4. Estrategias para la comunicación escrita: Orden cronológico

a) Los adverbios de tiempo en la secuencia escrita

Now we are going to add a new strategy that will help you to succeed in sequencing your ideas. You will use the first draft of your email to your parents. Read the second paragraph of Ana Maria’s email, now read again your first paragraph. Both of you are writing a description about your day to your parents. A good description needs to have a chronological order which helps your reader follow what you write. To succeed in this objective you need to know the adverbs of time.

Recuerda: utilizar tarjetas (flashcards) para estudiar los adverbios de tiempo, incrementarán tu vocabulario para tener una mejor expresión escrita y oral.

En el espacio a continuación escribe nuevamente el segundo párrafo del correo electrónico a tus padres. Vas a utilizar los adverbios de tiempo de la tabla. Puedes agregar más información. El objetivo es que logres una descripción más detallada y más fluida.

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b) El modo y el tiempo de los verbos

To use this strategy correctly we need to be precise in terms of knowing what the action is and who is doing the action. This is the heart of the sentence; the verb. As you remember, it is not a sentence if we don´t have a conjugated verb. The conjugated verb is the most important element of the sentence. For this reason let’s review some key facts:

1. The verb is the action; what is happening.
2. For both, English and Spanish the persons have a number: singular and plural, and for each person and number we have the personal subject pronouns.

3. 	Número	Number	Número	Number
   Personas	Singular	Singular	Plural	Plural
   PRIMERA	yo	I	nosotros/as	we
   SEGUNDA	tú	you	vosotros/as	you (informal)
   TERCERA	él, ella, usted	he, she, you (formal)	ellos, ellas, ustedes	they, you (formal)

4. The infinitive form of the verb, is when the verb is not conjugated. In English, we recognize a verb in the infinitive because it is composed of two words: to study, to eat, to live, etc. In Spanish we recognize the verbs in the infinitive because the ending: estudiar, comer, vivir. Writing with only an infinitive verb is not a sentence in English or Spanish, we need a conjugated verb always.
   • Yo estudiar en la Universidad or I to study in the college are not sentences.
5. In Spanish, the conjugated verbs indicate the subject of the sentence, the person that is doing the action, along with the action. That is possible because the conjugated form for each verb is unique for each one of the persons. In English, our conjugations don´t change as much for each one of the “persons.”
   • In other words, because Spanish has a different verb form for each one of the persons, we don’t always need to use the personal pronoun to know who the subject is that is doing the action in the sentence. The conjugation tells us who the subject is. If I say ‘estudiamos en la universidad’ we know that estudiamos is the first person in plural, then the subject is nosotros/as. We use the personal pronouns only for clarification. In this case, we are clarifying the point of the subject being ‘we (all the girls and I)’ are studying, so we express that as ‘Nosotras estudiamos en la universidad.’ In English, we need to always use the personal pronouns, for example ‘study in the college’ doesn’´t make sense! We need the personal pronoun in English in the sentence to know who the subject is ´’we study in the college.’
6. The verb is not just indicating the action and the subject. It also tells us the attitude of the speaker toward what he or she is saying; we know this as the mood.
   • The speaker is saying a fact: Indicative mood
   • The speaker is giving an order: Imperative mood
   • The speaker is expressing a desire about the actions of a third person: Subjunctive mood.
7. As we studied before for each mood we have different tenses. The tenses of the verb tell us when the action is happening. You already know for the indicative mood: 
   • When?
     • Yo corro en el parque. à Presente
     • Ella corrió en el parque. à Pretérito
     • Tú corrías en el parque. à Imperfecto (We will study this soon.)
   • You also are able to express yourself in Spanish in future using the structure “ir + a + infinitive”
     • Él va a correr en el parque. à Presente: estructura ir+a à futuro
   • You already know the progressive forms. As you remember in Spanish, progressive forms are only used for emphasis, to emphasize an action is taking place at a particular moment.
   • In English we have only present and past progressive, where in Spanish we have progressive forms in all the tenses:
     • Yo estoy corriendo en el parque. à Presente forma progresiva.
     • Tú estuviste corriendo en el parque à Pretérito forma progresiva.
     • Él estaba corriendo en el parque à Imperfecto forma progresiva.
     • Ella va a estar corriendo en el parque à Presente forma progresiva (Estructura Ir + a à futuro)
8. In the Imperative mood, we have only the present tense: ¡Corramos a la clase de español!
9. In the Subjunctive mood, we have 3 different tenses. We have only studied the present tense to express wishes for a third person and to give advice or recommendations:
   • Deseamos que vosotros corráis en el maratón.
   • Queremos que vosotros corráis en el maratón.
   • Es aconsejable que corráis en el maratón.
10. The following lists are summaries to help you remember each mood with their tenses.

r

Indicative

• • Is defined as an action that is actual, factual and certain.
  • Several tenses:
    • Present
    • Preterit
    • Imperfect
    • Present perfect
    • Past perfect
    • Future
    • Future perfect
    • Conditional
    • Conditional perfect

      

Imperative

• • Is based on commands and giving orders.
  • The timeframe is the present only has one tense or time—present—which makes sense when you think about if you give someone a command you want them to do the action now (in the present.)

Subjunctive

• • Is defined as something that is uncertain, doubtful, hypothetical, based on the emotions, wishes, wants, hopes, needs of one subject toward the actions of another subject.
  • Several tenses:
    • Present
    • Imperfect
    • Present perfect
    • Future (literature based)
    • Past perfect (pluperfect)

A second strategy related to chronological order is used in texts such as news reports, histories, biographies or travelogues. One of the characteristics of these types of texts is that we are talking about actions that are actual, factual and certain. In other words, we are talking about the indicative mood and need to use the tenses that correspond in the indicative mood. First, you need to talk about the things that happened (past tense), then things that are happening (present tense) and then talk about the things that will happen (future tense). Review the third paragraph of the email from Ana María and then review your third paragraph to answer the next questions:

¿Qué tiempos usa Ana María en el tercer párrafo?___________________

¿Qué tiempos usas tú en el tercer párrafo? ______________________

¿Utiliza Ana los tiempos en orden: pasado, presente, futuro? _____________

In the following table you will see a summary of your grammar knowledge and how you can use it to express chronological order using the indicative mood:

En el espacio a continuación vas a escribir nuevamente el primer párrafo del correo electrónico a tus padres. En esta ocasión utiliza la tabla recién estudiada. Agrega más información. El objetivo es que escribas un párrafo tipo un reportaje periodístico (newspaper) donde haces un relato de tu vida usando el presente, pretérito y futuro (aplicando la formación del futuro que ya sabes—ir + a + infinitivo.)  __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________