NIS Beginners 003 - Tu Ciudad

Hello and welcome to Inspire Beginners by Notes in Spanish. This is Marina Dief and I'm here with Ben Cortes. Hello Marina, how are you? I'm very well. Good and yes we hope and know that you are inspired beginners. This is the podcast which is keeping one step ahead of the verb tables and the textbook by bringing you some real Spanish and every episode a few special words that are going to make you sound like a Spanish speaker basically even though you think you're only a beginner. So we've got some more real audio coming up later on in the podcast Marina what are we going to talk about today? We are going to talk about Madrid and we are going to talk about describing your city and also a bit of vocabulary to compare two places. Okay first of all as usual we're going to do a bit of quick revision from the last podcast just so that you can remember all the cool stuff we learnt there. So we're going to start off with a couple of really useful constructions that we learnt. The first one was to talk about things that you're going to do in the future, future plans in a very easy way without having to learn that entire future tense. Using the present of the verb "ir" and "plast infinitive". So for example it would be "vamos a comprar un cd". We're going to buy a CD. Okay come on let's hear that again because your accent is phenomenal. "Vamos a comprar un cd". Okay so what about I'm going to eat with my mother. "Voy a comer con mi madre". Exactly so "voy a" plus infinitive. So that's talking about the future but we also looked at a way of talking about things that you have to do. Now construction was tenair the verb to have with "k" and an infinitive. So for example how would you say "I have to go to the doctor". "Tengo que ir al médico". "Tengo" which is the first person singular of tenair. "K" "ir al médico" I have to go to the doctor. Okay what about I remember we were saying that I had to do a bit of shopping before we go off to Thailand and I need some shorts. How would you say "I have to buy some shorts". "Tengo que comprar unos pantalones cortos". "Tengo que" with the verb "comprar" to buy. Fantastic! Right now there was a super Spanish how to sound really Spanish word from the last podcast was a word you use when somebody asked you to do something that you don't want to do when something is a real pain. Can you remember what it was? Marina it was. "Que rollo". Exactly. If you're still studying, if your teacher gives you homework, "Que rollo". I don't know. If you have to clean the house, "Que rollo". Yeah every now and again Marina asked me to clean the oven and I say "Que rollo". Then I leave the building rapidly. Okay so that's the bit of revision. Today we've got some more really useful phrases for you as well. So it's time to prepare for the first part of today's audio. Marina how would you say in Spanish? How would you ask what something's like? "Cómo es whatever". For example we are going to ask you about we are going to be talking about "Cómo es Madrid". What is Madrid like? "Cómo es". Okay so "Cómo es Madrid". "Cómo es tu hermana". What's your sister like for example? "Cómo es tu casa". What's your house like? And of course when you're answering that, what might you answer? How might you start a sentence? "Cómo es Madrid". "Es ruidosa". Exactly so I just "es". "Es", yeah and "Ridosa" is an adjective that means it's very noisy. Yeah we'll be hearing that one in a minute because Madrid is very noisy. Another phrase you'll be hearing a lot or another word is "ay", "ay", "ay", "ay". What does that mean? There is or there are. Okay extremely useful, just one word. So for example you'll hear us say there's a lot of cars in the city. How would you say that? "Hay muchos coches". Perfect. Right so just a bit more preparation. What else are we going to be talking about? We've said the noise. "Rido". It's very noisy. "Ridoso". Also traffic which in Spanish is. "Trafico". Okay. "Trafic jams". "Atasco". What else the museums? "Museos". And today's one of today's star super Spanish words is "nightlife". Now a great way of talking about nightlife is to talk about la marcha. How would you pronounce that? "La marcha". How did I pronounce it? Very well. Oh good. But you can also say "ir de marcha". To go into the nightlife. To go really. You could say "bamos de marcha". Okay so look out for that word "marcha" when we're talking about the bars. And also favorite places. How would you say what's your favorite place in Madrid? "Cuál es tu sitio favorito en Madrid?" Okay we're going to be telling you that in a second. So here comes the first part of today's real Spanish conversation. "Marina y yo bebimos en Madrid la capital de España". "Marina, como es Madrid?" "Es una ciudad bastante grande. Tiene aproximadamente cuatro millones y medio de habitantes". "Y yo creo que cada habitante tiene un coche". "No". "Puf, hay mucho tráfico en Madrid". "Sí, hay mucho tráfico, pero no todos los habitantes tienen un coche". "Pero por la mañana hay muchos atascos". "Sí, y mucho ruido también". "Sí, Madrid es una ciudad muy ruidosa". "Y vienen muchos turistas a Madrid". "Sí, principalmente vienen a ver los museos de Madrid". "El más importante de todos es el museo del prado". "¿Y qué más hacen los turistas en Madrid?" "Pues van a los restaurantes y los bares y les gusta comer tapas". "Yo creo que en Madrid hay miles de bares y la gente sale mucho por la noche, hay mucha marcha". "Sí, la gente queda por la noche para tomar una copa con sus amigos". "Y hasta las cuatro de la mañana o las cinco". "Los fines de semana, sí". "Y los lunes". "No". "¿Y cuál es tu sitio favorito en Madrid?" "El parque del retiro es un parque en el centro de la ciudad y es muy bonito". "Pues, mi sitio favorito es la plaza mayor, una plaza que tiene 400 años". "Sí, y muy bonita la plaza". "Y con mucho ambiente". "Sí, mucho ruido como todo la ciudad". "So now you know a little bit about my city". "One thing I wanted to highlight was that when Marina and I are speaking like all Spanish people, you'll hear these words like "pues" and you say "bueno". "Ok, and these are just natural pauses while you're thinking of what you're going to say next". "So often you're here". "Pues, yo creo que", "I think" or "bueno, depende". "Well, it depends". "And if you can slip a few "pues" or "depende" into your conversation as well, then "garanteed", "you're sounding Spanish already". "Ok, another top tip for today". "Right, so what are we going to do in the second part of the podcast". "Right, in the second part we are going to speak about the differences of Madrid and Oxford, which is the place that been comes from". "Mhm, where I was born, yep, luckily I've been living in Madrid now for nine years, nearly, but yeah originally I am an Oxford person from England". "Ok, so we're going to be talking about the differences between the two cities". "How would you say, how would you ask somebody what's the difference between, for example, Oxford and Madrid". "Cuáles son las diferencias entre Oxford y Madrid". "Ok, and then some really useful language for comparing things". "Ok, so for example, how would you say Oxford is bigger than Madrid". "No, let's get this right, Madrid is bigger than Oxford". "Madrid is más grande que Oxford". "So the construction is, "más plus adjetiv plus que, and we have the same constructions with less". "Mhm, so if it was the other way around starting with Oxford". "Oxford tiene menos habitantes que Madrid". "Oxford has got less inhabitants than Madrid, exactly, but we can also change the way we use these to exaggerate even more. So if we want to say Madrid is a lot bigger than Oxford, how would we say that? "Madrid es mucho más grande que Oxford". "Ok, perfect, right then let's listen to part two of today's audio". "Marina es madrelenña, viene de Madrid, yo originalmente soy de Oxford en Inglaterra". "Marina ¿Cuáles son las diferencias entre Oxford y Madrid? Pues Madrid es bastante más grande que Oxford. Madrid es mucho más grande que Oxford, porque Oxford tiene 200.000 habitantes. Y Oxford tiene mucho menos coches también. Sí, pero tiene muchas más bicicletas. En Madrid nadie usa la bicicleta, porque es muy peligroso, porque hay mucho tráfico. Pero en Oxford todo el mundo tiene bicicleta, creo. También en Oxford hay muchos estudiantes. Claro, porque Oxford es muy famoso por su universidad. Y hay mucha marcha en Oxford. Creo que hay más marcha en Madrid. Pero yo creo que Oxford es más bonito que Madrid, porque es muy verde. Es mucho más verde, sí. ¿Por qué? Porque llueve mucho más en Inglaterra que en España. Siempre está yo viendo en Inglaterra. Aquí hace mucho calor, pero no todo el año, porque en Madrid como es el tiempo en invierno. En invierno hace bastante frío. Sí, en verano mucho calor en Madrid, en verano hace más calor en Madrid que en Oxford. Mucho más, sí. ¿Y tú cuál prefieres Oxford o Madrid? Madrid, ahora vivo en Madrid y me encanta Madrid. ¿Y tú? Yo Madrid. Claro, porque eres Madrid leña. Eso es Oxford en Madrid. Ahora, todos estos sitios, en mi vida, tienen un gran problema. No hay playa, no hay bici, y en fact, hay una muy famosa canción de los 80s, ¿no? No, en los 90s. Ok, sobre la facta que Madrid no tiene bici, y Marino es ahora una singa. No, no, no, no, no, ¿cómo es esto? Aquí no hay playa, vaya, vaya. Ok. Es muy simple. Pero puede ser una buena idea para tener una idea de cómo es Madrid. Así que puedes encontrarlo en el límite y ver el límite. Entonces, ¿qué es el Madrid no hay playa? Ok. No hay bici en Madrid, vaya, vaya, vaya. Ahora, vaya. Es una manera de ser muy español. Vía, en este caso, es una idea o. ¿Qué pidi? ¿Qué pidi? Por ejemplo, imagín, somebody says to you, the party's been canceled tonight, you might say. vaya, ¿qué pena? Yep. ¿Qué pena? What a shame. But the baya word means "odir" in itself, or imagine you arrive at the door to your house, and you realize you've left your keys in the office, you might say. vaya. No tengo las llaves. Oh no, I haven't got my keys. Ok, so baya. That's another one of these sort of super secret Spanish words, or not super secret, but certainly they might not be telling you in the textbook, but slip your baya into conversation and sound very Spanish. All right, Marina, so quick summary, what have we seen today? Well, we've seen a language to describe a city, and the question associated would be cómo es. your city, cómo es Madrid, cómo es Nueva York, what's New York like, but of course you can use it for anything, what's your house like, would be. cómo es tu casa? what's your car like? cómo es tu coche? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, and then of course the answer usually starts "es muy grande", it's very big, "es muy ruidoso", it's very noisy, "es muy bonito". And of course it's a very useful three-letter word, "ay", "ay", "hay", "y", "de rí" or "de rar". There are lots of parks in Madrid. Hay muchos parques en Madrid. Ok, perfect. So the other thing we've seen is language to make comparisons, so for example, "mas grande", "que", "once again Madrid is bigger than Oxford". Madrid es más grande que Oxford. Ok, and the opposite, of course, is "menos adjictive". Ok, so for example, "Oxford is less noisy than Madrid". Oxford es menos ruidoso que Madrid. Ok, perfect. ¿How about a lot less noisy? Mucho menos ruidoso. Ok, so the whole sentence. Oxford es mucho menos ruidoso que Madrid. And let me add another one that I've used during the audio today, which is bastante, which is like "quite", "es bastante menos ruidoso que Madrid". So it's quite a lot less noisy than Madrid. Ok, fantastic. And the sort of a very Spanish piece of vocabulary, "marcha", meaning, like "night life". So could you just turn up in the city center of any Spanish city, find a local and say "dónde está la marcha"? Sí, of course. Ok. That would be a very good question to us, please, where can I find the marcha? Yep. ¿Dónde pueden encontrar la marcha? Yep, I've actually used that myself and it's extremely useful. ¿Dónde está la marcha, which could be even better? Sorry. ¿Dónde está la marcha? Ok. Right then. And finally, we talked about using words like "pues" and "bueno", as natural pauses in conversation while you're thinking. ¿Ambaya, as audio, what a pity? Yep. Brilliant. Ok. Remember that there is a worksheet available for today's podcast, which has got the transcript of the Spanish portions of the podcast, where Marino and I talk in Spanish, with the translation as well, and also all the key vocabulary that we've been through today, been through and language. I've both kept building exercise and an extra bit of super cool Spanish. Ok. We'll see you next week. Bye. Bye-bye.