Nod off in Spanish by Caroline Smart

Contents

First published in 2007 by

The Publishing Cupboard

Track 1 What is the Nod Off approach?

20 St Vincent Crescent Glasgow G3 8LQ

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

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designed by Fi Steel compiled by Polly Rigby presented by Yolanda Vasquez produced by Peter Rinne ©The Publishing Cupboard 2007 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 All rights reserved. A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN �� 978-0-9553294-1-8 Printed in Scotland by Montgomery Litho Group

Relaxation Pronouncing & writing Spanish Nouns & gender Determiners Numbers & ordinals Adjectives Adverbs Prepositions Pronouns Ser (to be) Estar (to be) Tener & Haber (to have) Regular verbs Root–changing verbs Irregular verbs Negatives Questions Coming out of relaxation Learning tips

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What’s the approach?

And why nod off?

Some people get tense just thinking about learning – even when it’s something they actually want to learn. Perhaps it’s reawakening bad memories. Unfortunately, this tension can act as a barrier to learning.

So that you don’t have to rely solely on the CD, we have distilled all the information into this booklet. The subject is presented in a logical and confidence–building order. Rather than shy away from grammatical terms, it explains them. We focus on small words – the real key to any language. We also try to help you see connections between English and Spanish.

Research has shown that being relaxed is the ideal state for our brains to absorb and understand information and Nod Off uses relaxation techniques to put you into the right frame of mind. There’s no pressure to keep up with what is said on the CD, so don’t worry if your mind wanders or if you nod off. Your brain is still listening and taking in the information. Have you ever gone to bed unable to work out the answer to a crossword clue, only to find that you wake up knowing the answer? While you have been asleep your brain has been beavering away. The only bit of ‘homework’ is for you to think up a personal statement. One that focuses on the goal you want to achieve. It could be ‘I speak Spanish’ or ‘I understand Spanish’. Better still, say it in Spanish hablo español. This plants a positive message in your subconscious. For it to work, your mind needs to be calm and quiet. The message grows stronger the more you repeat it.

By listening to the CD and referring to the booklet, you will get a good basic understanding of Spanish. At the back of the booklet we give tips on learning a language plus useful websites and other resources for you to move up to a higher level. You can also visit www.publishingcupboard.co.uk where there are further tips, resources and links.

Before you nod off, make a positive statement such as ‘I can speak Spanish’ or ‘I understand how Spanish works’.

Warning!

Sleep bubbles contain a short nugget of information or advice that give a clearer understanding of the language.

Only listen to the relaxation track when lying down or in a comfortable chair. Skip it if you are driving a car and go straight to Track 3.

Relaxation

Lying down Lie on your back – preferably without a pillow. Check that your body is in a straight line from the crown of your head to the point between your heels. Let both feet roll outwards, then your knees, then your thighs. Feel your hips relaxed and loose. Have your palms turned upwards, with hands slightly away from your hips – this allows your shoulders to open and relax. The back of your neck should be long – tuck your chin in slightly and this will lengthen it.

Face Your face should feel soft and relaxed. Your jaw muscles should be relaxed. Check for any tension inside your mouth. Your tongue should be soft and relaxed. Check for any tension in your eyes – eyelids should be gently shut, with eyes beneath them soft and smiling.

Sitting Make sure you are sitting in a comfortable chair - one you can relax back in. Have both feet flat on the floor. If your feet don’t reach the ground, place a stool or a couple of thick books beneath them. Your feet and knees should be a few inches apart, thighs parallel to the ground. If possible, have your lower back supported with a cushion and sit back. Don’t try to keep your spine too straight. Shoulders should be wide and relaxed. The backs of your hands should rest gently on your lap. Check that the back of your neck is long – tuck your chin in slightly to lengthen it.

The quickest way to quieten a busy mind is to focus on your breathing.

Breathing Breathe in and out through the nose. Keep your focus on your breathing. Become aware of the movement of your chest and belly as your breath fills the lungs. First the lower lungs fill and the belly pushes out, then the rib cage expands and finally the top of the lungs fill. As you exhale, become aware of the reverse order of movement. First the top of the lungs empty, then the rib cage contracts and the air is squeezed out of the bottom of the lungs and the belly falls. Feel the slow strong rhythm as breath and movement work together. Awareness Try not to let any ‘outside’ thoughts disturb or distract you. Just focus on your breathing. If you find thoughts intruding, just observe them, don’t get involved in them. Watch them come and watch them go. Coming out of the relaxation Track 19 brings you out of the relaxation. Even if you only listen to a few tracks, make sure you finish off with this final track.

Pronouncing & Once you have mastered the basic rules, Spanish pronunciation is very logical. It looks like it sounds.

The sounds of Spanish Vowels are the open sounds a, e, i, o, u. In English, vowels have all sorts of different sounds in different words. For example, listen to the different sounds of the letter o in cod, code, love, woman and women. In Spanish things are more straightforward, and vowels always have the same sound, even at the end of a word where you may be tempted to drop it (chocolate, billete).

Watch out for words that remind you English words, but in Spanish don’t have double letters: profesor, difícil, imposible. The other letters are consonants, and again they’re more straightforward than in English. h is silent (hola, hombre). j is a rasping ‘kh’ or ‘h’ sound as in loch or hot (ojo, jamón). z is a lisping sound like th in ‘think’. ch is like the English ‘ch’ sound in cheap (chico) and comes after c in the alphabet. ll tends to be just a ‘y’ sound as in million (calle, llamo). In older dictionaries ch and ll come after c and l. r and rr are different sounds. Single r (caro, ‘expensive’) is just a little tap of the tongue, but double rr (carro, ‘cart’) is a heavier, rolled sound.

writing Spanish

ñ is a ‘nyuh’ sound (España, mañana) and comes after n in the alphabet and dictionary. qu is a ‘kuh’ sound as in king (que). v is a ‘b’ sound as in rubber (vino, veinte). In the middle of a word it’s very loose, perhaps like a sleepy version of Publishing Cupboard! d at front of word is something like English d (domingo). In the middle of a word it’s softer, like th in this (ciudad), and at the end of a word it can be like the th in thin or almost disappear (Madrid mad-ree). c and g are pronounced differently according to what vowel follows; before a, o and u, they are hard as in cat and go. Before e and i, c is a lisping ‘th’ sound as in therapy or think (cerveza, cinco) and g is the same rasping sound represented by j (general, gitano). To keep that hard g sound before e or i, then u is inserted: guerra, guía. But gua gives a ‘gwuh’ sound (guardia) and two dots over the u tells you to keep the ‘wuh’ sound: bilingüe (bee-leeng-way). When c is followed by u you get the ‘kwuh’ sound (cuando, cuesta, cual). And if you see two cs together, pronounce them separately, so acción is akth-yon, with the first c pronounced ‘k’ and the second ‘th’. Easy! The letter w is not native to Spanish (nor is k) but you find it in foreign words. It’s called uve doble, literally ‘double v’ which is more logical than ‘double u’ when you think about it!

Although spoken Spanish may sound as though words are run together, written down they aren’t. Unlike French and Italian there are no apostrophes to worry about in Spanish.

Pronouncing & Stress and accents

In Spanish there is only one kind of accent - one that goes up to the right . If a word ends in a vowel, n or s (usually the plural of words), the stress goes on the second to last syllable: banco, supermercado, Carmen, minutos. With all other endings the stress goes on the last syllable: catedral, popular, nariz, ciudad. If a word doesn’t follow these rules it needs an accent to show where to put the stress: sofá, jamón, lápiz, está. Sometimes an accent is necessary for other reasons than the sound of the word. Accents are used to distinguish between two words which look the same but have different meanings: si (if) and sí (yes) mas (but) and más (more) te (you) and té (tea) el (the) and él (he/it) esta (this) and ésta (this one).

writing Spanish

Punctuation One little quirk of Spanish is the way of writing a question or exclamation. As well as the question mark (?) and exclamation mark (!) at the end, you will see an upsidedown version at the beginning of the phrase, just enclosing the relevant part: Por favor, ¿dónde está el banco? Por aquí, ¿no? ¡Ah! aquí está. ¡Qué bien! Different types of Spanish Spanish is one of the world’s most widely spoken languages, and just like English it has a different flavour in different places. The Spanish spoken in Central and South America, and in the United States, is a bit different from the European sort in terms of both pronunciation and vocabulary. For example the lisping sound of ci, ce and z is replaced with an ‘s’ sound in American Spanish, and also in the south of Spain as well. However, European and American Spanish speakers understand each other without much difficulty. It’s not much more different than British and American English.

Even when the question isn’t being asked directly: preguntó dónde estaba María (he asked where María was).

However, there are a few words which mean something different in Latin America. For example in Spain a car is un coche but in America it’s un carro, which means a cart in European Spanish. What’s more, occasionally a perfectly innocent word like coger (to take) may be rude over there! It may be safer to say tomar instead. If you’re going to a place where American Spanish is spoken, don’t worry, just make sure you have the appropriate dictionary or phraseboook with you.

Where two vowels are next to each other, an accent tells you which one carries the stress: día, río, país. An accent is used to show when a word is being used as a question or exlamation: ¿qué?, ¡qué suerte!, ¿cómo?, ¿cuándo?, ¿cuánto?, ¿dónde?.

Nouns & gender

Nouns are the names we give to things: Tom, man, day. All Spanish nouns have a gender (masculine or feminine).

Making nouns plural

The Spanish word for ‘the’ (el or la) tells you whether a noun is masculine or feminine: el is for masculine nouns and la is for feminine nouns. el mercado (market)—la casa (house) el chico (boy)—la chica (girl) el padre (father)—la madre (mother) el tren (train)—la ciudad (city) Learn nouns with el and la so that you also learn its gender. Endings can give some clue as to gender. Most nouns ending -o are masculine: el mercado, el chico Most nouns ending -a are feminine. la casa, la chica Nouns ending -e can be either: el padre, la madre Nouns ending -or are generally masculine: el color (colour), el actor (actor), el dolor (pain) Nouns ending -ión and -d are generally feminine: la estación (station), la habitación (room) la ciudad (city), la juventud (youth), la universidad (university) Nouns ending -z are generally feminine: la vez (time), la actriz (actress), la voz (voice)

Watch out! Some words coming from Greek end in -a but are masculine: el programa, el mapa, el problema.

Making a noun plural in Spanish is straightforward. Add-s to nouns ending in a vowel: mercado  mercados casa  casas padre  padres And add -es to nouns ending in a consonant: tren  trenes ciudad  ciudades color  colores el changes to los. la changes to las: los chicos—las chicas Spelling changes may occur to keep the pronunciation the same in the plural. Nouns ending z  ces in the plural: la vez  las veces (times) la actriz las actrices (actresses) la voz  las voces (voices) Nouns with an accent on the last syllable lose the accent in the plural because the stress now falls in the correct place: la habitación  las habitaciones la estación  las estaciones

Always check whether making a noun plural by adding -es removes the need for an accent.