Unit 3B is all about giving directions, talking about good driving habits and how to use all the direct object pronouns with tú commands and using the present progressive tense with regular and irr. verbs.
Unit 3B Objectives
- Give directions for getting to places
- Discuss driving and good driving habits
- Give a friend directions for a task
- Use direct object pronouns
- Give instructions using tú commands
- Talk about what you are doing right now
- Understand cultural perspectives on neighborhoods
Prepositions of place
Giving directions: ¿Cómo se va a … ?
Write directions to 5 of the places numbered on the map in Spanish. You can use Google maps or Yelp! to figure out directions to these food establishments.
We are located where the blue dot is.
Use the following vocabulary
Sube/baja por la calle Ximeno
Sigue derecho por 6 cuadras.
Camina/sigue por dos cuadras
Camina hast al calle 4
Cruza la calle Ximeno
Para delante del banco
dobla a la izquierda/derecha
Antes/después del semáforo…
Antes/después de la señal de parada…
_________X___________ está /queda a la derecha/izquierda.
Direct Object pronouns
| yo | me | nosotros nosotras | nos |
| tú | te | vosotros vosotras | os |
| Ud. él ella | lo la | Uds. ellos ellas | los las |
A direct object is the person or thing that receives the action of the verb.
When you hear a verb or see a sentence that stops at the verb, you often ask yourself who or what is affected by the verb. The who or what is affected is the direct object. Just like all nouns–the names of people, places, things or ideas (nouns)–have pronouns (I, you, he, she, we, you guys, they), so do direct objects.
For example:
I bought …. (What did you buy? The answer is the direct object)
He saw …. (Who or what did you see? are the direct objects)
I bought…. What did you buy? He bought … a car. (a car is the direct object of the verb).
He saw…. Who did he see? He saw … Zoe. (Zoe is the direct object of the verb).
In Spanish:
Yo compré un coche. (coche is the direct object)
Él vio a Zoe. (Zoe is the direct object)
You can replace un coche with the male singular direct pronoun lo and put it in from of the conjugated verb:
Yo lo compré.
You can replace Zoe with the female singular direct pronoun la and put it in from of the conjugated verb:
Él la vio.
These are the direct object pronouns we learned in Unit 3A, along with their plurals, los and las.
In this unit, we will also learn to use me, te and nos, but that shouldn’t be too hard because you already learned those when you learned to say Me gusta correr, or ¿Te gusta el yogur? Nos is used when you want to say we like something. Nos gusta comer ensaladas. means we like to eat salads. So this is easy!
Direct object pronouns are different in English and Spanish.
In English:
- they always go after of the verb (I bought it), and
- direct object pronouns do not change for singular and plural forms or take into account of gender except for he and she, but that’s it.
In Spanish
- they always go in front of a conjugated verb and can go in front or behind and infinitive or a continuous/progressive tense
- we have male and female and singular and plural direct object pronouns
- direct object pronouns
- are singular or plural
- they only go after the verb in 3 cases
- 1. after an infinitive (Voy a comprarlo -> lo = el suéter)
- 2. after a command (Entregala. -> la = la tarea)
- 3. after a verb in the progressive form (Estoy haciendolo -> lo = the work)
- 1. after an infinitive (Voy a comprarlo -> lo = el suéter)
Examples
All the bold words are direct object pronouns.
1. Did you see José at the mall?
¿Tú lo viste en el centro comercial?
(Direct object=José, pronoun for José = (or he), Spanish equivalent= lo (sing, male)
- Yo lo vi en el cine.
2. Yo bebí la leche.
(Direct object = la leche, pronoun for la leche = ella (or it), Spanish equivalent=la (singular, female)
- Yo la bebí. -> I drank it.
3. Ellos comieron los chilaquiles en el restaurante.
(Direct object=los chilaquiles , pronoun for los chilaquiles = ellos (or them), Spanish equivalent=los (plural, male)
- Ellos los comieron en el restaurante. -> They ate them.
4. Nosotros compramos las palomitas en el cine.
(Direct object=las palomitas, pronoun for las palomitas = ellas (or them), Spanish equivalent = las (plural, female)
- Nosotras las compramos. -> We bought them.
5. Help me? = ¿Me ayudas?
I don’t understand you. – No te entiendo.
Affirmative tú commands
These are used when you are telling someone you would call tú in Spanish to do something. In Spanish we use the Ud./he/she conjugation of the verb in the present tense to tell someone you call you (singular) to do something.
-ar ending verbs
We learned a number of tú commands last year. When the verb ends in -ar, you drop the -ar and add an -a to make a command.
sentar -> sienta, as in siéntate.
levantar -> levanta, as in levántate
Because these verbs are directing someone you call tú to sit down and because tú is a direct pronoun, then you add the direct pronoun te to the conjugated verb.
You’ll notice that I added an accent. I had to because the stress on sienta and levanta lands where I have underlined the words. In Spanish, when the stress to a word falls on the 3rd syllable from the end, it always needs to have an accent. So:
le-ván-ta-te
sién-ta-te.
-er and -ir ending verbs
When you use an -er or an -ir ending word, you change the verbs abrir and cerrar (to open and close) by dropping the endings and replacing it with and -e.
Abre el libro.
Cierra la ventana.
Because these verbs are directing someone you call tú shut something, the thing to be shut is singular and either male or female gender which means you need to use either lo or la to replace what is to be shut.
When you use a command, you have to put the direct object pronoun at the end of the verb. You can’t say Lo abre, because that means he or she opens it.
Ábrelo.
Ciérralo
You’ll notice that I added an accent. I had to because the stress on sienta and levanta lands where I have underlined the words. In Spanish, when the stress to a word falls on the 3rd syllable from the end, it always needs to have an accent.
Saca la basura. -> Sá-ca-la.
Come la comida. -> Có-me-la
Es-cri-be el ensayo. -> Es-crí-belo.
Irregular tú commands
Yo-go verbs like poner, tener, decir, salir, and venir can be turned into tú commands by simply dropping the -go in the present tense conjugaton of the verbs.
Infinitive Yo, present tense tú command
poner pongo pon
tener tengo ten
decir digo di
salir salgo sal
venir vengo ven
Irregular verbs in the tú affirmative form are:
haz (hacer)
sé (ser)
ve (ir).
You can add a direct object to the end of any tú command.
Haz la tarea.-> Hazla. Sé bueno. -> Sélo. Ve los perros. -> Velos.
Present progressive or regular verbs
This is one of the easiest tenses to learn. All you need to do is know how to conjugate estar (in any tense) and then you add either -ando to -ar ending verbs or -iendo to -er or -ir ending verbs. The formula is this:
[estar] + V with -ando (for -ar verbs)
[estar] + V with -iendo ( for -er and ir verbs) and sometimes -yendo (only for some -er verbs.
Some -er verbs require a slightly different ending if the stem of the verb ends in a vowel
leer -> le
traer -> tra
creer -> cre
As you can see, when you drop the -er ending you are left with the stem of the verbs, but because they end in a vowel, you can’t write:
leiendo
traendo
creiendo
Why? First, we rarely use 3 vowels in a row in Spanish. Also, we have a weak vowel (i and u) between two strong vowels. That is never allowed according to syllable division rules. In those rules, you need to start a new syllable after the first strong vowel or when there is a strong vowel (A, E, O) in front orf or behind a weak vowel.
The solution is to change the letter i to the letter y
le-yen-do
tra-yen-do
cre-yen-do
Estoy sacando la basura. Estás comiendo un perrito caliente. Estamos haciendo las tareas.
You can also use direct object pronouns with the present progressive after the present participle (the verb that ends in -ando or iendo, or in front of estar because [estar] + V creates a compound verb.
Estoy sacándola. Estás comiéndolo. Estamos haciéndolas.
La estoy sacando. Lo estoy comiendo. Las estoy haciendo.
Notice the accent in the sentences with lo, la and las at the end of the compound verb. It’s there because the stress is on the underlined syllables and because the underlined stressed syllables are now on the 3rd syllable from the end of the word. In Spanish, the 3rd syllable from the end of any word is accented (estúpido, brócoli, arúgula).
In the second set of sentences above, where the lo, la and las are in front of the compound verb you don’t need to add an accent because the stress already falls on the next to the last syllable. Most Spanish words have the stress on the next to the last syllable.
B. Present progressive – irregular verbs
Stem-changing verbs in the present tense also have a stem change in the progressive form
decir digo diciendo servir sirvo sirviendo
pedir pido pidiendo vestir visto vistiendo
repetir repito repitiendo dormir duermo** durmiendo
seguir sigo siguiendo*
Verbs stems that en in an e like leer, creer, and traer have a change in the -iendo ending. Instead, the ending is -yendo. Why? We do not use three vowels in the row in Spanish. Also, the letter i is considered weak, so if you wrote leiendo, it would not sound right and it would break the rules of how to split syllables. To strengthen the i, it is changed to a y so it sounds right.
cayendo leyendo creyendo
Where do direct object pronouns go then?
1. before a conjugated verb
- Compré el champú. -> Lo compré.
2. before or after a simple or compound verb that is in the INF
- Tengo que comprar comida. -> Tengo que comprarla. / La tengo que comprar.
- Voy a ver la película. -> Voy a verla. / La voy a ver. <- compound verb
3. after an affirmative command
- Haz la tarea. -> Hazla.
- Entrega los proyectos. -> Entrégalos.
Stress in “entrega” is on tre, so when you add the DO pronoun at the end of a command, the stress is still on tre, but because you added a syllable, now the stress in on the 3rd syllable from the end, so you must accent that stressed syllable. All 3rd syllables from the end of a word are accented in Spanish. Sábado, miércoles, público, brócoli, cámara, química, económico, página, etc.
4. before or after the present progressive verb [estar] + INF with -ando or -iendo),
- Uds. están comprando comida. -> Uds. están comprándola or Uds. la están comprando.