Muchacho Polaco

I missed my Spanish lessons on Thursday and Friday of last week, so I have two additional hours to make up this week. As such, I am doing 1.5 hours a day Monday through Thursday. This will also give me the feel for longer classes in the future. An hour and a half really wasn’t too bad, so I may switch it up in a week or so. We seem to be able to cover much more material.

Today I continued working on imperatives and imperatives with encliticos/procliticos. We also went over negative imperatives as well as rhetorical questions (which are essentially imperatives, but take a different form).

Once we went over everything, I was given a subject, a verb, an object, and an indirect object. I then was asked to give these forms:

1. imperative
2. imperative with encliticos
3. imperative with procliticos
4. negative imperative
5. negative imperative with encliticos
6. negative imperative with procliticos
7. rhetorical form
8. rhetorical form with encliticos
9. rhetorical form with procliticos

As an example:

Tu / escribir / una carta / a ellos
Escribe una carta a ellos
Escribeles una carta
Escribesela
No escribas una carta a ellos
No les escribas una carta
No se la escribas.
Escibes una carta a ellos?
Les escribes una carta?
Se la escribes?

Negative rhetorical questions don’t seem to exist or are just not common. Something like, “won’t you be nice to me?”.  That example makes me think rhetorical question is perhaps not the appropriate label, because that example may not be rhetorical. These are questions which are to be interpreted as commands, even though they are in the form of a question.

Repetition of grammatical rules has proven helpful. Especially in the above format. As I go through so many, I take less and less time to think about the rules and they tend to flow somewhat naturally. When I was studying Polish, I was taught in a similar way.

For instance: To learn numbers, I would say one, one two, one two three, one two three four, etc. My mind is thinking of the next number in the sequence and less so on the earlier numbers (which I was also learning). This seemed to allow me to memorize those words (the numbers) quicker. Perhaps they’re stored in the brain differently when acquired this way.

Today we continued to work on imperative formation, to include use with endocliticos (I still don’t know how to describe these in English). Here are some examples:

Tu / decir / la verdad / a ella.
Dile la verdad.
Disela

Tu / comprar / las galletas / a el
Comprale las galletas
Compraselas

Tu / Limpiar / los zapatos / a nosotros
Limpianos los zapatos
Limpianoslos

Tu / pintar / las un-as / a mi
Pintame las un-as
Pintamelas

I think I was able to determine why Mexicans use ‘le’, rather than ‘lo’ or ‘la’ (as either are grammatically correct). It seems to be the preference when the thing being replaced by the pronominal form is living (like humans or pets). If it is not alive, then ‘lo’ or ‘la’ are used. Interestingly, it is the opposite in Spain.

I’ve notice my ability to construct these type of sentences, while painfully slow, is starting to get faster.

Spanish has so many exceptions to its rules it’s ridiculous. Today I am learning imperative construction. And like the endless list of irregular verbs (some of which follow some form of pattern), there is also a long list of irregular imperatives. That’s fun.

Here are some that I covered today:

Second person singular informal:
Hacer = haz (do)
Ir = ve (go)
Ser = se (be feliz)
Decir = di (say!)
Poner = pon (put)
Salir = sal (go), example: sal afuera / go outside
Tener = ten (have), example: ten mi lapiz / have my pencil
Venir = ven (come), example: ven aqui / come here

And of course that irregular form is only for the second person singular (informal) form. Here’s the same for the second person formal (usted), first plural (nosotros), and second person singular (ustedes) for the same verbs.

Second person singular formal (usted) form:
Hacer = haga (do)
Ir = vaya (go)
Ser = seya (be feliz)
Decir = diga (say!)
Poner = ponga (put)
Salir = salga (go), example: sal afuera / go outside
Tener = tenga (have), example: ten mi lapiz / have my pencil
Venir = venga (come), example: ven aqui / come here

First person plural (nosotros) form:
Hacer = hagamos (let’s do)
Ir = vayamos (let’s go) vayamos a la playa! / let’s go to the beach!
Ser = seyamos (let’s be): example, seya feliz / let’s be happy
Decir = digamos (let’s say!): example, digamos la verdad / let’s say the truth
Poner = pongamos (let’s put): example, pongamos la mesa / let’s set the table
Salir = salgamos (let’s go), example: salgamos afuera / let’s go outside
Tener = tengamos (let’s have), example: tengamos una platica / let’s have a conversation
Venir = vengamos (let’s come)

Second person plural (ustedes) form:
Hacer = hagan(do)
Ir = vayan (go)
Ser = seyan (be feliz)
Decir = digan (say!)
Poner = pongan (put)
Salir = salgan (go), example: salgan afuera / go outside
Tener = tengan (have), example: tengan mi lapiz / have my pencil
Venir = vengan (come), example: vengan aqui / come here

We covered some regular verbs (some of which have irregular imperative construction) and I was given something to read which included imperatives. My reading skills are still horrific.

My homework assignment is to make imperatives from a list of verbs my maestra will be sending me tonight. Good times.