In this unit we will learn to talk about your schedule, classes and will learn the present tense of -ar verbs.
Objectives
- Talk about school schedules and subjects
- Discuss what students do during the day
- Ask and tell who is doing an action
- Compare your school with that of a student in a Spanish-speaking country
Vocabulary
Ordinal numbers
Ordinal numbers come in both female and male form. The female form is listed below as in My first period, My second period, etc. The male forms of the ordinal numbers are in parenthesis.
- la primera hora (primer)
- la segunda hora (segundo)
- la tercera hora (tercero)
- la cuarta hora (cuarto)
- la quinta hora (quinto)
- la sexta hora (sexto)
- la séptima hora (sépetimo)
- la octava hora (octavo)
- la novena hora (noveno)
- la décima hora (décimo)
Classes
- la clase de tecnología
- la clase de arte
- la clase de ciencias sociales
- la clase de ciencias naturales
- el almuerzo
- la clase de epañol
- la clase de matemáticas
- la clase de inglés
- la clase de educación física
Adjectives
- aburrido – interesante
- divertido
- difícil – fácil
- práctica
Gramática
Subject pronouns
Pronouns are words that are used in place of a noun. Instead of referring to your sister by her first name all the time, you can also use she. Subject pronouns are pronouns that can be used as the subject of a sentence. The subject of a sentence is the person, place, thing or idea that the sentence is talking about. Subjects are always nouns.
| Singular | Plural | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st person | yo | I | 1st person | nostoros nosotras | we |
| 2nd person | tú vos Ud. | you (singular) | 2nd person | vosotros vosotras | you (plural) Only used in Spain. |
| 3rd person | él ella | he she | 3rd person | ellos ellas | they |
Conjugation of regular -ar verbs
We learned how verb conjugations work by using some handouts in which we read about the things the family does. These are the things they do that are important to understanding how regular -ar verbs are conjugated.
- Yo trabajo en el garaje.
- Mi hermana y yo estudiamos.
- ¿Y yú? ¿Miras mucho la televisión?
- Jacinto baña a Javier
- Mi prima baila buy bien.
- Mis tíos cantan bien.
I have highlighted all the verbs. All of the verbs are originally -ar verbs, but the -ar has been dropped and the ending was changed to write the sentences above correctly in Spanish. This is a feature of many languages, not just Spanish. We even do this is English when we use the verb to be. In the present I could say
I was…
You were…
He was…
Conjugating a verb means changing the verb from the INFINITIVE to be to was, were and was. In Spanish, if you remember, INFINITIVES end in -ar, -er or it. In this lesson we are only focusing on -ar verbs.
By figuring out which of the subject pronouns you would use for each sentence above you can fill this chart out.
| yo | - | nosotros nosotras | - |
| tú | - | vosotros vosotras | -áis |
| Ud. él ella | - | Uds. ellos ellas | - |
Practice!
Here is a great web page to get some practice. Plus, it’s your homework!
http://personal.colby.edu/~bknelson/SLC/presente_ar.php
Conjugation of regular -ar verbs
Regular -ar verbs lose the -ar and change their endings depending on who the subject of the actions is. In other words, hablar is the infinitive. If you want to say “I speak English” you would say, “Hablo español.” Notice that in Spanish, you don’t have to use the subject pronoun yo because the -o ending means yo and that you are talking about the present tense. The present tense is used to talk about repeated or habitual actions, and in Spanish it can also be used to talk about what is happening right now.
| yo | -o | nosotros nosotras | -amos |
| tú | -as | vosotros vosotras | -áis |
| Ud. él ella | -a | Uds. ellos ellas | -an |