Lesson 04: San Patricio - drinks, and numbers

Hi! And welcome to the fourth lesson of Hey que tal? Free spanish lessons. My name is Pablo Apiolazza and today we´ll push the edge a little bit.

Hola y bienvenidos a la cuarta lección de Hey que tal? Lecciones de español gratuitas. Mi nombre es Pablo Apiolazza y hoy vamos a ir un poco más al límite.

Since Saint Patrick´s Day is this wednesday we´ll take this chance to learn in this lesson how to order a drink, and pay for it. So we´ll learn the numbers as well.

Dado que el día de San Patricio es este miércoles vamos a aprovechar esta oportunidad para aprender en esta lección cómo pedir un trago, y pagar por él. Así que también vamos a aprender los números.

The first thing you want to ask when you get to a bar is a table, if the place is crowded. So to ask for a table we say de following:

Una mesa para dos, por favor?

or

Tendrás una mesa para dos, por favor?

Which means Would you have a table for two, please?

If the place is not crowded, we just sit and wait. In terms of service, Buenos Aires and Argentina in general is very uneven regarding of the quality of the attention. Some places have perfect attention and manners, and some others don´t pay attention to customers at all. Sadly, sometimes that lack of attention is equalized with excelent food or drinks, so good that you bare the bad service. Many of us are used to that, so if you can take it, and you see that the waiter isn´t coming, you can call him raising your hand and saying like this:

Mozo!

Once the waiter´s here, we can ask for the menu or just for a beer. Let´s see how to ask for the menu.

Me traerías una carta, por favor?

And that is: Would you bring me a menu, please?

Once we get the menu we can say "Gracias", and take our pick. Now let´s see how to ask for a beer. There are many different ways but we´ll see three today:

Puede ser una cerveza, por favor?
Which lit. means "Can it be a beer please?"

The second is
Me traerías una cerveza, por favor?
Would you bring me a beer please?

And the third, most used and easiest:

Una cerveza, por favor
A beer please.

Of course, on seldom occasions we drink alone in bars, so let´s learn the numbers from zero to twenty. We will assume that if we have more than twenty people on the table one of them will know how to speak spanish if you need to ask for more, hehe.

So zero is CERO
One is UNO
Two is DOS
Three is TRES
Four is CUATRO
Five is CINCO
Six is SEIS
Seven is SIETE
Eight is OCHO
Nine is NUEVE
Ten is DIEZ

Eleven is ONCE
Twelve is DOCE
Thirteen is TRECE
Fourteen is CATORCE
Fifteen is QUINCE
Sixteen is DIECISÉIS
Seventeen is DIECISIETE
Eighteen is DIECIOCHO
Nineteen is DIECINUEVE
and Twenty is VEINTE.

As you might noticed, from sixteen on we have a little resemblance on the first half, every word starts with ten, and then the other number, sort of like ten and six.
If you´re really anxious to know the rest of the numbers, you should know that this same formula will be the one to make the rest of the numbers until a hundred. But we´ll see that on the next episode.

Let´s go back to the bar and our beer.

Let´s say some friends came later and we ordered our beer, if we want two more we can say it like this.

Dos cervezas más, por favor?

Two more beers, please?

Once we had enough, we can order for the check like this.

La cuenta, por favor.
or
Me traés la cuenta, por favor?

Now they will tell us the number, and probably they will ask cash or credit, so the waiter answer will be something like this:

Son 18 pesos. Efectivo o tarjeta?
Which means
It´s 18 pesos, cash or credit card?

If you´re in Argentina, you shouldn´t be so confident that they will have credit card payment in every single bar, so just in case always bring some cash with you.
So once you have the money or the card, you can say this

Aca tenés, gracias.
There you go, thank you.

Once we get our change, we can leave the tip, that is called propina, and usually is around 10% of what we had. Most of waiters will be more than happy with 10 % or more than 10 %. Some bars and restaurants already take the tip out of the bill, but most of them don´t.

Well, this was our bar night at Saint Patrick´s Day, culturally speaking celebrating Saint Patrick´s Day is something brand new for us, we´ve been doing it for the last ten years, it´s not as big as in Scotland or Boston maybe, but in some neighbourhoods like downtown some streets close so people can gather up on the street and drink outside, so it´s pretty fun. Argentinians are known for being pretty outgoing, and Buenos Aires is a city where every single day there´s something to do or somewhere to go.

So this is the end of the lesson, I hope you liked it, if you have any doubt or comment you can leave it on the website, www.heyquetal.blogspot.com
There´s also a twitter account if you want to follow the podcast, look for heyquetal on twitter and follow it for updates.
My name is Pablo Apiolazza and this is Hey que tal? Free spanish lessons.

Stay tuned and goodbye!

Lesson 03: Tú vs Vos - the big difference.

Hi, welcome to the third episode of Hey que tal? Free spanish lessons. My name is Pablo Apiolazza and today we´re going to overview one of the main differences between the regular spanish and the argentinian spanish.
In order to do this, we´ll have to make a quick stop on grammar, but don´t panic, we´ll try to stay out of it for now.

As you know, when we conjugate a verb we use person to determine who or what are we speaking to or about, in other words, to determine the subject of a sentence. There are three persons for the singular form and three for the plural.
In the original form of spanish, the persons are the following:
I is YO
You is TÚ
He is EL
We is NOSOTROS
You is VOSOTROS
They is ELLOS

It is ESO, and she is ELLA, but aside from that, let´s concentrate on the second person in both plural and singular ways.
An easy way to remember tú, is to think about the ancient english "thou". And that is because amazingly it´s a shared root.
But in latin america, since the language bent and mixed with other languages including the indigenous dialects, a new version of the second person was born: VOS.
Vos is a version that changes the conjugation of the verb. That means that it is not enough to put vos in front of a verb conjugated with tú to do it properly.

Let´s see this on examples, and in the meantime, learn the main irregular verbs.

First one is to be:
Yo soy
Tu eres
El es
Nosotros somos
Vosotros sois
Ellos son

In argentina, instead of tú eres we say VOS SOS.
Vos is an informal form of the second person. Another important thing is that VOS doesn´t have a plural version, but we neither use the VOSOTROS form. Instead of that, we use the formal version for both formal and informal, and is USTEDES.

USTEDES is conjugated in the same way as ELLOS, the third person of the plural.

For instance: USTEDES SON grandes. (You are big)

In other words, we made it complicated for the singular, but easier for the plural.

In terms of culture, "vos" is pretty much a trademark of the argentinian language, together with our pronunciation and the famous "lunfardo" slang, which is the old tango days´ slang. Argentinians are always using the informal form to speak. Generally it is not disrespectful to use it with coworkers, members of the family, or strangers, but it is a good rule to start talking in the formal form, and then we´ll probably get a very common phrase that allows us to use the vos and it sounds like this:

Por favor, podés tutearme.
or
Si querés, tuteame.

The main thing we must hear is the verb "tutear" that yeah, funny enough, literally means "to use the tú form", but in Argentina means to use the vos form. We do have a verb that means "to use the vos form", which is "vosear", but nobody ever uses it. Don´t ask me why, hehe.

So once we have the permit granted, we can use the "vos" as much as we want.

Since we´re in subject, we´ll give a little grammar spoiler, so the advaced students can have fun with the vos form. Since the origin of vos comes from vosotros, a good rule to build the vos conjugation for the regular verbs is to remove the letter "i" from the vosotros conjugation. I.e.: Vosotros tenéis - Vos tenés.
As any other language, there´s no rule for the irregular verbs, so it´s up to you to learn them. During the upcoming episodes we will see most of them anyways, so be patient.

As for the formal version, as I mentioned before we use the form "usted". Even if usted means you, it is conjugated as the third person. In the case of to be, it is "Usted es".

So this is pretty much our little trip thru the "vos" land.

Don´t forget to rate, share and review the podcast either on itunes, your favourite feed reader, or the website, heyquetal.blogspot.com
My name is Pablo Apiolazza and this is Hey Que tal? Free spanish lessons.

Stay tuned and goodbye!

El secreto de sus ojos - special podcast.

Hi! Welcome to Hey que tal? Free spanish lessons. My name is Pablo Apiolazza and today we´re having a special podcast because I want to celebrate something.
In case you don´t know, I´m a filmmaker, I worked in awarded films as La León, and Matar a Todos, and as you may know last sunday was the Academy Awards ceremony, and an argentinian movie won the best foreign language film, which of course fills me with pride.
The movie is called "El secreto de sus ojos", which literally means "the secret of his/her eyes". It is starred by Ricardo Darín, Soledad Villamil, Guillermo Francella and Pablo Rago, and it is directed by Juan Jose Campanella, a great filmmaker.
During my career I had the pleasure to meet personally Ricardo Darin to discuss about a project, and he´s a charming, simple, humble and most of all, incredibly talented actor, so I´m very happy that his movie got the biggest possible award.
For all you spanish students it´s also a great exercise to watch the film to practice, and mostly to check what we´ve been learning about how to say hi, and mostly how argentinians use the "vos" pronoun.
On the other hand, it is a great chance to learn more about the history of Argentina, and the terrible events that happened right before and during the last dictatorship.
The movie also has a couple of very funny and tipical argentinian moments and ways of speak that picture the argentinian humor very well.
As always, if you watch the film and you have any language doubt or curiosity, you can leave a comment on the website and I´ll try to answer it.
Well, that´s all for now, go watch the movie, and don´t forget to suscribe, or visit the website, www.heyquetal.blogspot.com
My name is Pablo Apiolazza and this is Hey! que tal? Free spanish lessons.

Stay tuned and goodbye!