Agreement

¡Buenos días! ¿Qué tal? 

Today's post is about agreement between words in Spanish. You definitely know what agreement is because you have learnt it in the past, but you might not know the technical name for it.

Agreement is basically a phenomenon that happens when words agree in gender (masculine and feminine) and number (singular and plural). In Spanish, a noun has to agree with the words that go with it, which are articles and adjectives.* Examples: 

un libro rojo - a red book

una casa blanca - a white house

los chicos altos - the tall boys

las chicas simpáticas - the nice girls

Of course, where there is a rule, there is an exception. Nouns and adjectives do not need to end with -o or -a. Ajectives that end with any other letter, do not change when agreeing with the noun:

un coche grande - a big car

una televisión grande - a big TV

un perro marrón - a brown dog

una gata marrón - a brown cat

Another exception is for the plural words. When the adjective ends with -e, we only need to add -s. 

un chico inteligente - a clever boy

dos chicos inteligentes - two clever boys

When the adjective goes in plural but ends with a consonant, we need to add -es.

un perro marrón - a brown dog

dos perros marrones - two brown dogs

Here are some of the most popular adjectives!

alto - tall

bajo - short

guapo - good-looking

feo - ugly

grande - big

pequeño - small

pobre - poor

rico - rich

caro - expensive

barato - cheap

útil - useful

inútil - useless

largo - long

corto - short

fuerte - strong

débil - weak

limpio - clean

sucio - dirty

feliz / contento - happy

triste - sad

interesante - interesting

aburrido - boring

blanco - white

negro - black

verde - green

azul - blue

rojo - red

amarillo - yellow

Try this quick exercise to test your agreements!

1.Lucía es una chica muy _____________ (interesting).

2.Los chicos son bastante _____________ (tall).

3.Pablo es un poco _____________ (boring).

4.El libro es _____________ (yellow).

5.Hoy estoy muy __________ (happy).

6.Laura y Penélope son chicas muy _________ (strong).

7.El coche es de color __________ (red).

8.Esta herramienta es ______________ (useful).

9.Las casas son muy ______________ (big)

10.Los libros son bastante ____________ (cheap).

Soluciones - Key

1.interesante

2.altos

3.aburrido

4.amarillo

5.feliz

6.fuertes

7.rojo

8.útil

9.grandes

10.baratos

*For more info on nouns and adjectives, don't forget to check out this other entry :) Happy learning!

How to spot synonyms in the LC Journalistic text

Prueba de comprensión auditiva - Revisión de pretéritos

 ¡Hola a todos y feliz viernes! 

Hoy he preparado un ejercicio de escucha para revisar los pasados, en concreto el pretérito indefinido, el imperfecto y el perfecto. 

Un viaje a Sevilla

Escucha la conversación y responde a las preguntas. El audio está en Youtube.

¿Verdadero o falso? 

Decide if the following statements are true or false. 

1.The speaker and her friend went to Seville last year. 

2.The owner of the house they stayed in was sixty-two years of age.

3.Adela has green eyes.

4.Adela showed them the most important monuments in the city.

5.The speaker didn’t enjoy paella.

6.That day the weather was nice. 

7.Adela, Laura and the speaker went to a concert.

8.They did not enjoy the concert.

9.The speaker has never visited the Feria de Sevilla.

10.Adela has invited the girls to stay in her house again.

¡Busca la palabra!

Find the word or expression that means…

1.She was retired.

2.We had a great time.

3.I look forward to 

Soluciones - Key

¿Verdadero o falso?

1.False. They went last summer.

2.False. She was seventy-two.

3.True.

4.True.

5.False. She said it was delicious.

6.True. She says it was not very warm, but in Seville in the summer, that means the weather is nice. 

7.False. Only the speaker and Laura went to the concert. Adela bought the tickets.

8.False. They had a blast.

9.True.

10.True.

¡Busca la palabra!

1.Estaba jubilada

2.Lo pasamos bomba

3.Espero con ilusión

Transcripción

El verano pasado, mi amiga Laura y yo fuimos a Sevilla. Nosotras no teníamos mucho dinero para alojarnos en un hotel porque no trabajábamos en ese momento, así que nos quedamos en la casa de una señora de setenta y dos años. 

La mujer se llamaba Adela. Era baja, tenía el pelo gris y los ojos verdes. Vivía con su gato Pelusa y estaba jubilada, claro. Ella hablaba mucho sobre sus hijos y sus nietos y nosotras escuchábamos las historias con mucha emoción. 

Durante nuestra visita, Adela nos enseñó los monumentos históricos más importantes como la Giralda y la Plaza de España. Un día, fuimos a un restaurante típico y comimos paella. ¡Deliciosa! Como no hacía mucho calor, dimos un paseo por el Parque de María Luisa y comimos un helado bajo un árbol. 

El último día de nuestra estancia, Adela nos regaló dos entradas para ver el concierto de Marc Anthony que actuaba en la ciudad ese mismo día. Había mucha gente en el concierto pero no nos importó. Lo pasamos bomba.

Hace dos días la señora me llamó por teléfono para invitarnos a la feria de Sevilla, que tiene lugar en abril. Yo nunca he estado en la feria, pero he oído que es una experiencia inolvidable. Como es normal, nuestra amiga sevillana nos ha invitado a quedarnos en su casa, así que ¡espero con ilusión ese viaje!

How to spot synonyms in the Leaving Certificate Journalistic text.

 ¡Hola a todos! ¿Qué tal?

In today's post I want to focus on how to find synonyms in the LC Journalistic text. This can be a rather tedious task to do, especially when you are running out of time. However, I am going to give you some tips on how to find them faster and quicker! Keep on reading :)

Let me get a little technical for a moment. In Linguistics, we use the term morphology to refer to the study of words and how they are formed. It analyzes the structure of words and its parts, such as prefixes and suffixes. It is very important to know what types of words there are in order to success in the synonym hunt. The ones we need to know are are verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs.

Verbs 

Verbs are actions: to run, to sleep, to eat... They are easily recognizable in Spanish as the infinitives end with -ar, -er, -ir. Their tenses have patterns that we can find with no problems, such as -mos for the first person plural in present tense; or -n for the third person in plural in present tense. If the exercise is asking us to spot a verb in the text, we will have to see its ending and find another verb that matches. Here are some examples: 

hablar - conversar (to talk)

hablamos - conversamos (we talk)

lavar - fregar (to wash)

lavaís - fregáis (you all wash)

The same happens in other tenses. Let's take a look at the same example in pretérito indefinido:

hablaron - conversaron (they talked)

Lavaste - fregaste (you washed)

However! Watch out for verbs that are synonyms but their endings are different, as their forms in other tenses are going to vary too!

amar - querer (to love)

amé - quise (I loved)

alertar - advertit (to alert)

alerta - advierte (he/she alerts)

ver - mirar (to look/watch)

vi - miré (I saw/watched)

Some verbs I have come across often in Journalistic texts that are worth remembering:

disminuir - reducir (to reduce)

finalizar - terminar (to finish)

admitir - reconocer (to admit)

mandar - enviar (to send)

Nouns

Nouns are objects, people and animals. In order to spot nouns, we will look for an article before the noun: 

el / la / los /las

un / una / unos / unas

Here, agreement comes into play. We need to see if the noun is singular, plural, masculine or femenine. This way, our synonyms should match:

-o

-a

-os

-as

Here are some examples: 

el paro / el desempleo (unemployment)

las reglas / las normas (the rules)

los lugares / los sitios (the places)

Of course, where there is a rule, there is an exception. Here are some synonyms that don't have the same endings:

la casa / el hogar (the home)

el hábito / la costumbre (the habit)

las consecuencias / los efectos (the consequences)

las personas / la gente (the people)

Adjectives

Adjectives describe things, the previously-learnt nouns. As above, agreement is key to finding a synonym. Is the adjective singular or plural? Masculine or feminine? For instance: 

viejo / antiguo (old)

divertido / simpático (nice)

bonita / preciosa (pretty)

Like the nouns, some synonyms might not match their endings: 

fantástico - fenomenal (great)

escondido - oculto (hidden)

sin techo - sin hogar (homeless)

Averbs

Adverbs just add some extra information to the sentence and might change the mood of it. In Spanish they tend to end with -mente but also have their synonyms, which in some cases, don't match in endings:

anualmente - cada año (anually)

actualmente - hoy en día (currently)

recientemente - últimamente (lately)

This can be also very handy when working on opinion pieces!

Expressions and connectors

In the Journalistic text, you might be asked to find something other than a verb or a noun. Expressions and connectors are also very popular. Here are some that I gather from past papers: 

en lugar de / en vez de (instead of)

después / tras / luego (after)

otra vez / de nuevo (again)

a causa de / debido a (due to, a result of)

Numbers, percentages, divisions, etc.

And to wrap it up, bear in mind that some synonyms might include figures, percentages... Here are the most popular ones: 

un tercio / un treinta y tres por ciento - a third

la mitad / el cincuenta por ciento - half

las doce / el mediodía / la medianoche - midday, midnight

un quinto / un veinte por ciento - A fifth, 20%

If you wish to learn more about synonyms, take a look at a previous post where I gathered synonyms from previous papers. Tip: Some of them appeared more than once, so they are quite popular and worth learning them!

https://beasspanishclass.blogspot.com/2022/09/lista-de-sinonimos-para-el-leaving.html

I hope you can find this useful. Any questions? Drop them down below or DM me on my socials that you can find on the right.

 

Ejemplo de Journalistic text - La nueva normalidad

 ¡Hola a todos! ¿Cómo estáis? 

Aquí quiero compartiros un ejercicio de comprensión lectora que sigue el modelo de Journalistic Text que podéis encontrar en el Leaving Certificate - Higher level. El ejercicio habla de las nuevas rutinas que tuvimos que seguir durante el confinamiento durante los años 2020 y 2021. También hay dos opinion pieces que podéis practicar. Las soluciones a las respuestas - the key - están al final de la página. Si queréis, puedo corregir vuestras opinion pieces y daros un feedback. ¡Mucha suerte! ☘️

Lista de sinónimos para el Leaving Certificate

 ¡Hola a todos y bienvenidos a la primera entrada del blog! Aquí os comparto una lista de sinónimos para el examen de Leaving Certificate que será muy útil para todos, especialmente para aquellos que optáis por el Higher Level. Durante el primer confinamiento (lockdown) revisé todos los Journalist texts de los exámenes de los últimos años y reuní todo el vocabulario importante. Aquí los podéis encontrar organizados por categorías: verbos, adjetivos, adverbios, nombres y números. ¡Espero que os guste! :)