Lesson 09: En mi cuarto. Parts of a house

Hola, y bienvenidos a una nueva lección de Hey Que tal? Lecciones de español gratuitas. Mi nombre es Pablo Apiolazza y hoy estamos un poco vagos asi que nos vamos a quedar en casa.

Hi, and welcome to a new lesson of Hey Que tal? Free spanish lessons. My name is Pablo Apiolazza and today we´re a little bit lazy so we´re going to stay home.

On this episode we´re going to learn the parts of a house or an appartment. The term home is translated as hogar, but when we go home, in Argentina we always say vamos a casa, either we live on a house or a building.

The first thing we do when we get home is to open the door. Door is puerta.
We open the door is
Abrimos la puerta.

If we live on a building (edificio) then we have to take the stairs or the elevator.
To go up the stairs is subir las escaleras.
To go up with the elevator is subir con el ascensor.
Once we get to our floor, in spanish piso, we walk thru a corridor, pasillo, to get to our appartment, departamento.

Once inside, we might go to the kitchen, cocina. to make ourselves a coffe, café. Then maybe we go to the living room, which in spanish is also living, and we watch some tv. But first, a quick shower in the bathroom (baño).
When dinner´s ready, we eat at the dining room, comedor. And when it´s time for bed, we go to our bedroom, cuarto. Maybe if we have a balcony (balcón) we can watch the stars for a while.

Let´s say everything together in spanish, assuming that we live on an appartment.

Cuando llego a casa abro la puerta.Adentro, tomo el ascensor hasta el quinto piso. Cuando bajo del ascensor, camino por el pasillo hasta mi departamento. Allí voy a la cocina y me hago un café. Después voy al living, y miro un rato la televisión, pero antes me doy una ducha en el baño.
Cuando la cena esta lista, como en el comedor. Y cuando es hora de dormir, voy a mi cuarto, y desde el balcón miro las estrellas, antes de irme a dormir.

When I get home I open the door, Once inside, I take the elevator to the 5th floor. When I get off the elevator, I walk thru the corridor until my appartment. There I go to the kitchen and I make myself a coffee. After that I go to the living, and I watch some tv, but before I take a shower at the bathroom. When the dinner´s ready, I eat at the dining room. And when it´s time to sleep, I go to my room, and from the balcony I watch the stars before I go to sleep.

All the rooms in the house are called cuartos, besides the bedroom. Cuarto is the same as room. To say bedroom, we can also say dormitorio, as in dorm, but we don´t really use that word, but plain room, or my room.
Well, this is pretty much all for today. Don´t forget to watch, rate and comment on the website, heyquetal.blogspot.com, our twitter account, heyquetal, our facebook group Hey Que tal? or at the email: infoheyquetal@gmail.com
My name is Pablo Apiolazza and this is Hey Que tal? Free spanish lessons.
Have a nice week, stay tuned and goodbye!

Lesson 02: Chatting some more (Conversando un poco más)

Hi, welcome to the second episode of Hey que tal? Free spanish lessons. My name is Pablo Apiolazza and first of all I´d like to thank all the good reviews I´ve got from the first episode. This is new for me too so all comments and critics are welcome.

Today we´re going to go deeper into our first conversation, and go further into the local ways of speaking. On the last episode we learnt how to say hi, how are you, and what responses we could get from that question. Today we´re going to learn the main questions that we need to know to meet someone. So let´s begin.

The first thing we want to know is the name. So to ask "what´s your name?" we´re going to say the following:

Como te llamás?

This is a good moment to clearify something important. Since we are learning argentinian spanish, the way told  before is the informal way to ask. I don´t want to get too complicated with grammar in this episode, but you have to know that argentinians use a very unique way of second-person familiar subjective pronoun, called VOS, instead of the spanish TU. This form has a different conjugation in verbs, so the previous "llamás" is that version of the verb "llamar". The next episode will be entirely about the difference between VOS and TU.
Let´s see now the formal version of this question, which is

Cómo se llama?

Another way to say this is

Cual es su nombre? (lit: what is your name?)

Another very unique thing about argentinian spanish that we can find in this questions is the pronunciation of the double l. Instead of the spanish sound of it (something like the english "Yikes") we use the sh sound, like in "shame". This is the best way to spot an argie.

Back into the talking, there are three ways to answer this:

First one is the plain name, which doesn´t need much explination. For instance: Pablo
The second one is a long version. "Me llamo Pablo", which litteraly would mean something like "I´m called Pablo".
The third version is the other long one, and it is "Mi nombre es Pablo". My name is Pablo.

If we say Pablo, or me llamo Pablo, and we want to ask back, then we say again "y vos?". On the other hand, if we say Mi nombre es Pablo, then we should use the reply "Y el tuyo?" which means "And yours?"
You might have noticed that instead of starting with the formal version I start with the informal one. This is because most of argentinians use the informal way almost always, except in certain jobs, or with the elder. We will discuss this in more detail on the next episode. I´m going to give both ways, so here comes the formal one.

Full answers for What´s your name? are:
Pablo, y usted?
and
Mi nombre es Pablo, y el suyo?

Last, but not least, let's ask Where are you from? This is done this way:
Informal
De dónde sos?
Formal
De dónde es (Usted)?

And to answer the formula is
Soy de Buenos Aires, Argentina. which means I´m from...
or
Vengo de Buenos Aires, Argentina, which is I come from...

Of course, if you´re an english speaker, you´re not from Argentina, so let´s learn some names of the main english speaking countries, in alphabetic order.
Australia is exactly the same, but with argie accent: Australia.
Canada, as before, the same, Canadá.
England is Inglaterra
Ireland, Irlanda
United States is Estados Unidos.
Scotland is Escocia.
South Africa, Sudáfrica.

If you are from somewhere else and you want to know the name of your country, leave a comment on the blog and I´ll try to answer you.

As you can figure out by now, to ask back a question there are two ways: "y vos?" and "y usted?" for the informal and formal way.

So let´s see all together, now in context.

A: Hola, qué tal?
B: Bien, y vos?
A: Bárbaro, como te llamás?
B: Pablo, y vos?
A: Carlos. De dónde sos?
B: Soy de Buenos Aires, Argentina, y vos?
A: Yo soy de Miami, Estados Unidos.

Well, as you can see, we can already have a little chat begun. On the next episode, we´ll see the difference between tu, vos and usted, and on upcoming episodes we´ll get more conversation skills. . This is pretty much for today, I hope you enjoyed the episode, my name is Pablo Apiolazza and this is Hey que tal? Free spanish lessons.

Don´t forget to rate, share and review the podcast either on itunes, your favourite feed reader, or the website, heyquetal.blogspot.com

Stay tuned and goodbye!

Lesson 01: Hey! Que tal?

Hi! Welcome to the first episode of Hey Qué tal?, the series of free podcasts aimed to teach you spanish. My name is Pablo Apiolazza and here we're going to learn spanish from argentina, a very unique kind of spanish. Nevertheless, it's very similar to the original one, except some pronunciation, so even if you want to learn other type of spanish this podcasts will be helpfull for you too.


Besides the language itself, we're going to learn some important aspects of the culture of Argentina, and particularly Buenos Aires, such as music, localisms, traditions, foods, and all sort of things useful for the traveller or the Argentina lover.


So taking all this into consideration, lets begin with the first lesson.


Today we're going to watch the basics: how to say hello.
Everytime we meet someone we're in the need to say hello, and immediately ask "how are you?", so lets see how to say this in spanish.


Hello, how are you?
"Hola, cómo estas?"


The first time we meet someone, this is quite well, but as we already know someone we can use some other ways to say this more coloquial, and this is when the title of this podcast becomes useful.
To say (again) "Hey, how are you?" we can now say


Hey! Qué tal?


Now lets see what responses we can have to this. As you can imagine 90% of the times we will get positive answers like "great" or "fine" or "good", and then the same question back at us. So lets see them in spanish


For great we can use "Bárbaro". So the answer would be "Bárbaro, y vos?" (and you?)
For fine or good we can use "Bien". "Bien, y vos?" 
A quick tip is that if we say "Muy bien", then it means VERY good. So they (or us) can answer that.


If they ask us "y vos?" we should answer them back, so obviously we can use the same phrases, but instead of answering "and you?" over and over we can say a polite thank you. This is done by using a very important word: "Gracias".


So to summarize, we'll see the whole situation together.


A:-Hola, qué tal?


B:-Bien, y vos?


A:-Bien, gracias!


Finally, some people (or maybe we) are not felling so great sometimes, so maybe they don't feel like saying that. To answer "not so good" we can say "Más o menos" (lit.: more or less).
In very rare situations, we can even hear a "Mal" (bad). Or even a "Pésimo". Awful. But if we say or hear something like this we're probably getting ready to have a long talk, and we're not quite ready to do that yet.


But don't worry, we will eventually while we keep listening the "Hey que tal?" podcasts.


So this is pretty much it for today, I hope you enjoyed it, my name is Pablo Apiolazza and this is Hey Qué tal? Free spanish lessons.


Don't forget to visit our blog: heyquetal.blogspot.com


Stay tuned and goodbye!


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