Personal Pronouns and Conjugation I of Verbs in Spanish

Por el camino compra un periódico

El señor López está en casa en la cama y escucha la radio. Entra la señora de López con el desayuno. El señor López toma el desayuno y cuando termina, va a la fábrica. Por el camino compra un periódico. El señor López es ingeniero. La fábrica donde trabaja es muy grande, es una fábrica gigantesca. Cuando llega a la fábrica, el ingeniero habla con el director, después visita los talleres y habla con los obreros y con las obreras. Cuando el ingeniero López termina el trabajo, regresa a casa.

Vocablos

If you still cannot read without transcription, return to the -› pronunciation lesson ‹- (click). Transcription is not used in Spanish dictionaries, and for learning purposes, it will only do harm at this point.

Notes & Explanations

Pronunciation

In words ending in a consonant (except the consonants n and s), the stress falls on the last syllable.

The meaning of words and expressions

El señor López está en casa. - Mr. Lopez is at home.

In the phrase en casa at home, which denotes the place of residence, the definite article is omitted before the noun casa.

Va a la fábrica. - He goes to the factory.

The verb va goes is 3^rd person singular of the verb ir to go. The verb ir always requires the preposition a, which denotes direction when combined with this verb, answering the question where to? In English, it corresponds to the preposition to.

López es ingeniero. - Lopez is an engineer.

Before a noun denoting a profession and acting as the nominal part of a compound predicate in a sentence, the article is omitted.

Learn the expressions:

Grammar points

1. The use of acento

In Spanish, besides the regular stress which is not marked by a stress symbol, there is a stress mark in the form of a graphical accent ´ – acento.

Acento is placed in Spanish to distinguish words that sound and are spelled the same, but have different meanings, for example:

Other cases of using acento will be explained in further lessons.

2. Personal pronouns

The English speakers should be careful here, because you don’t have polite forms in English, but Spanish and other languages do. You can’t just say ‘tú’ to a stranger, your boss, or an elderly person.

Another distinctive feature is that personal pronouns acting as subjects are often omitted in Spanish, especially if the person is easily understood, for example:

tomo el desayuno I am having breakfast (not: yo tomo el desayuno)

The form of the verb tomo (1^st person singular) already shows what person we are talking about.

However, when contrasting one person with another using a pronoun, the subject is kept, for example:

Yo voy a la fábrica y tú tomas el desayuno.
I’m going to the factory, and you’re having breakfast.

The personal pronouns we, you (pl.), they in Spanish have two genders: masculine – nosotros, vosotros, ellos and feminine – nosotras, vosotras, ellas. If the group of people is mixed (at least one male), you need to use the masculine forms: nosotros, vosotros, ellos.

The plural forms vosotros, vosotras you are used only to address more than one person, who you already know, or a group of people in a meeting, or, for example, if an author would address the readers. Vosotros is used for masculine or mixed groups, vosotras for all-female groups. Vosotros is rarely used in Latin America. The counterpart to vosotros in Latin America is ustedes. Ustedes is used in Latin America in both formal and informal situations. Nowadays, using vosotros in Spain expresses a certain familiarity to the person or people you’re conversing with, and it’s used in casual conversation. It’s similar to saying ‘you guys’ or ‘you all’ in English.

The forms usted singular (Vd. or Ud. for short) and ustedes plural (Vds. or Uds. for short) are polite forms used to address a person or people with whom the speaker is not on informal terms (not on a tú basis). The form usted – Vd. originates from the combination of two words: V(uestra) (merce)d – Your Grace/Mercy. In English, we simply use you, but in Spanish, these pronouns require the verb to be in the 3^rd person singular or plural respectively.

3. Conjugation I. Present tense of the indicative mood (presente del modo indicativo). Affirmative, negative, and interrogative forms of verbs

There are three classes or conjugations of verbs in Spanish.

Conjugation I includes verbs that end in -ar in their infinitive form, for example:

The present tense of the indicative mood of Conjugation I verbs is formed from the stem of an infinitive verb with the help of the following endings:

In order to form the present tense of a verb, we drop the ending -ar from the infinitive verb and add the appropriate ending of the present tense to the stem, for example:

Note: all the translations above and below can also be in the continuous forms depending on the context. The simple form is used by default.

Presente
Present tense
(indicative mood)

tomar to take
Affirmative form

Notes:

1. The 3^rd person singular and plural forms of the verb coincide with the polite forms, for example:
   

   él	toma		ellos	toman
   ella			ellas
   usted			ustedes

2. The masculine plural forms for the 1^st and 2^nd person are exactly the same as the feminine forms for the same person and number, for example:

    

   nosotros tomamos

   vosotros tomáis

    

   nosotras tomamos

   vosotras tomáis

Interrogative form

Negative form

* For the word order in interrogative and negative sentences, and the role of negation, see lesson 3.

4. The conjugation of the verbs ir and estar in the present tense

The verbs ir to go and estar to be, to be located belong to a group of irregular verbs.

In the present tense, these verbs are conjugated in the following way (pronounce v as [β] in the forms of ir below):

Presente
Present tense

ir to go

estar to be, to be located

* Since the forms for masculine and feminine in the 3^rd person singular and plural coincide with the polite form, from now on we will only give one masculine form in conjugations. The same applies to the verb forms in the 1^st and 2^nd person plural.

Exercises

I. Answer the following questions:

¿Dónde está el señor López? ¿Qué escucha el señor López? ¿Qué compra López por el camino? ¿Cómo es la fábrica donde trabaja López? ¿Cuándo regresa a casa el ingeniero López?

II. Fill in the blanks with the appropriate verb endings:

Yo trabaj tú trabaj él trabaj nosotros trabaj vosotros trabaj ellas trabaj usted trabaj ellos regres vosotros regres nosotros regres él regres tú regres yo regres usted regres nosotros habl vosotros trabaj ella escuch él lleg ustedes lleg tú termin ellos visit nosotros estudi usted escuch ustedes visit yo trabaj tú habl él escuch la radio. Usted entr en la habitación. Nosotros (ir) a la fábrica. Nosotros escuch la radio. Usted termin el trabajo. Ellas habl con la señora de López. El ingeniero López regres a casa. Usted habl con el ingeniero López. Vosotros compr el periódico. Yo tom el desayuno y escuch la radio. Ella est en la cama. Nosotros compr un periódico, después tom el desayuno y después (ir) a la fábrica donde trabaj.

III. Translate into English:

El señor López no trabaja, está en la cama. La señora de López no está en casa, está en la fábrica. La señora de López compra un periódico. Cuando llega a casa habla con el señor López y después escucha la radio. Nosotros trabajamos en la fábrica. Cuando terminamos el trabajo, regresamos a casa y por el camino compramos un libro. ¿Cuándo regresa Vd. a casa?

IV. Translate into Spanish:

I’m (lying) in bed and I’m having breakfast. She works. I go to the factory, and she works at home. I come back home, she talks with Mrs. Lopez. We’re having breakfast when you go to the factory. When we work, they (f.) talk. When you come back home, we’re having breakfast. When he enters the room, you (pl.) finish the breakfast and go to the factory. Engineer Lopez enters the room. There are three books on the table. He is an engineer. Mrs. Lopez doesn’t work. There are cups on the table. Where do you work? (polite form) Does engineer Lopez work with you? (p. f.)
The director visits the workshop and talks with the workers. The factory is giant. On the way, we buy a newspaper. Mr. Lopez listens to the radio.