The Everything Spanish Grammar Book: All The Rules You Need To Master Espanol (Everything®) (20 page)

Make It Impersonal

Third-person reflexive pronoun
se
may be used in an impersonal construction
se
+ verb. This is another alternative to using the passive voice, when you prefer not to specify who performs the action of the verb. Here is how you can change a sentence to make it impersonal:

La gente en Brasil habla portugués.

People in Brazil speak Portuguese.

En Brasil se habla portugués.

Portuguese is spoken in Brazil.

In the second sentence,
se
refers to Brazilians and
habla
is conjugated in third-person singular to agree with
portugués.
This constructions allows us to avoid having to refer specifically to Brazilian people as the subject of the verb
hablar
.

Here are other examples of this construction:

Se buscan empleados.

Employees are being looked for.

Se ven los problemas.

The problems are obvious.

Impersonal
se
constructions are often used in public signs:
No se fuma.
(No smoking.)

Practice Makes Perfect

Fill in the direct object pronoun:

1. No tengo dinero. ____________________ dejé en casa.

2. ____________________ dijeron (a mí) que llegará más tarde.

3. El taxista ____________________ llevará (a ti) a casa.

4. Aquí tienes la revista. ____________________ puedes leer más tarde.

5. Tengo muchas novelas. ____________________ prefiero a la
literatura no novelesca.

Fill in the direct and indirect object pronoun:

1. La enfermera trae las pastillas a nosotros.
____________________
trae.

2. Ellos necesitan ayuda.
¿ ____________________das?

3. Quieres conducir el coche.
Yo ____________________presto.

4. Ellos dicen la verdad a vosotros.
Ellos ____________________dicen.

5. Explico el cuento a Marta y Pedro.
____________________
explico.

Translate into Spanish:

1. I like to dance.

____________________________________________

2. She loves flowers.

____________________________________________

3. You (informal) have five dollars left.

____________________________________________

4. They lack money.

____________________________________________

5. We are interested in your stories.

____________________________________________

Fill in the correct reflexive verb and reflexive pronoun:

1.
Ustedes ____________________(cepillarse) los dientes dos
veces por día.

2.
Nosotros ____________________(mudarse) a Nueva York el
próximo junio.

3
. Ramón ____________________(afeitarse) cada mañana.

4
. Ellos ____________________(enterarse) de todos mis
secretos.

5.
Nuestro jefe ____________________(vestirse) bien, aún los fines
de semana.

To check your answers, refer to the answer key in Appendix D.

C
HAPTER
11
In the Past

AT THIS POINT, you’ve reviewed many types of verb and verbal constructions in the context of the present tense. The next few chapters will review other tenses—the past, future, conditional, and compound tenses—as well as subjunctive and command moods.

Let’s begin with the past tense. In Spanish, there are a few ways to express actions occurring in past tense. In addition to the compound past tenses (covered in Chapter 14), Spanish past tenses include preterite, imperfect, and past progressives.

What You Did—the Preterite

The preterite tense,
el pretérito
, is used to describe actions that occurred and were completed in the past:

Ernesto llegó al restaurante a las cinco.

Ernesto arrived at the restaurant at five.

Ya acabó la película.

The movie ended already.

Conocí a Eliana en una de las fiestas de Javier.

I met Eliana at one of Javier’s parties.

For each of these sentences, the action is definite and refers to an event that happened at a particular time, not one that took place regularly. To distinguish preterite tense from other past tenses in Spanish, you might want to think of it as the concrete past, used to describe particular events and actions. (More on the differences between the preterite and the imperfect past is to follow later in the chapter.)

Preterite Endings

To conjugate verbs in the preterite, drop the infinitive ending and add the appropriate preterite ending. Note that –ER and –IR verbs share identical endings:

Irregular Forms

The preterite conjugations have quite a few irregularities, but not as many as the present indicative forms. For instance, –AR and –ER verbs do not undergo a vowel change (e > ie or o > ue) in the stem.

Vowel Change in –IR Verbs

Remember verbs like
gemir
(to moan),
repetir
(to repeat),
mentir
(to lie), and
preferir
(to prefer)? The first two undergo a e > i change, while the last pair are e > ie verbs. All of these verbs have an e > i irregularity in the preterite, but the trick is this: Only the third-person forms undergo the vowel change:

The same kind of change occurs with –IR verbs that have an o > u stem change in the present indicative. Again, the change only affects third-person conjugations in the preterite. Take a look at preterite conjugations of
dormir
(to sleep) and
morir
(to die):

Spelling Modification Verbs

All but one preterite ending begins with “i”; the only exception is –é (first person singular of –AR verbs). This is why –AR verbs with a stem that ends in c, g, or z require a spelling modification conjugated in the
yo
form to retain correct pronunciation with the –é ending.

In –AR verbs with a stem ending in “c” like
explicar
(to explain) and
tocar
(to touch), the final consonant changes to “qu”:

If the –AR verb’s stem ends with a “g,” a “u” is added to the ending of the
yo
form. Again, this is done to retain the hard “g” pronunciation. Take a look at the conjugations of the verbs
jugar
(to play) and
pagar
(to pay):

The third group of –AR verbs that undergo a similar spelling change in the
yo
form includes verbs with a stem ending in “z.” In this case, the stem ending changes to “c.” Examples here are
cruzar
(to cross) and
realizar
(to realize):

Spelling modification also occurs in –ER and –IR verbs that have a stem ending in a vowel, such as the –uir verbs. The spelling change is in the ending: In the third-person forms, the “i” of the ending changes to a “y.” For example, here are the conjugations of
concluir
(to conclude) and
huir
(to flee):

QUESTION?

Other verbs with a stem ending in a vowel include
leer
(to read) and
oír
(to hear). They follow the same change, plus require extra accent marks to retain the stress over the “i”:

A Group of Their Own

A set of verbs—including –AR, –ER, and –IR verbs—have irregular conjugations in the preterite, including an irregular stem and a slightly different set of endings. These endings are:

These endings are very similar to the regular preterite –ER and –IR verb endings, except for the
yo
form and the lack of accent marks in some of the forms. The endings are added to a modified stem: