OMG Did you see that outfit?! or What about that verb tense?! Welcome to Grammar Gossip! We are going to teach you all you need to know for the toughest of Spanish Grammar, and we can guarantee an A in your Spanish class because Chelsea and I both have A's. Happy Spanish speaking!

Thursday, April 22, 2010

All the Spanish Verb Tenses We Ever Learned...

All the Spanish Verb Tenses We Ever Learned...
This is a chart with all the Spanish Verb Tenses we have ever learned. We used Calcular and Tener as examples of conjugated verbs.I f you click on the table, another picture of it will pop up, and if you zoom in on that picture, it makes the table MUCH EASIER to read

The Present Perfect Tense

The Present Perfect Tense
By: Ali
The Present Perfect is pretty easy. It is used when you want to say that you have done something. You’re going to use that verb HABER again with a past participle. The only difference between this tense and other perfect tenses is that HABER will be in a different form.
HABER

             he    hemos          



has   habéis



ha   han

Don’t forget! When using past participles, use ADO for –ar verbs and IDO for –ir and –er verbs. :)
I have driven to school. => He manejado a la escuela.They have not been very nice. => No han sido muy agradable.


 

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

The Imperfect Subjunctive with "Si"

The Imperfect Subjunctive with "Si"

 "If I had a million dollars, I'd buy your love! "
In the Spanish world of grammar, those Candian vocal Gods (The Barenaked Ladies)  would be lying fools for saying that if they had a million dollars they would buy your love.  How can you buy love? You can't.  It is very unlikely, impossible, and not true. 
So sorry ladies, don't let your hearts break.. The Barenaked Ladies would really not buy anyone's love. 

If you remember the conditional tense and the imperfect subjunctive, this tense is extremely easy to form. 

You would use the imperfect subjunctive form after si (if), and the conditional in the main part of the sentence.

Let's use the Barenaked Ladies example again ....

If I had a million dollars, I would buy your love !

Si tuviera un millón de dólares, yo comprará su amor !

The Imperfect Subjunctive

The Imperfect Subjunctive

I think that if the Imperfect Subjunctive had to be married to any other Spanish tense it would be the Conditional Tense because these two tenses work hand and hand with the situations "If this, then that".
If I was trying to persuade you to give me a cookie yesterday In Spanish or if I just wanted to tell you what my emotions were like in the past and if they contained doubt or uncertainty In Spanish, I would use the Imperfect Subjunctive!!

Are you feeling this tense?
We'll show you how it's formed!
Remember: To form this tense you need to remember the PAST TENSE (preterite) for
“ellos, Uds.” Then just follow the easy pattern (remember there are some irregulars!)

AR VERBS
ara        áramos
aras      
ara        aran

IR/ER VERBS
iera       iéramos
ieras     
iera       ieran

IRREGULAR VERBS
IR-fue
HABER-hubie
PEDIR- pidie
CONSTRUIR-construye

Let's see this tense in action!


I recommended to him that he drinks four glasses of water a day.
(That's right! Let's get a little health tips!)
Yo le recomendé que él bebiera cuatro vasos de agua cada día.


Personally, I think it's cool that now I know how to say that I persuaded someone to give me a cookie yesterday, I mean, what else would anyone want to say?!

Thursday, April 15, 2010

The Conditional Tense

The Conditional Tense

"I WOULD write this sentence in Spanish if I knew how to form the CONDITIONAL TENSE!"- Anonymous viewer

Well hey, Blog friends! Don't fear! We'll teach you how to form the conditional right here, right now, in this post!

First off, the Conditional Tense describes what would happen. An example of this can be found in the above quote.  
Forming regular Conditional Tense verbs is a very easy task.
Like the future verbs, all you do is add a specific ending to the infinitive!

Here are the endings with the verb HABLAR(to talk) :

hablaría            hablaríamos
hablarías          
hablaría            hablarían

The conditional is so tricky that some verbs actually change in the stem! These are called irregulars.
Luckily, you form the conditional stem changes the same way you would for the future.  Now, there's no trick to learning these except for the fact that you have to memorize them!

DECIR- DIR
HABER- HABR
HACER-HAR
PODER-PODR
PONER-PONDR
COMPONER-COMPONDR
SABER-SABR
SALIR-SALDR
VENIR-VENDR
TENER-TENDR
QUERER-QUERR
CONTENER-CONTENDR

After these stem changes, you need to add one of the endings stated in green above.

Need another example?

When I go to the store, I would buy a T-shirt!
Cuando voy a la tienda, yo iría un camiseta!

There you have it! Now you CAN write your sentences in the Conditional Tense, Anonymous viewer!