NIS Beginners 003 - Tu Ciudad

Hello and welcome to Inspire Beginners by Notes in Spanish. This is Marina Diez and I'm here with Ben Curtis. 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 uh keeping one step ahead of the verb tables and the textbook.

by bringing you some real Spanish and every episode uh a few special words that are gonna make you sound like a ca well, like a Spanish speaker, basically, even though you think you're only a beginner. So, uh we've got some more real audio coming up later on in the podcast. Marina, what are we gonna talk about today? We are going to talk about Madrid. And we are going to talk about describing your city. And also come a bit of vocabulary to compare two places. Okay.

First of all, as usual, we're gonna do a bit of quick revision from the last podcast, uh, just so that you can remember all the cool stuff we learnt there. So um we're gonna start off with a couple of really useful constructions that we learnt. Uh the first one was to talk about things that you're gonna 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 eat

And plus the infinitive. So, for example, it would be Vamos a comprar un CD. We're going to buy a C D. Okay, come on, let's hear that again because your accent is phenomenal. Vamos a comprar un C D. Okay, um so what about uh I'm going to eat with my mother? Voy a comer con mi madre. Exactly. So boy a blast infinitive. So that's talking about the future, but we also looked at a way of talking about things that you have to do. Um now construction was tener, the verb to have.

with ke and an infinitive uh so for example how would you say I have to go to the doctor tengo que ir al medico tengo which is uh the first person singular of ten Kiral Medico I have to go to the doctor. Okay, what about I remember we were saying that uh I had to do a bit of shopping before we go off to Thailand and I need some shorts. How would you say uh I have to buy some shorts?

Tengo que comprar unos pantalones cortos. Yep, tengo que, with the verb comprar to buy, tengo que compra unos pantalones cortos. ¡Fantastic! Right, now there was our super Spanish uh how to sound really Spanish word from the last podcast was uh a word you use when somebody asks you to do something that you don't want to do, when something's a real pain. Can you remember what it was? Marina, it was Que rollo. Exactly. Uh 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 asks me to clean the oven and I say que rollo. Ah, yes. And then I leave the building rapidly.

Okay, so that's the bit of a revision. Um today we've got some more really useful uh phrases for you as well. Um so it's time to prepare for the first part of today's audio. Marina, um How would you say in Spanish, uh how would you ask what something's like? Whatever. For example, we are going to be talking about cómo es Madrid. What is Madrid like? Yep. ¿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?

Um and of course when you're answering that, what might you answer? How might you start a sentence, Como es Madrid? S. Ruidosa. Exactly. So just S it is. 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. Um another phrase you'll be hearing a lot or another word is I H A Y. What does that mean? Okay, extremely useful. So for example you a lot of cars in the city, hay muchos coches.

Right, so just a bit more preparation. What else are we going to be talking about? Uh we've said the noise ruido, it's very noisy, ruidoso. Uh also traffic which in Spanish is Traffico what else? The museums And today's one of today's Star Super Spanish words is nightlife. Uh now a great way of talking about nightlife is to talk about la marcha. Mm-hmm. 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 to go into the nightlife, to to go out really Okay, so look out for that word marcha when we're talking about the bars and also um favorite places, how would you say uh what's your favorite place en Madrid?¿Cuál es tu sitio favorito en Madrid? Okay, we're gonna be telling you that in a second. So here comes the first part of today's Real Spanish Conversation. Marina y yo vivimos in Madrid, la capital de España. Marina,¿cómo 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. 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 is 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. I think in Madrid there are thousands of bars. y la gente sale mucho. Por la noche, hay mucha marcha. Sí. 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 Major, una plaza

Que tiene cuatrocientos años 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. Mm-hmm. Uh one thing I wanted to highlight was that when Marina and I are speaking, uh like all Spanish people, you'll hear these these words like pues and you say bueno. Okay, now these are just natural pauses while you're thinking of what you're gonna say next. So often you'll hear Pues yo creo que I think or

Bueno, depende. Well it depends. Um and if you can slip a few pues or depende into your conversation as well, then guaranteed you're sounding Spanish already. Okay, another top tip for today.

Right, so what are we gonna do in the second part of the uh 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 where I was born. Yeah. Luckily I've been living in Madrid now for nine years, nearly. But yeah, originally I am an Oxford m person from England.

Okay, um so we're gonna be talking about the diferences between the two cities. How would you say how would you ask somebody what's the difference between, for example, Oxford and Madrid? Okay, and then some really useful language for comparing things. Okay, so for example how would you say Oxford is bigger than Madrid? No, let's get this right, Madrid is bigger than Oxford Oxford.

So the construction is um mas adjective plus ke and we have the same constructions with less. Mm hmm. So if it was the other way round, starting with Oxford Oxford tiene menos habitantes que Madrid. Oxford has got less inhabitants than Madrid, exactly. But uh we can also change the way we use these to exaggerate even more. So if we want to say m Madrid is a lot of the other, Más grande que Oxford. Okay. Perfect. Right then, let's listen to part two of today's audio.

Pues Madrid es bastante más grande que Oxford. Madrid es mucho más grande que Oxford, porque Oxford tiene doscientos mil 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

Eh, 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. Porque llueve mucho más en Inglaterra que en España. aquí hace mucho calor pero no todo el año porque en Madrid como es el tiempo en invierno en invierno hace bastante frío En verano mucho calor en Madrid. En verano hace más calor en Madrid que en Oxford. Mucho más.

¿Y tu cuál prefieres, Oxford o Madrid? Madrid. Ahora vivo en Madrid y me encanta Madrid.¿Y tu? Yo Madrid. Claro, porque eres madrileña. So that's Oxford and Madrid. Now both these cities in my eyes have one big problem not a player. There's no beach and in fact there's a really famous song uh from the eighties, do you think? No. Early nineties. Okay, about the fact that Madrid doesn't have a beach and Marina is now gonna sing a No, come on, how does it go? Aqui no hay playa. Vaya, vaya.

It's a very simple song but it could be a good one to have an idea of how much it is so you can find it online and read the lyrics. So what was it? In Madrid Noy Playa. Okay, there's no beach in Madrid. Uh Bahia Baya Valla. Now Bahia is another way of sounding very Spanish. Uh Baya in this case means um Oh dear or what a pity. What a pity. So for example, imagine somebody says to you uh the party's been cancelled tonight, you might say. Yep. Uh but the Bayer word means

Oh dear in itself. Or imagine you arrive at the door to your house and you realise you've left your keys in the office, you might say Vaya, no tengo las llaves. Oh no, I haven't got my keys. Okay, so baya, that's another one of these sort of super secret Spanish words. Well not super secret, but uh certainly they might not be telling you in the textbook. But slip the odd baya into conversation and sound very Spanish.

Alright, 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? Como es Madrid? Como es Nueva York? What's New York like? But of course you can use it for anything. What's your house like would be Como es tu casa? What's your car like? Como es tu coche. Okay and on and on and on. Um 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 there's another very useful three-letter word. Ay. I H A Y. There is or there are. There are lots of parks in Madrid. Okay, perfect. So the other thing we've seen is uh language to make comparisons. So for example, más grande que uh Once again, Madrid is bigger than Oxford. Madrid is mas grande que Oxford. Okay. And the opposite of course is menos adjective K. So for example, Oxford is less noisy than Madrid.

Oxford es menos ruidoso que Madrid. Okay, perfect. How about m a lot less noisy? mucho menos ruidoso. Oxford es mucho menos ruidoso. ¡Qué Madrid! And let me add another one that I've used during the audio today, which is Bastante, which is like quite... So it's quite a lot less noisy than Madrid. Okay, fantastic. And the sort of a very Spanish piece of vocabulary, uh marcha meaning. 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. Where can I find the marcha? Yep, I've actually used that myself and uh it's Extremely useful. ¿Dónde está la marcha? Which would be even better. Sorry. ¿Dónde está la marcha? Right then. And finally we talked about using words like pues and bueno as natural pauses in conversation, uh, while you're thinking. And by ya as oh dia, what a pity. Yep. Brilliant. Okay.

So if you want some homework, uh que arroyo, uh well the first thing you could do is get into Google and have a look for the lyrics. Uh to It's a sentiment that I express often. Vaya in Madrid, no, no. Vaya vaya. Aquí no hay playa. What a pity there's no beach in Madrid. I think it every day. Great. And another possibility for homework would be to

login on our forums via notesinspanish.com and there describe how is your city like and if you want what is your city like? Sorry so I always get that one confused. And also you can compare it to another place if you like. Yep. Okay. Remember that uh there is a worksheet available for today's podcast which has got the transcript of the Spanish portions of the uh of the podcast where Marina and I talk in Spanish.

uh with a translation as well and also all the key vocabulary that we've been to today, been through and language, um a vocab building exercise and uh an extra bit of super cool Spanish. Okay, we'll see you next week. Bye. Bye bye. Hey it's Ben here and before we get going with today's Spanish-packed episode, I just wanted to let you know about something very special. Our free PDF report, 15 Spanish slang phrases every intermediate learner must know. Plus 8 secrets.

Real fluency. Now, these slang phrases, they're not just for intermediates. Whatever level you're at, they're going to make a huge difference to your Spanish, and they're going to make Native Spanish speakers say to you, Que bien hablas español. Wow, your Spanish is amazing. You speak super well. So to get hold of that free report and uh the eight secrets to real fluency and also our free real Spanish newsletter, all you have to do is go right now to notsinspanish.com slash real.

That's notes in Spanish dot com slash read. A L as in the real Spanish you're gonna. In this great report. So come and get 15 Spanish slang phrases every intermediate learner must know. And 8 secrets to Real Fluency right now, notesinspanish.com/slash real. Gracias.