Lesson 2 | Greetings

Thank you! Gracias

Hola! Lesson 2 on Basic Spanish!

Do you remember?

English Hello/ Hi! Good morning! Good afternoon!/evening!

Spanish Hola! Buenos das! Buenas tardes!

Good night!

Buenas noches!

Do you remember?
Good morning = Buenos das! (masculine) But Good afternoon = Buenas tardes! (feminine) Adjectives take male and female forms depending on the gender of the subject Since das is masculine we used Buenos and tardes is feminine hence we use Buenas

Do you remember?

We always use plural forms for greetings like Good morning = Buenos das! Good afternoon = Buenas tardes!

Both das and tardes are plural hence an 's' is added

Lesson objectives

Greetings and pleasantries

Greetings
The first greeting we will look at is 'Welcome' - used when welcoming someone to your house The Spanish word for 'welcome' is a combination of two words Welcome = Well + coming / arrival

Well = Bien coming / arrival = venido (for males)/ venida (for females)

Greetings

Welcome
(welcoming someone to your house)

Bienvenido (welcoming a male) Bienvenida (welcoming a female)

So remember!

When welcoming a female, use Bienvenida When welcoming a male, use Bienvenido Remember, we end with 'a' for feminine forms and 'o' for masculine!

Moving on...

Let's look at the forms of 'Welcome' if we were to welcome a group of people

Greetings

Welcome
(welcoming someone to your house)

Bienvenidos (group of males/ mixed group) Bienvenidas (group of females)

So remember!
Remember, we add an 's' at the end for plural forms! When welcoming a group of men / mixed group use Bienvenidos When welcoming a group of women use Bienvenidas

Moving on...

Let's now look at : Nice to meet you

Greetings

The common phrase for 'Nice to meet you' literally translates to 'Much pleasure' in Spanish

Greetings

Much = Mucho Pleasure = Gusto

Pronunciation tip Did you notice the pronunciation of 'mucho'? We earlier learnt that 'h' is always silent in Spanish... However when combined with c it is pronounced as 'ch' as in 'church'

As we saw...

Nice to meet you

Mucho gusto

Literally : Much pleasure Mucho = Much Gusto = Pleasure

Moving on...

Let's now look at how we will say 'sorry' in Spanish...

Greetings

Sorry

Lo siento

Do you remember?

English Welcome Nice to meet you Sorry

Spanish Bienvenido(s)/Bienvenida(s) Mucho gusto Lo siento

Moving on... Lets move forward and look at how we say excuse me in Spanish Just like in English, excuse me may be used for two purposes either to beg pardon or to seek someones attention

Lets look at both these forms...

Greetings

Excuse me
(begging pardon)

Perdn

Greetings

Excuse me!
(seeking attention)

Disclpeme!

Grammar tip

Disclpeme! is pronounced as Dee-skool-pe-me

With the sound of 'pe' like in 'pet' and 'me' like in 'met'

Moving on...

Let's now look at 'please'

Greetings

Please

Por favor

Por = For Favor = Favour Literally : Asking for favor

Let's revise!

English Welcome Nice to meet you Sorry Excuse me (begging pardon)

Spanish Bienvenido(s)/Bienvenida(s) Mucho gusto Lo siento Perdn

Excuse me! (seeking attention)

Please

Disclpeme!
Por favor

Greetings

Thank you

Gracias

Pronunciation tip

There's a key difference in how 'Gracias' is pronounced in Europen Spanish vs. Latin American Spanish 'C' when followed by e/i is pronounced as 'the/thi' in European Spanish and 'se/si' in Latin American Spanish

Pronunciation tip

Hence we will say 'Gra-thee-as' in European Spanish and 'Gra-see-as' in Latin American Spanish

Moving on...

Let's now look at 'Fine, thank you' 'Fine' translates to 'Bien' in Spanish

Greetings

Fine, thank you

Bien, gracias

Bien = Fine/ Well

Pronunciation tip

Again, we say 'Bien, gra-thee-as' in Europe and 'Bien, gra-see-as' in Latin America

Moving on...

Now that you know how to say 'thank you' let's also look at how we reply to 'thank you'

Moving on...

In Spanish, 'You're welcome' or the reply to 'Thank you' literally translates to 'It's nothing' or 'Of nothing' loosely meaning 'Don't thank me for anything' Of = De Nothing = Nada

Greetings

Youre welcome
(reply to thank you)

De nada

De = Of, Nada = Nothing Literally : 'it's nothing' / 'of nothing' meaning 'don't thank me for anything'

Moving on...

Let's now look at the final greeting for the day : Bye!

Greetings

Bye!

Adis!

Also translated as Hasta luego! which means 'Until then!'

Pronunciation tip

Did you notice the accent on the '' in Adis! If a word is marked with an accent, then that syllable receives the stress

Culturally Speaking

An informal alternative to Adis! in some areas is Chao!

Do you remember?

Excuse me! (seeking attention)

Solution

Excuse me!

Disclpeme!

Try yourself

Bye!

Solution

Bye!

!Adis!

Try yourself

Sorry

Solution

Sorry

Lo siento

Do you remember?

Please

Solution

Please

Por favor

Do you remember?

You're welcome (in reply to Thank you)

Solution

You're welcome

De nada

Do you remember?

Nice to meet you

Solution

Nice to meet you

Mucho gusto

Do you remember?

Excuse me (begging pardon)

Greetings

Excuse me
(begging pardon)

Perdn

As we saw!
English
Welcome Nice to meet you Sorry Excuse me (begging pardon)

Spanish
Bienvenido(s)/Bienvenida(s) Mucho gusto Lo siento Perdn

Excuse me! (seeking attention)

Please Bye! Thank you Fine, thank you You're welcome

Disclpeme!
Por favor Adis! Gracias Bien, gracias De nada

Culture leaf Some English subtleties / polite words are not as widely used in Spanish This may make the language sound brash at first but thats not really true...

Culture leaf
Eg: You may notice that por favor isnt as widely used as please in English Instead of adding extra words (like por favor), we just turn a request into a question and its considered just as polite Eg: Abres la ventana? (Can) you (please) open the window? Although we dont really translate the please

Did you notice?

As we saw with !, did you notice the ? in Abres la ventana? In Spanish all questions start with a '' and end with a '?' The '' is used to communicate the tone of the statement (question tone) in the beginning itself

Whats next? Very well! Now that you know how to meet and greet, the next lesson will cover some essential topics needed for moving on to conversational modules
Next lesson will focus on personal pronouns and their usage with examples

Credits
Content Team CultureAlley, Okairy Zuiga, Tomasa Merino Martin

Voice over Jorge Garcia Rey

See you at the Alley!

Lesson 3 | Personal pronouns