Estructuras

Tú y Gael conocen a Marta, una puertorriqueña que te cuenta sobre la historia de su pueblo, Vieques. Escucha la grabación donde Marta describe su juventud y como es crecer en la pequeña isla de Vieques.
 
 
Did you notice in listening to Marta’s story how she used the preterite and the imperfect? Go back and listen again: what verbs can you hear in the preterite? In the imperfect? It is very challenging to know when to use one or the other. One way to help us, as we have already learned is by using adverbios de tiempo. Another way, is to think about events happening on a timeline. We can look at the timeline below and see “sudden” events (the preterite) on the top of the timeline, and “descriptive” events (the imperfect) on the bottom of the timeline.
 
 
Marta’s story also showed the use of the “personal ‘a’” in Spanish. We looked briefly at this Spanish grammar point in Unit 4, however, we can review when we use it here.
 
Remember: in Spanish, when people are the direct objects of verbs, we need to place an ‘a’ in front of them. The direct objects are the people/things that receive an action. The personal ‘a’ is only used when the object receiving the action is a person.
 
In Marta’s examples, she said:
Conocí a todos mis mejores amigos aquí.
Who did she meet? All of her best friends (people).
Visitaba a los abuelos y veía a los primos…
Who did she visit? Her grandparents (people). Who did she see? Her cousins (people).
Ayudaba a la familia con el trabajo del mercado de nuestro barrio.
Who did she help? Her family (people).
 
Let’s look at some different examples with verbs that are often accompanied by a personal ‘a’.
 
Veo a mi madre los lunes. Veo la televisión los lunes.
Ricardo llama a su esposa mucho. Ricardo llama para la oficina mucho.
Los niños visitan a los abuelos cada verano. Los niños visitan el zoológico cada verano.
Ella quiere mucho a Fernando. Ella quiere nadar en el mar.
Conozco a tu hermana, Lali. Conozco el pueblo de tu hermana, Lali.
Practiquemos en la siguiente página.