Lesson 24 Notes

April 22nd, 2007
CoffeeBreakSpanish.com
In this edition:
the campsite
and the
alphabet!
Lesson 24
Notes
¿Se puede acampar aquí?
Lesson 24
Programme Notes
Welcome to Coffee Break Spanish, the podcast
aimed at independent learners of Spanish. In
Coffee Break Spanish we’ll be guiding you
through the basics of the Spanish language and
helping you to learn to communicate in Spain
and Spanish-speaking countries.
In this final lesson on accommodation you’ll
learn some useful phrases for the campsite. You’ll
also learn to spell using the Spanish alphabet.
El camping
In your studies of Spanish you’ll often come
across words which look as if they could be
English words, but aren’t quite right. The word
for “campsite” is one of these words: el camping.
You could ask the question:
If the answer to ¿hay un camping por aquí? is
negative, then you may find yourself having to
ask:
¿se puede acampar aquí?
can one camp here?
Note the use of the phrase ¿se puede...? This is a
very useful construction in Spanish. It’s an
impersonal way of asking if it’s possible to do
something, and is always followed by the
infinitive:
¿se puede bailar?
can one dance? / is it possible to
dance?
This was covered in detail in lesson 16.
¿hay un camping por aquí?
is there a campsite around here?
Before we get into constructing phrases for the
campsite you’ll need to know some basic
vocabulary for the campsite:
We can use the same construction in other
phrases in the campsite:
¿se puede beber el agua?
can one drink the water?
acampar
to camp, to go camping
¿se puede alquilar una toalla?
can one hire a towel?
una tienda / una carpa (LAm)
a tent
¿Dónde está...?
una caravana
a caravan
Another useful phrase you already know which
will serve you well in the campsite is the phrase
¿dónde está?:
¿dónde está la piscina?
where is the swimming pool?
1
¿dónde está el supermercado?
where is the supermarket?
¿dónde se puede comprar café?
where can one (“you”) buy coffee?
In the situation where you are asking where more
than one thing is, you need to change the verb to
the plural form:
Without going into the complicated grammatical
details of this construction, you should note that
if whatever you’re buying is a plural thing, eg.
“eggs”, you need to make the puede into a plural
verb:
where is
¿dónde está...?
where are...?
¿dónde están...?
Within the context of the campsite, you can use
the plural form in these examples:
¿dónde están las duchas?
where are the showers?
¿dónde están los servicios?
where are the toilets?
¿dónde están los cubos
de la basura?
where are the bins?
¿dónde se pueden comprar huevos?
where can one (“you”) buy eggs?
The reason for this is that the subject of the
sentence is the milk / coffee / bread / eggs, etc.
and therefore the verb must agree with the
subject. If you remember back to me llamo, and se
llama, you should remember that se llama literally
means “he/she calls himself ”. This is actually
the same construction as se puede comprar... Our
last two examples literally mean “where can
coffee buy itself ?” and “where can eggs buy
themselves?”
Look carefully at the following examples. Earlier
we learned to ask this question:
¿se puede alquilar una toalla?
can one (“you”) hire a towel?
If we wanted to ask “can one hire towels”, using
the plural noun, we would have to make the verb
plural too:
Where can one buy...?
This lesson is all about reusing existing
knowledge. We can now construct phrases like,
“Where can one buy milk”. The word for “to
buy” is comprar, so this gives the full phrase:
¿dónde se puede comprar leche?
where can one buy milk?
In English we’re probably more like to say
“where can you buy coffee?” In this case, the
“you” doesn’t really refer to “you”: instead, it’s
an impersonal “you” that refers to someone else.
The most correct way to translate this into
Spanish is buy using the impersonal se form as
we’ve learned in se puede...:
¿dónde se puede comprar pan?
where can one (“you”) buy bread?
Coffee Break Spanish: Lesson 24
¿se pueden alquilar toallas?
can one (“you”) hire towels?
Literally this means “can towels hire themselves
out?” As with our earlier examples, this does
sound strange. It you find it confuses you further,
try to learn the phrases as items of vocabulary,
rather than concentrating too much on the
grammar.
The alphabet
According to the Real Academia Española, the
institution which “regulates” the use of Spanish
across the world, the following letters make up
the Spanish alphabet. The pronunciation of each
letter in Spanish is given beside it.
page 2
a
a
t
te
b
be
u
u
c
ce (“thay” in Spain;
“say” in LAm)
v
uve / ve
ch
che
w
uve doble / u doble /
doble u / doble ve
d
d
x
equis
e
e
y
i griega
f
efe
z
zeta (“thayta” in Spain;
“sayta” in LAm)
g
ge
h
hache
i
i
j
jota
Note that there are three additional letters in the
Spanish alphabet: ch, ll and ñ.
Also note the letters b and v. In most Spanishspeaking countries the names for these letters
sound identical. To differentiate between them
you will sometimes hear:
be
k
ka
b
be grande
l
ele
ve
ll
m
elle
v
uve
eme
ve chica
Coffee Break Spanish: Lesson 24
n
ene
ñ
eñe
o
o
p
pe
q
cu
r
ere
s
ese
We’ve already covered how to ask “how do you
spell ....?” in lesson 22 bonus vocabulary. Let’s
revise that now:
¿cómo se escribe...?
how do you spell
Note that this is the same construction as ¿dónde se
puede comprar... In fact it literally means something
like “how does ... spell itself ?”
page 3
CoffeeBreakSpanish: Lesson 24 - Basic Vocabulary
un camping
campsite
¿hay un camping por aquí?
is there a campsite around here?
acampar
to camp
una tienda
tent
una carpa
tent (LAm)
una caravana
caravan
¿se puede acampar aquí?
can one camp here?
¿se puede beber el agua?
can one drink the water?
¿se puede alquilar una toalla?
can one hire a towel?
¿dónde está...?
where is...?
la piscina
swimming pool
el supermercado
supermarket
las duchas
showers / shower block
los servicios
toilets / toilet block
los cubos de la basura
bins / waste disposal area
¿dónde se puede comprar...?
where can one buy...?
leche
milk
café
coffee
pan
bread
¿cómo se escribe...?
how do you spell...?
CoffeeBreakSpanish: Lesson 24 - Bonus Vocabulary
¿cómo se deletrea...?
how do you spell ...?
. (full stop / period)
punto
- (hyphen)
guión
_ (underscore)
guión bajo / subraya
: (colon)
dos puntos
/ (slash)
barra
mi dirección de correo electrónico es
my email is...
mi email es...
my email is...
juan-carlos.lorca@mail.com
j-u-a-n (guión) c-a-r-l-o-s (punto) l-o-r-ca (arroba) m-a-i-l (punto) com
Please note that any email addresses given in the printed or recorded version of this lesson are intended
as examples only and are not intended to reflect any real people or email addresses.
Coffee Break Spanish: Lesson 24
page 4