Lesson Seven: Voy a and verbs of movement

How you can start talking about the future by learning one word and what Spanish 'verbs of movement' are all about!

First let's try putting together a sentence we think we don't know - "I want to carry on"

We don't know "carry on" but if we take some time to think about it we'll come across a different word which means the same and has a version that ends 'tion' - "continue".

From here we can drop the 'tion', add the 'r' and get the Spanish verb "Continuar" (to continue).

Spanish	English
Quiero continuar	I want to continue / carry on
Quiero continuarlo	I want to continue it
Intento continuar	I'm trying to continue

Remember if you think you forgot 'Intento' remember the hook - its like the English "Intend"

Working backwards

We can also find verbs if we here Spanish words ending 'cion'.

For example we can be fairly confident "Demostración" means "Demonstration". So we can take off the 'cion' and add an 'r' to get "Demostrar (to demonstrate).

A couple of flags here:

• Note the 'm' gets dropped in the Spanish.
• Both demostración and demostrar refer only to demonstrating something like how to work a cooker, not demonstrating as in protesting.

Spanish	English
Demostración	Demonstration
Demostrar	To demonstrate
Mostrar	To show

Algo

Algo is the Spanish word for 'something' and we can already use this in multiple ways.

Spanish	English
Quiero mostrarte algo	I want to show you something

Voy a - I'm going to .. and verbs of movement

In the previous lesson we covered 'voy' - "I'm going".

a is the Spanish for to so if we add it after 'voy' we get 'voy a - "I'm going to". This allows us to say thousand of things in the future tense!

Spanish	English
Voy a continuar	I am going to continue

Now if you have been breaking things down into chunks you will realise the above is actually more literally "I am going to to continue". In Spanish this extra 'a' is added when the verb is one involving movement.

Another example of a verb of movement would be "to pass" (pasar). However we don't want to list them all out here. The Thinking Method is exactly what the name suggests - when you come across a new verb in Spanish ask yourself "Does this involve movement?" If it does you'll need the extra 'a'.

Spanish	English
Voy a confiscarlo	I am going to confiscate it
Voy a examinarlo	I am going to examine it

Lo and Los - he and them

In English 'them' is the plural of 'he'. Not that obvious. In Spanish its much easier. 'lo' means 'he' and we get the plural by adding an 's' - 'los'

'Ver' is the Spanish verb 'to see' - you can remember it via the English word 'view'

Spanish	English
Quiero verlos	I want to see them
Voy a verlos	I am going to see them
Intento verlos	I am trying to see them

Intentar - to try

We already know intento is "I try". The to form is Intentar - "to try"

Spanish	English
Quiero intentar	I want to try
Voy a intentar	I am going to try
Voy a pasar a visitarte	I going to pass by to visit you

Notice that 'a' after 'pasar' because pasar is a verb of movement. Have a look at the following to spot which are movement verbs and which aren't

Spanish	English
Voy a intentar pasar a visitarte	I'm going to try to pass by to visit you

Mostrar - to show

We saw at the top of this page that 'Mostrar' was inside 'Demostrar' and means "to show" so let's just see that verb in action along with verbs of movement.

Spanish	English
Quiero mostrarte algo	I want to show you something
Quiero pasar a mostrarte algo	I want to pass by to show you something

Lesson Eight: Por qué, venir and debo