Basic Spanish for the Virtual Student - Section 5

SHORT ACHIEVABLE GOALS

1. Direct Object Pronouns
2. Indirect Object Pronouns
3. Commands
4. Irregular Tu Form Commands
5. Reflexive Verbs
6. Days of the Week
7. Months of the Year
8. Sentence Structure

DIRECT OBJECT PRONOUNS

A direct object receives the action of the verb.

INDIRECT OBJECT PRONOUNS

(problem here--this is more sophisticated than my current explanation)

• If your sentence has both a direct object and an indirect object, the the indirect object comes before the direct object.
  • Juan Marco tiene el lápiz, pero no me lo da.
  • John Mark has the pencil, but he won't give it to me.

An indirect object is used for the person to whom something is told, given, or sent.

Why are indirect objects confusing?

I'm not a linguistics expert. I suspect that our definition of a direct object (see above) is a part of the problem. For sentences with more than just a noun and a verb, I think (I could be wrong) that there should be a direct object. After all, if an action is committed, it has to be received by something, right? (I could be wrong.)
There are quite a few sentences we use that you could argue the direct object is implicit.
"I told him." (the direct object might be 'the story', 'the truth', 'the tale', etc.)
"I asked her."
So far, it appears to me that indirect objects are used for transferring objects and information. Now, just to be sure, we're going to look at examples. To contrast direct and indirect objects, we need a female person, so that we'll have a distinct difference:

• 'la' for direct object
• 'le' for indirect object

Lestat made his mother, Gabrielle, into a vampire the night she was dying (she's feeling much better now...)

1. "¿Oyes eso?" Le pregunté.
   • "Do you hear that?" I asked her. (Lestat asks Gabrielle.)
   • The book used dashes instead of quote marks but my html translater can't handle that so I will default to quotes. Sorry for the inconvience. :(
2. Y allí la sostuve entre mis brazos y le hablé mientras sucedía.
   • And there her I held up between my arms and to her I spoke (sentences) while it happened.
   • The word 'sentences' was inserted into the English version because it is thought to be the implicit direct object.
3. Se deslizó entre mis brazos y la conduje lejos de su victima.
   • She slipped into my arms and I guided her away from her victim.
4. "Por esta noche, es suficiente. Tenemos que regresar a la torre" le dije.
   • "For tonight, it is enough. We should return to the tower," I told her.
5. Deseaba enseñarle el tesoro.
   • I wanted to show the treasure to her.
6. Le hablé con detalle de la torre.
   • I told her all about the tower.
7. De nuevo, los espasmos agónicos la asaltaban.
   • The death spasms assaulted her again.
8. "Tengo que beber", le expliqué.
   • I have to drink," I told her.
9. Le acerque mis labios de nuevo y no me rechazó.
   • I went to kiss her again, and she didn't stop me.
   • Acercar- to bring closer, nearer (I brought my lips to her again...)
10. "Guarda silencio," le susurré. Noté cómo la dominaba el pánico.
    • "Keep still", I whispered (a warning) to her. I noted how the panic dominated her.
    • (They were sleeping under the alter in the church and when they woke there was a night time church service going on. Gabrielle was uncomfortable with the situation.)
11. La inocencia de las víctimas no le preocupaba en absoluto.
    • The innocence of the victims didn't bother her at all.
    • Perhaps it is possible to have a sentence that lacks a direct object, but includes an indirect object. I can't explain this one.

IMPERATIVES (these words also referred to as 'Commands')

There are different types of commands--who you are giving it to is important

1. We show the conjugations
2. We point out the tricks.
3. It helps to have all three forms (-ar, -er, -ir) in front of you as you see the rules

• Command verbs are conjugated into five groups.
• No command exists for the first person singular tense, so you can't give yourself a command.
• For the second person singular tense, there is one form for a positive command (run!) and another for a negative command (don't run!)
• For the third person singular, you are giving a command (you are imploring, actually) to an authority.
  • "Madame President, please sign these papers."
• First person plural commands are of the form "let's ----"
  • You're friend jumps on you at 5:00 AM in the morning and says "Corramos!" (Let's run!)
• The 2nd person plural refers to a group of your peers
  • Come with me and see for yourselves!
• The 3rd person plural refers to a formal
  • If it pleases the members of this legislature, please, sign the equal rights bill.
• Regular verb commands follow the format shown below

  This table shows the conjugations for the various commands
  	-ar	-er	-ir
  first person singular	---	---	---
  second person singular	ama / no ames	corre / no corras	vive / no vivas
  third person singular	ame	corra	viva
  first person plural	amemos	corramos	vivamos
  second person plural	amad / no améis	corred / no corráis	vivid / no viváis
  third person plural	amen	corran	vivan

  If only one word is listed it works for both negative and positive commands
• There are patterns to the above conjugations
• We haven't covered the subjunctive form yet which is used above for negative 'tu' commands, negative 'vosotros', usted, and ustedes
• Trends
  • For positive 'tu' commands, it looks like just a matter of taking off the 'r'
    • ¡Corre!
  • For negative 'tu' commands, you put 'no' before the command, take the 'r' off the verb, and then
    • for -ar change 'a' to 'es'
    • for -er change 'e' to 'as'
    • for -ir change 'i' to 'as' ¡No corras!
    • You will see these same vowel-crossovers with the subjunctive
  • For an usted command (subjunctive verb used)
    • It's third person singular except that
      • 'a' changes to 'e'
      • 'e' changes to 'a'
      • 'i' changes to 'a'
    • the negative command is the same as the positive
  • For a first person plural command
    • It's first person plural except that
      • 'a' changes to 'e'
      • 'e' changes to 'a'
      • 'i' changes to 'a'
    • the negative command is the same as the positive
  • for a second person plural positive command, the 'r' of the infinitive is replaced with a 'd'.
  • the negative command for the second person plural is the subjunctive second person plural.
  • the third person plural command uses the third person plural subjuntive

IRREGULAR TU COMMANDS

REFLEXIVE VERBS

• Reflexive verbs are used when you perform an action on yourself, or someone performs an action on themselves
• A reflexive verb adds 'se' to the infinitive
• example: ducharse
• 'ducharse' is an -ar verb meaning 'to shower oneself'
• I think the verb 'duchar' would mean you are washing someone else in the shower

  cepillarse	to brush your teeth
  irse	to go
  lavarse	to wash oneself
  levantarse	to get up out of bed
  maquillarse	to put on makeup

DAYS OF THE WEEK

I was taught not to capitalize months or days of the week. However, one of the native speakers who looked at the page asked me to capitalize them. Recently, I received email from an instructor asking me to change the first letters to lower case. My suggestion: by default assume you are supposed to use lower case, but don't be surprised if somewhere you find it done the other way. Perhaps there exist places where they capitalize these words (this sentence written using the subjunctive :).

MONTHS OF THE YEAR

SENTENCE STRUCTURE

• There is more flexibility to sentence structure in Spanish.
• A sentence is given below in English that has a noun, a verb, a direct object, and something that could pass for an indirect object, but I think it could also be a prepositional phrase. I'm not sure if something can be both or if it is both, if it should be called something else.
  • V verb
  • N noun
  • DO direct object
  • IO/PP Indirect Object or Prepositional Phrase

  	Our Fathers(N)	wrote(V)	the Constitution(DO)	for all the people(PP/IO).
  common	Nuestros Padres(N)	escribieron(V)	la Constitución(DO)	para toda la gente(PP/IO).
  not so common	Escribieron(v)	nuestros Padres(N)	la Constitución(DO)	para toda la gente(PP/IO)
  common	Nuestros Padres(N)	escribieron(V)	para toda la gente(PP/IO)	la Constitución(DO).
  not so common	Para toda la gente(PP/IO)	escribieron(V)	nuestros Padres(N)	la Constitución(DO).

• None of the textbooks I've seen so far put a lot of time into memorizing rules for sentence structure. You may find a general rule here and there, and that's about it.
• Example rules:
  • You almost always put the adjective after the noun.
    • This is logical because first you focus on the object you are talking about, and then you say something more about it.
  • An object pronoun (it could be a direct object, an indirect object, or a reflexive pronoun) usually comes before a conjugated verb.

How many grammar rules can you find used here?

• For the English we notice five infinitive verb constructions
  • to form, to establish, to insure, to provide, to promote, to secure
• The Spanish construction "a fin de" sets off the infinitives
  • It is only used once, but it applies to all five cases
  • a fin de formar, a fin de establecer, a fin de afirmar, a fin de proveer, a fin de promover
• We see adjective after the noun for "Estados Unidos"
• "more perfect Union", más, a comparative adjective, comes before the adjective "perfecta".
• We see "ourselves" expressed as "nosotros mismos" and recall that nosotros is a subject pronoun
  • Later on you will come across "yo mismo" (myself) or "tu mismo" (yourself), which is the same form.
• We see a possessive adjective used for "nuestros descendientes".
• A demonstrative adjective is used in "esta Constitución."

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I used purely semantic html for this entire course. That means that you should be able to save this to a palm pilot or other PDA, and view it with any browser. The only problems might be the tables, and the images at the top, the only images used. If anyone tries this, I'd love to hear feedback about how well it works, or tips that I could give others.