Lesson Eight: Por qué, venir and debo
How to ask 'Why?', the verb to come and how to say 'I must'
Masculine and Feminine
Up until now we've used 'lo' to say 'it'.
 Spanish |  English |
|---|---|
| Voy a confiscarlo | I am going to confiscate it |
| Voy a examinarlo | I am going to examine it |
But Spanish, like most European languages, has Masculine and Feminine words so:
- lo means 'him' or 'it' for masculine words
- la means 'her' or 'it' for feminine words
'Casa' in Spanish means 'house' and it is a feminine word so if we were talking about a house we would say:
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Quiero verla | I want to see it |
But it could also mean:
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Quiero verla | I want to see her |
What 'la' means, or what it refers to, will all depend on the context of the conversation it is used in.
Learning which words are feminine and which are masculine is always a grind for English speakers but there are some short cuts in Spanish. Words which end in 'a' (like 'Casa') are almost always feminine. As always there are some exceptions but if you start here you'll get it right most of the time.
So now we have
- 'lo' - meaning 'him', 'it' (masculine words) ... or 'you' if you are talking to a male person formally.
- 'la' - meaning 'her', 'it' (feminine words) ... or 'you' if you are talking to a female person formally.
- 'los' - meaning 'them' (a group of people who are all male or female and male / a group of objects whose name is masculine) ... or 'you' if you are talking to a group of males (or males and females) formally.
- 'las' - meaning 'them' (a group of people who are all female / a group of objects whose name is feminine) ... or 'you' if you are talking to a group of females formally.
That might seem pretty wide ranging but it actually keeps things pretty simple when learning how to say various sentences because meaning will always depend on context.
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Quiero verla | I want to see it |
| Quiero verla | I want to see her |
| Quiero verla | I want to see you (formal) |
Formal and informal
As English speakers we often think that it is only European languages that have formal and informal versions of 'you' but we do have it as well.
- Formal - "Does sir want the hat?"
- Informal - "Do you want the hat?"
When we use the formal we use the same version of the verb as if we are sayiing he / she / it - "Does she want the hat?". So this is always a good way to remember how to say verbs when speaking formally.
Use of the formal language varies depending where you are in the Spanish world and who you are speaking to (formal is often the default for younger people speaking to older people) but its quite possible you might end up somewhere where the formal is almost never used.
Its worth learning though because even if you are looking to move to some region where the people don't speak it, it is often the default form used on radio and television.
As a general rule its best to start all conversations in the formal and see how the other person reacts. If they reply using Informal you can use it as well!
So while 'quiero' means I want, 'quiere' means "it wants", "he wants", "she wants" or "you (formal) wants".
This banding together - where the verb form is the same for it/he/she/you (formal) is true of all Spanish verbs as we'll see when we come across new verbs.
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Quiere visitarme | You (formal) want to visit me |
| Quiere visitarme | He wants to visit me |
| Quiere visitarme | She wants to visit me |
Again understanding if we are talking about you/he/she/it will usually come from the context of the conversation.
Creating questions
Making a statement into a question is beautifully simple in Spanish. There is no changing of the word order or adding things like "Do". We simply say the statement as a question:
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Quiere visitarme? | Do you (formal) want to visit me |
| Quiere visitarme? | Does he want to visit me |
| Quiere visitarme? | Does she want to visit me |
Negative Statements
To change the meaning of a sentence from positive to negative we just add 'no' to the front.
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| No quiere visitarme | You (formal) don't want to visit me |
| No quiere visitarme | He doesn't want to visit me |
| No quiere visitarme | She doesn't want to visit me |
And the question form is the same, just with the question pronounciation:
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Quiere visitarme? | Don't you (formal) want to visit me |
| Quiere visitarme? | Doesn't he want to visit me |
| Quiere visitarme? | Doesn't she want to visit me |
Por qué is why and porque is because
The Spanish for "Why?" and "Because" are both pronounced the same way but written slightly differently. "Why" is two words - por qué. "Because" is one word and no accent - porque. They are both made of of two individual words:
- Por - for
- Qué - what (you'll be very familiar with this word if you ever watched Faulty Towers!)
So "Why" is actually "For What" and so is "because"!
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Por qué no quiere visitarme? | Why don't you (formal) want to visit me |
| Por qué no quiere visitarme? | Why doesn't he want to visit me |
| Por qué no quiere visitarme? | Why doesn't she want to visit me |
Venir - to come
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Quiere venir? | Do you (formal) want to come |
| Quiere venir a la casa? | Do you (formal) want to come to the house |
| Quiere venir a visitarme? | Do you (formal) want to come to visit me |
| No quiere venir a visitarme? | Don't you (formal) want to come to visit me |
| Por qué no quiere venir a visitarme? | Why don't you (formal) want to come to visit me |
You probably already know venir without realizing it. The Spanish for "Welcome" is 'Bienvenido'. 'Bien' means well (as in "all is well", "it's good"). 'Venido' comes from venir so that's a good hook for remembering this verb.
Debo - I owe / I must
In English we have a similar word - "debt" - which relates to owing someone something so you can remember Debo this way (another latin one!).
In Spanish I owe can also mean I must so ...
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Debo continuar | I must continue |
| Debo identificarlo | I must identify it |
| Debo identificarlos | I must identify them |
| Debo identificarlas | I must identify them (feminine words) |
Remember we don't need to learn identificar (we've never seen it before) but we simply know it because there is a 'tion' version of identify in English so we can drop the 'tion', add the 'r' and we have the Spanish verb.
We also saw above how to refer to 'them' in two different ways. If we were talking about houses (las casas - feminine) we would use 'las' but if any masculine word is involved we would use 'los'.
Lesson Nine: Saber, si and long sentences