Unidad 2: Quienes somos
2. Sentence and question formation in a few easy steps
Observa el video 1.2.1 before beginning the next section Listen and repeat what you hear about questions and responses regarding one’s origin. Watch the explanation and the conversational videos. As you watch, take notes on the word order and repeat the questions and answers that you hear. Notice the tone in the speaker’s voice as he asks questions. Does it change? ¡Sí! The tone changed.
Intonation is the pattern or melody of rising or falling pitch changes in the voice when speaking. The pitch or tone pattern of a sentence distinguishes kinds of sentences as when in the video questions are asked. The pitch pattern also distinguishes the speakers of different countries in the same culture. British English has a specific pitch pattern different from the English that we speak in the States or the English that is spoken in Australia. If in the same language we have diverse patterns, imagine between languages! It’s important to learn to use the Spanish tone, because like stress, tone can change the meaning of a sentence. Keep this in mind; we will address these changes of tone in the future.
Comprendamos la formación de oraciones:
The sentence is a set of words that is complete in itself, typically containing a subject (who is doing the action in the sentence) and a verb (the action that the subject is doing) and some extra information. Different kinds of sentences exist:
Declarative sentences: used to express any statement positive or negative.
We speak Spanish and English.
She doesn’t speak French.
Exclamatory sentences: used to express great emotion such as excitement, surprise, happiness and anger, and end with an exclamation point.
What a lovely day it is!
Be careful!
We never are going to finish the book!
Interrogative sentences: used to ask questions and end with a question mark.
What’s your name?
What time is it?
Let’s understand sentence formation: Subject + verb + extra information (Remember: keep it simple at first. This helps you focus on verb agreement but more so the aspect of communicating clearly the action.)
1. Determine who is your subject.
2. Conjugate a verb that agrees with that subject in the tense you are studying.
3. Extra information such as an adjective, direct object or timeframe in which the action is done.
He is intelligent. à Él es inteligente. or She is special. à Ella es especial.
If you are asked to make up 10 sentences about something, keep them simple to about 5-10 words. Your thoughts in English might be more verbose, but you are learning a ٢nd language so keep it simple and to things you can say (even if they are not true!). For example, if I asked “what do you study?” and you did not know your major in Spanish, then just say Estudio medicina o estudio italiano en la universidad. Your abilities will grow in time as long as you study the vocabulary and structures daily.
Exclamatory sentences: follow the same formation. The difference is the emotion that we are using and the exclamation point.
¡Subject + verb + extra information !
1. Determine who is your subject.
2. Conjugate a verb that agrees with that subject in the tense you are studying.
3. Extra information such as an adjective, direct object or timeframe in which the action is done.
He is intelligent! à ¡Él es inteligente! or She is special! à ¡Ella es especial!
Interrogative sentences: As in English, in Spanish the formation changes:
Questionsà¿Question word +verb +subject + extra information?
That upside down question mark tells you that a question is coming so change the intonation of your voice to indicate uncertainty or a higher inflection.
- Know the question words.
The entire list of interrogatives or question words will be in the next unit, so for now just repeat what you hear. There are times when you won’t use an interrogative but rather start with the verb.
- Identify who your subject is but conjugate the verb for that first as the word order differs in Spanish.
- State who the subject is –note the word order is different in Spanish.
- Extra information Is he intelligent?à ¿Es él inteligente? or Is she special? à¿Es ella especial?
Because Spanish uses the upside down question mark at the beginning of the sentence and a question mark at the end of the question Spanish has the option to not change the formation. With the change of the intonation it is enough to indicate the question. For example:
Is he intelligent? à¿Es él inteligente? In Spanish we can ask ¿Él es inteligente? ¿Es él inteligente?
Is she special? à ¿Es ella especial? à ¿Ella es especial? ¿Es ella especial?
This is the reason why in Spanish it is very important that you mark when a question starts “¿” and when a question ends “?”.
A word about vocabulary before we begin… It is important to realize that you are the one responsible for learning the vocabulary. Your goal should be a deep processing of words. Deep processing implies that these words become part of you, almost as your native language is part of you.
While they are not required of each word that you see, we recommend you write flashcards for the words that you have difficulty recalling. Flashcards are also helpful to help you remember verbs and any patterns for verb conjugations that you will learn.
Why use flash cards.
- Flash-card technology is still better than the most expensive educational computer gear that you can buy.
- It is the quickest way to get just the repetition that you need on just the words that you need to repeat.
- It is so simple: it is tried and true.
1. Visualize and vocalize: We all know that a picture is worth a thousand words, you can facilitate the recall of vocabulary using drawings, stickers, pictures, etc. To help our memory we will use the color red for the Spanish words and blue for the English. We will use red for the Spanish words because it is a very emotionally intense color. It enhances human metabolism, increases respiration rate, and raises blood pressure. It has very high visibility; which is why stop signs, stoplights, and fire equipment are usually painted in red.
2. Visualize by imagination and vocalize: Meditate on an image that the word represents or suggests as you say it aloud. If you see a house, say: “casa”, if you see a dog say “perro”, if you pass in front of the cafeteria say: “cafetería.”
3. Use the diglot weave – to understand: Insert palabras en español into English sentences, until you get their meanings quickly. For example: el perro = dog, so repeat to yourself several sentences like:
- El perro is a nice pet.
- She loves her perro.
- Your perro is a puppy.
4. Repeat, repeat, and repeat again: Especially for learning important parts and forms of words, sometimes only repetition will secure your deep learning for certain hard-to-retain items. Frequent vocal repetition impresses the forms on your “mental ear.” We want to be able to communicate, we need to say words, but also we need to listen and understand the words when the other person talks. That is the reason why we need to work with our “mental ear.”
