DAY SEVEN. UN BUFÉ (A BUFFET)

7

Happy Thursday!

Today is a smorgasbord, leftovers, must-goes kind of day.  In Spanish, you can say un bufé, a borrowing from French which (you guessed it) corresponds to ‘buffet’ in English.  Various different things you need to know that you don’t know yet.  I’ll start the day with some information about articles in Spanish, then some information about adjectives and nouns and pluralization.

You remember the definite article? el/los/la/las/le/les?  Well, the indefinite article is like this, with a side-by-side comparison with the definite article:

el, los = un, unos

la, las = una, unas

le, les = une, unes *** limited use

So if el libro is ‘the book’, un libro is ‘a book’

And if la mesa is ‘the table’, then una mesa is ‘a table’.

But if los libros is ‘the books’, what is unos libros?

Since we don’t pluralize ‘a(n)’ in English, we must translate it as ‘some books’ or ‘a few books’.  Likewise, unas mesas is ‘some tables’ or ‘a few tables’.

You may have guessed that un/unos/una/unas//etc. is related to the word uno.  If you want to talk about having one of something, like having one book, one computer, one phone, then you say Tengo (I have) un libro, tengo una computadora, tengo un móvil.  In order to say ‘one (thing)’, you have to make the number match the noun in terms of gender.  And tengo unos libros means ‘I have some books’.  

If you just want to say the number ‘one’, you say uno.  Saying Tengo uno means ‘I have one’, but only if you are referring to a masculine thing.  If you are referring to a feminine thing you say tengo una.  Tengo unos means ‘I have some things’ referring to masculine nouns like libros, tacos, exámenes and tengo unas means ‘I have some things’ referring to feminine nouns such as mesas, televisiones, cosas.  

As you know, in Spanish, adjectives have a gender.  So you can say televisión perfecta (perfect television), taco delicioso (delicious taco), libros rojos (red books), mesas anaranjadas (orange tables), exámenes largos (long exams) and you notice the ending of the adjective changes to match the ending of the noun.  If someone asks you if you have a perfect television, you can say Sí, tengo una meaning I have one (as in a perfect television).  If someone asks you if you have a delicious taco, you can say sí, tengo uno (as in, I have one (a delicious taco), like, maybe I have a delicious taco in my hand right now).  Do you have some red books?  Tienes unos libros rojos?  Yes, I have some.  Sí, tengo unos.  -- And so you see that when you say ‘you have some’, you need to think about the noun you are referencing and use the correct gender and number of that noun.

Some adjectives in Spanish do not vary according to gender.  Difícil (difficult), fácil (easy), emocionante (exciting) are examples.  Many of these nouns will end in a consonant or in the letter ‘e’, but for example transgénero is always masculine (because of the root word género, which is grammatically a masculine word).  Also remember that virilidad meaning ‘virility, manliness’, is in fact a grammatically feminine word.  The grammatical gender of thing nouns or concept nouns doesn’t have anything to do with the gender of people.

So un examen can be un examen difícil (a difficult exam), and una pregunta can be una pregunta difícil (a difficult question).  Notice that words like difícil stay the same whether they are modifying feminine or masculine nouns.  Difícil still changes based on number: exámenes difíciles, preguntas difíciles.  You will remember that as a rule nouns that end in consonants like examples reloj (plural relojes), sabor (plural sabores), red (plural redes) referenced on DAY FOUR are pluralized by adding -es.  Adjectives ending in consonants do the same, and do not vary based on gender (but rather only based on number).  Though of course there are certain adjectives that end in consonants and do not vary based on gender OR number.  El abrelatas, ‘can-opener’, is the singular, and los abrelatas means ‘can-openers’.  See how the noun does not change form in the plural?  The article clues you in to whether the noun is singular or plural, or something else in the context of the noun will clue you in.

Abrelatas is one of many compound words that follow the same pattern in pluralization (that is to say, they do not change form, and you can only tell whether they are singular or plural with the presence of an article or an inflected verb : Los abrelatas son versus el abrelatas es.)  El abrelatas means, literally, ‘the-opens-cans’; el rascacielos, ‘skycraper’ is literally ‘the-scrapes-skies’, and el parabrisas, ‘windshield’ is literally ‘the-stops-breezes’, and el paraguas, ‘umbrella’, is literally ‘the-stops-waters’ (although in that last example, it was originally paraaguas, and one ‘a’ dropped out for ease of pronunciation).  

That’s it!  Nice and short today :)