Lesson 23: Words ending 'ma' and Sentir

In this lesson we'll look at why words ending 'ma' are masculine (even thought they end in 'a') and the verb 'Sentir'

But lets recap first on how to talk about the past using the present tense with 'Haber'.

We covered how we can find the various forms of the verb by using the two vowel sounds in the verb - 'a' and 'e'.

Spanish	English
Haber	To have [done/had]
He	I have [done/had]
Hemos	We have [done/had]
He terminado	I've finished
Ha	He has [done/had]
Has	You have [done/had]
Han	They have [done/had]

We'll put this to use in a minute. But first we need to cover what looks like an anomily.

Words ending 'ma' are masculine

We said in an earlier method if you simply remember nouns ending 'a' are feminine you would be right most of the time - 'la casa' ("the house").

Thre is an exception to this rule but it is a consistant one. Words ending 'ma' are masculine.

There is a reason for this. These words have their roots in Greek and Greek has a nuetral form which looks a little like the Spanish masculine form. So when these words were sucked in from Greek at some time in the ancient past they were sucked in to Spanish or Latin as masculine words.

Spanish	English
El problema	The Problem
Ha entendido el problema	Have you (formal) understood the problem
El systema	The system
Has entendido el systema	Have you (informal) understood the system
El programa	The program
Has entendido el programa	Have you (informal) understood the program
El panorama	The panorama
El clima	The climate

Sentir - to feel (emotionally)

You can remember this one via the English word "Sensation".

'Sentir' is also used when we are talking about smell and when you think about "Sensation" and "sense" that makes sense (excuse the pun!) because smell is one of our senses.

Spanish	English
¿Has sentido el aroma?	Have you (informal) smelt the aroma?

Note the 'ma' word here which makes it masculine.

More on reflexive verbs

We started talking earlier about verbs where we specify "ourself" or "yourself".

Spanish	English
Me preparo	I'm getting ready

The 'me' here is "myself" and we need it because 'preparo' would simply mean "I prepare" or "I am preparing" so we need to specify what you are preparing".

Its totally possible in English to say "I'm preparing myself" and we do use it but perhaps as a more elegant or dramatic way of saying "I'm getting ready".

Where we have verbs in Spanish that include this possiblility to specify "myself" these verbs are called reflexive.

Most of the time you can guess if the verb is reflexive by thinking if you could use "myself" in some way in the English form but there are a few which lie outside this like 'perder' - "to lose".

Spanish	English
Me he perdido	I have got lost

In Spanish we are saying "I have lost myself" in the same way that we might say "I have lost it"

You also probably heard how the 'he' became totally lost when the sentence was spoken - something very common when the sound at the end of one word matches the sound at the beginning of the next one.

Yo and me, Tú and Te.

So we can clearly see 'me' means "myself" and can also mean "me" depending on where it is used.

'Tú' means "you" and 'te' can mean "yourself" and "you" in certain circumstances.

Spanish	English
Te has perdido	You have got lost

Remember here the 'Te' doesn't truly mean you, the literal translation is "You have lost yourself" with the "yourself coming at the beginning of the sentence.

If you wanted to make a real point about how the person has lost themselves you can also add the 'Tú'.

Spanish	English
Tú te has perdido	You have got lost
Tú te has perdido	You have got lost

The English translation remains the same because the fact we are talking about "you" is covered by using 'has' so adding 'Tú' is done just to emphasize the point.

So if we are talking about "myself" and "yourself" almost as objects its pretty easy to jump to being able to talk about how we have lost something.

Spanish	English
Lo hemos perdido	We have lost it
Nos hemos perdido	We have got lost

Lesson 24: Dar (to give) and Ustedes