to explain this phenomenon: http://www.studyspanish.com/lessons/stemie.htm). Okay so now comer is a 100 percent regular verb, as in, not a stem-changer. Therefore, the stem of comer, com-, can simply be thrust together with the endings -o, -es, -e, -emos, -éis, -en, with no muss and no fuss.
But so now let’s look at the verb ENTENDER, which means COMPRENDER, which is a cognate with the English word ‘to comprehend’. Now COMPRENDER is a regular verb, but ENTENDER is a stem-changing verb. The stem of ENTENDER is entend- and this stem is gonna change when conjugating the verb in certain forms. For now, since we have already cracked open this particular case, we will stick with our amigo the present tense. When you conjugate stem-changing verbs in the present tense, the stem will change for all the verb forms EXCEPT the first person plural and the second person plural.
This rule holds true for all stem-changers. What we call ENTENDER is an ‘e-to-ie-stem-changing verb’. Or e>ie stem changer. Or something along those lines. This means that our stem entend- is gonna change. But only the latter syllable of the stem is gonna change. ENTENDER conjugates to
entiendo
entiendes
entiende
entendemos
entendéis
entienden
So you notice the irregularity, and that the nosotr@s and vosotr@s forms (the first person plural and second person plural) remained regular, as I promised you they would?
Now let’s look at more verbs. Cerrar (meaning ‘to close’) is an e>ie stem-changing verb like entender, but it’s from the first conjugation (or you could say paradigm) rather than the second one. In other words, it’s an -AR verb rather than an -ER verb. SO how is cerrar conjugated?
cierro
cierras
cierra
cerramos
cerráis
cierran
mentir (meaning ‘to lie’, as in to not tell the truth) is an e>ie stem-changer from the third conjugation, the -IR verbs. Here is how it is conjugated:
miento
mientes
miente
mentimos
mentís
mienten
And more...
pensar (to think, to plan)
pienso
piensas
piensa
pensamos
pensáis
piensan
almorzar (to eat lunch, to have lunch, to luncheon [boy is that a weird word]) (this one isn’t e>ie, but rather o>ue; nevertheless, it follows the same exact principle!)
almuerzo
almuerzas
almuerza
almorzamos
almorzáis
almuerzan
When I was young and used to read Spanish textbooks like they were manna from heaven and my eyes hungry bellies, I would notice that in the glossary at the back of the textbook it would actually list verbs like mentir and pensar with the added text ‘e>ie stem change’ so that I would know that they were stem-changers, and what kind of stem-changers they were. Of course, in a dictionary like wordreference, it’s not going to tell you that in the entry for the word, but in wordreference you can also conjugate any and all verbs and it will indicate irregularities in the conjugation tables with blue letters. Huzzah!
In English we say ‘can’ or ‘be able to’ quite a lot, and the equivalent in Spanish is also used quite often; also, it’s relevant to what I have just been talking about. For the purposes of clarity I will tell you that PODER means ‘to be able’ (as in, to be able to do something). I could tell you it means ‘can’ but the thing is that you can’t really make ‘can’ into an infinitive; you have to make it into ‘to be able’, and the thing is that PODER is an infinitive. It does mean ‘to be able’... although when you conjugate it you can sometime translate the resultant forms as ‘can’ (as in, ‘can do something’). Now PODER is an o>ue stem changing verb, like the following other verbs:
dormir (to sleep)
duermo
duermes
duerme
dormimos
dormís
duermen
contar (to count, to tell)
cuento
cuentas
cuenta
contamos
contáis
cuentan
costar (to cost)
cuesto
cuestas
cuesta
costamos
costáis
cuestan
almorzar (to have lunch. Wait, this is already available for your viewing pleasure above!)
So poder (to be able) is conjugated like ...
puedo -- I am able ...
puedes -- you are able ...
puede
podemos
podéis
pueden
You will notice that after you say to ‘be able’ in English, your tongue seems to search for the word ‘to’ to insert afterwards. To be able to walk, to be able to drive, to be able to speak Spanish, etc. The reason for this is that the English verb ‘to be able’ is followed by an infinitive, and Spanish does the same thing. Remember that infinitives are single words always ending in the letter ‘r’. So if puedo is ‘I am able’, then puedo hablar is ‘I am able to speak’, and puedes hablar is ‘you are able to speak’ and poder hablar is ‘to be able to speak’.
Dad, for your reference, I believe this verb largely corresponds to French pouvoir.
Shoot, this is fun.
Puedo ver algo
I am able to see something
Puedes hablar español
I can speak Spanish
Pueden entender mucho
They can understand a lot
Podéis venir mañana
You all are able to come tomorrow.
And now, to get it over with, I will throw an entirely irregular verb for you (with multiple similarities to the French verb aller, mi papá (my dad).
IR (to go)
voy
vas
va
vamos
vais
van
--- The conjugated forms have absolutely nothing in common with the infinitive for the simple reason that IR is the product of not one, not two, but THREE verbs in Latin that got condensed into one by virtue of tons of years passing and things changing. So, this is just the tip of the iceberg, IR gets even more complicated.
But hey, now, if you can remember, you can say
Voy a Galicia en dos mil diecisiete (2017)
I’m going to Galicia in 2017!!!And I hope you do :)
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