5. Expresando la fecha y la hora (date and time):

Do you remember the mnemonic that we studied: Doctor EE to memorize situations associated with SER? If not, refer back to Unidad 2. Write for each letter the situation or reason.

When you want to talk about your class schedule, you want to say that you have certain classes on certain days of the week. This is a situation for SER, dates are the D of Doctor EE.

¿Qué día es hoy?→What day is it?

Hoy es domingo→Today is Sunday or It’s Sunday.

¿Qué fecha es hoy?→What is the date?

Hoy es jueves, el tres de marzo→Today is Thursday, March 3th.

Complete the next sentences with los días de la semana:

El primer día de la semana es: _________________________________________________

The first day of the week is? In Spanish the week starts on Monday and not on Sunday as in English.

El último día de la semana es: ________________

El segundo (2th) día de la semana es: ____________

El tercer (3th) día de la semana es: _________________

El cuarto (4th) día de la semana es: ________________

El quinto (5th) día de la semana es: _________________

El sexto (6th) día de la semana es: __________________

For each of the months listed, say the season in which it falls, and then write the month that comes before (antes) and after (después). Write and say aloud your answers.

Antes de junio es _________________ después de junio es ___________________

Antes de octubre es ____________________ después de octubre es ______________

Antes de diciembre es ______________después de diciembre es _____________

Antes de febrero es _______________ después de febrero es __________________

Antes de septiembre es ______________ después de septiembre es ____________

Antes de julio es ______________ después de julio es _______________

Antes de enero es __________________ después de enero es _______________

Write the dates (las fechas) following the example. Pay attention as in Spanish the day of the month and the name of the month are reversed from the order we normally use in English.

“Today is December 10th,” → 12/10. In Spanish “hoy es el 10 de diciembre” → 10/12

*Note the presence of the definite article “el” and the use of cardinal numbers 10th → 10. In Spanish, only for the first day of the month do we use ordinal numbers el primer de mayo (the first of May).

22/1 → el veintidós de enero → January 22th

17/10 → __________ → October 17th

05/04 → _____________ → April 5th

17/11 → _________ → November 17th

We can also talk about estaciones y meses del año. As you know, the seasons of the year change between the Northern and the Southern Hemispheres. Not all Spanish speaking countries have the same seasons of the year at the same time. When México is in summer, Argentina is in Winter. In the next chart you will find the differences between the Hemispheres.

¿En qué mes empieza (start) el verano en el hemisferio norte?__________________

¿En qué mes termina (ends) el invierno en el hemisferio sur?___________________

¿En qué meses es primavera en el hemisferio norte?_________________________

¿En qué meses es otoño en el hemisferio sur?____________________________

¿En qué mes es el día de Acción de Gracias (Thanksgiving)?____________________

¿En qué mes es el día de Navidad (Christmas day)?_________________________

¿En qué mes Cristóbal Colón descubrió América?__________________________

¿En qué mes empieza el semestre en el otoño?__________________________

We can also use the following phrases to talk about the weather in any given month.

¿Qué tiempo hace en…? What is the weather like in…?

Recordemos:

As you know articles are the words placed before a noun. In Spanish, we use the definite articles (la, las, el, los) when we are speaking in general terms and also when referring to a specific person, place, animal, thing. We also studied some exceptions: In Spanish we don’t use definite articles with the months and with proper names. But what happens with the definite article and the days of the week in Spanish?

¿Qué día es hoy? → What day is it?

Hoy es domingo. → today is Sunday or It’s Sunday.

¿Qué fecha es hoy? → What date is today?

Hoy es jueves, el tres de marzo. → Today is Thursday, March 3th.

Agreguemos:

In Spanish the single definite article is used with the days of the week, but it is omitted in expressions that answer the question ¿Qué día es hoy? Analyze the next sentences and you will see how we use the definite article with the days of the week to express an event or a given day:

La fiesta es el martes. → The party is on Tuesday.

¿Tienes clase el jueves? → Do you have classes on Thursdays?

Mi mamá viene el domingo. → My mom is coming on Sunday.

Juan se equivoca, hoy es sábado.→ Juan is wrong, today is Saturday.

¿Qué día es hoy? Hoy es lunes. →What day is it? It is Monday.

The Spanish definite article + day of the week are expressed in English by on + day of the week. Under NO circumstances in Spanish do we use “en” with the days of the week.

When the event or circumstance takes place every week, we use the plural form of the definite article in Spanish. The adjective todos (all) + los + día de la semana also indicates a regular occurrence each week on the day mentioned.

Me gustan las fiestas todos los viernes. → I like parties every Friday.

Tengo clases de español los jueves. → I have Spanish classes on Thursdays.

As we studied, the definite article is always used before dates when the day occurs in a complete sentence. Hoy es el 7 de marzo de 1963 → Today is March 7th, 1963. The exception is when we use the date in a letter or in a practice exercise; no article normally proceeds the day of the month:

5 de mayo de 1970 → 5 de mayo, 1970 → May 5th, 1970.

The day of the month is followed by the preposition “de” before the month. The year may or may not be separated from the month by “de”. The name of the month is always used without the definite article.

The definite article is normally used with seasons, with a couple of exceptions. For practical reasons we will use the definite article always. We want you to be aware of these exceptions: after the preposition “en” use of the article is optional and when the season is followed by the impersonal use of SER.

En invierno → En el invierno → In winter.

Cuando es verano en E.U.A. → When it is summer in the USA.

Practiquemos:

Write the definite article as needed, or an X in cases where you don’t need it. Keep in mind which article you use if you do something every Monday for example.

Todos ______ lunes tengo laboratorio de biología. Todos ____ martes como mi almuerzo (lunch) con mi amigo Pedro. Esta (this) semana ______ miércoles voy a hacer la lavandería (laundry) antes de ______ clase de español y _______ jueves voy a hacer gimnasia después de ______ clase de español. ______ viernes voy a ____ fiesta de mi amiga Teresa. _____ domingo es _______ 2O de ____ noviembre, voy a dormir (to sleep) todo _____ día. ______ 20 de _______ noviembre es mi cumpleaños.

Demos la hora (time):

We now are able to talk about days, months, dates and seasons of the year in Spanish. To be able to speak about your class schedule at Geneseo, we need to learn about time. Again we need to talk with Doctor EE.

D—date → fecha : días, meses, estaciones

O—occupation

C—characteristics (permanent characteristics/physical or personality traits/origin)

T—time → the hour → La hora

O—ownership/possession

R—reaction/opinion (cognates—es fabuloso, es importante, es posible, es interesante…)

E—events taking place

E—essence—what something is made of

Aprendamos: ¿Qué hora es? What time is it?

We use the verb ser to tell time in Spanish. You will use either the singular form “es” or the plural form “son”, depending on the number that follows.

Es la una en punto: It is 1:00 o’clock. → Es will always be used if the time includes number is one.

Son las tres en punto: It is 3:00 o’clock → Son will be used to tell time for any number that is plural, or more than one.

In other words, the only time we will use “es” is in reference to “one = la una”. The rest of the hours always will be plural. We will use “son with las dos, las tres, las cuatro, las cinco, las seis, las siete, las ocho, las nueve, las diez, las once y las doce.”

When we are telling a time between: 01 and: 29, we use the word y (and) to say the minutes after the hour.

Son las ocho y cinco. It is 8:05.

Es la una y veinte. It is 1:20.

Son las tres y quince. It is 3:15.

Son las tres y cuarto*

Son las ocho y treinta. It is 8:30.

Son las ocho y media*

Es mediodía. It is 12:00 pm/ It is noon.

Es medianoche. Is is 12:00 am/ It is midnight.

In Spain, when we are telling a time between: 31 and 59, we subtract the minutes from the next hour, and use the word menos to tell the minutes until the next hour.

This means that if you want to say it is 6:50, you will:

• Take the hour, 6, and add an hour → 7
• Take the minutes, 50, and subtract them from 60 (since there are 60 minutes in an hour, the answer would be 10.)
• The result is 6:50 and would be expressed as Son las siete menos diez.

In Latin America, it is more common to express the time as in English in the U.S.A.

Son las ocho menos veinte. It is 7:40. Son las siete y cuarenta.

Son las once menos diez. It is 10:50. Son las diez y cincuenta.

Pay attention to the following example:

Es la una menos cuarto. It is 12:45. Son las doce cuarenta y cinco.

Remember “es” is used because “one” is singular. Notice that “la hora” is a feminine word then we use “una” instead of “uno”.

You can also add the following information to add more details about the time of day.

De la madrugada in the early morning, between 12:01 and 4:00 AM.

De la mañana in the morning, between 5:00 AM and 11:59 AM.

De la tarde in the afternoon, between 12:00 PM and 6:00 PM.

De la noche in the evening, between 6:00 and 11:59 PM.

As you remember, Spanish is very detail oriented. If someone asked the hour it is common to give more specific references as in “in the morning or in the afternoon” for example.

Nos vemos a las tres y diez de la tarde. See you at 3:10 PM.

Tengo clase a las diez y media de la mañana. I have class at 10:30 AM.

La cena es a las ocho y cuarto de la noche. Dinner is at 8:15 PM.

Estudio hasta las 3 de la madrugada. I study until 3 AM.

In Spanish, when you write the time you need to be very specific, to avoid confusion. It is common to use military time: 24 hours or use the abbreviations AM or PM.

La boda es a las 21 hrs. *

La boda es a las 9:00 p.m.* The wedding is at 9:00 PM

*Notice that we abbreviate hour → hr. and we write AM or PM → a.m. or p.m. In Spanish, we don’t use capital letters, and because they are abbreviations, we use points or periods a.m. or p.m.

Escriba la pregunta y respuesta. The video that you just watched (¿Qué hora es?) is from Spain. As we studied in Europe and in America, we say the hour in different forms and write it using different expressions.

TAREA:

For the next exercise, write the question and all the possible answers that are correct in Spanish for the following times: 5:40 PM, 7:15 AM, 2:45 PM, 1:00 PM, and 3:30 AM. This exercise is a homework assignment; you need to write the information on a sheet of paper that you will submit at the beginning of your next class.

6:15 PM: ¿Qué hora es?

• Son las seis y quince de la tarde.
• Son las seis y cuarto de la tarde.
• Son las seis y cuarto p.m.
• Son las dieciocho y cuarto.

Más preguntas: More questions: Answer in Spanish.

If I don’t have a watch and you ask me for the time, how will I answer you?_____________

In the video we saw clocks from different places that we already studied at the beginning of this unit. Write the places that we visited in the video in Spanish :  _________________________________________

¿Cómo son los relojes en el video?_____________________________________________

*Notice in Spanish we use the word Reloj for Watch and for Clock. If we want to point out the difference we say:

¿A qué hora? To tell or ask “at” what time something is, starts, ends, etc., we use the preposition “a” and a verb such as ser, empezar, comenzar, terminar or any verb conjugated according to what you have learned about agreement.

¿A qué hora es la clase de español?

• Mi clase de español es a las dos y media de la tarde.
• My Spanish class is at 2:30 PM.

¿A qué hora estudiáis vosotros?

• Estudiamos a las cuatro de la tarde.
• We study at 4:00.

¿A qué hora empieza la película?

• La película empieza a las ocho en punto de la noche.
• La película empieza a las veinte horas.
• La película empieza a las ocho en punto p.m.
• The movie starts at 8 o’clock at night / at 20 hours / 8 o’clock PM.

*Notice: we use the preposition “a” in the question and in the answer → to tell or ask “at” what time.

Comuniquémonos:

We still need to learn the vocabulary about our classes and our majors, but right now we can explain our schedule for our Spanish classes. Complete the next dialogue

Carla: Hola, ¿Cómo estás?

You: ________________________.

Carla: Bien también, ¿Tienes clase de lenguas extranjeras?

Tú: ___________________

Carla: ¿Cuántas clases de español tienes en la semana?

Tú: Yo tengo tres clases de español cada_______________.

Carla: ¡Me gustaría estudiar español! ¿A qué hora empiezan tus clases?

Tú: Todas mis clases de español empiezan a las __________

Carla: ¿A qué hora terminan tus clases?

Tú: Terminan a las ___________. Cada clase dura(lasts) ____ minutos.

Carla: ¿Qué estación del año es este semestre?

Tú: Es_________________.

Carla: Me gustaría tomar clases en la primavera ¿En qué mes empieza el semestre de la primavera?

Tú: _________________________. Yo voy a estudiar español en la primavera también.

Carla: Pero… ¿cuándo termina el semestre? En el verano quiero ir a visitar a mis padres.

Tú: ¡El semestre termina en ________________ antes del verano!

Carla: ¿Qué hora es?

Tú: Son_____________________.

Carla: ¡Tengo clase!

Tú: ¿A qué hora empieza tu clase?

Carla: ¡Mi clase empieza a las 10:15!

Tú: Tienes _________ minutos para que tu clase empiece.

Carla: ¡Tengo un examen! ¡Adiós!

Tú: ¡Mucha suerte en tu examen! ____________

Apliquemos

Apliquemos los conceptos al vocabulario sobre las clases y las especializaciones.

Before we study the new vocabulary, it is important that we understand when we use or we omit the articles with the nouns that are related to special fields of knowledge as our classes, majors, etc.

• When we are talking in general about a noun related to a field of study, in Spanish we use the definite article: La biología me interesa → Biology interests me
• When we ask or give a definition for a field of knowledge, the definite article may or may not be used.

¿Qué es la biología? Or ¿qué es biología? → What is biology?

• When verbs such as estudiar (to study), examinar (to examine), tomar (to take) and tener (to have) are used in the sense of study no definite article is needed.

  Estudio biología → I study biology.

  Los martes y jueves tomo español → Tuesdays and Thursdays I take Spanish.

  El miércoles tenemos examen de química → On Wednesday we have a chemistry exam.

  Mañana tengo matemáticas → Tomorrow I have math.

With this in mind we can start studying our new vocabulary about fields of knowledge, in other words we will study the names of subjects (materias/asignaturas) and majors (especializaciones). We need to pay attention to some abnormalities that we will find in the number and the gender of the words that express each field of knowledge that we are going to study.

Almost all the areas of knowledge are singular with some exceptions:

Las ciencias/ la ciencia = sciences/science → can be plural or singular if we are talking about several or one. In Spanish “Las ciencias políticas” is plural, in English “political science” is singular.

For languages, we have three synonyms frequently used in Spanish: La lengua/las lenguas, el idioma/ los idiomas or el lenguaje/ los lenguajes. In all cases you can have singular or plural, as we have in English.

Las matemáticas = mathematics → which will always be plural because mathematics is a group of related sciences, including algebra, geometry, and calculus, concerned with the study of number, quantity, shape, and space and their interrelationships by using a specialized notation.

El arte = art → singular when you are talking about a category of art: Dance is an art.

Las artes = arts → plural when you are talking about all branches of study in a college or university, including history, languages, music, philosophy, or literature, as opposed to scientific subjects. Pay attention as the word arte has one more particularity. In singular it is “el arte” and in plural it is “las artes”. Later we will study this particularity that other words have such “el agua – las aguas (water), el águila – las águilas (eagle)”.

Learn the new vocabulary; the words in red are the ones that have the abnormality that we just studied. It is important that you work on your pronunciation, read each word aloud by syllables and underline the stressed syllable. Use the web site BUSCAPALBRAS to check the syllabic division and review the rules to find the stressed syllable.]

Las materias, las asignaturas y las especializaciones

Is yours missing? If so look it up on Wordreference.com and write it here so you can use it in class.

Mi especialización es ____________________

Charlemos→

Contesta las preguntas en español:

1. ¿Qué clases tienes este semestre?__________________________
2. ¿Qué clases tienes los lunes?_______________________________
3. ¿A qué hora empieza tu primera clase?______________________
4. ¿Tienes clases los fines de semana?___________________________
5. ¿Qué día es tu cumpleaños (birthday)?__________________________
6. ¿En qué estación estamos?________________________________
7. ¿Cuál es la fecha de hoy?__________________________________