Lesson Six: Intento and Spanish H and V

Introducing how to say 'I try' and how to pronounce 'h' and 'v' in Spanish ... as well as a bunch of new words which you knew all along or you can find via the Thinking Method

I try - Intento

We're already very familiar with Quiero (I want) so time for a second one - Intento (I try).

Spanish	English
Intento	I try / I am trying

This is a pretty easy one to remember if you think about "I intend to". In English although that is more often taken as "I will" it does have "try" overtones. There is a subtle difference between "I will ask him" and "I intend to ask him".

So we can use intento in sentences the same way as quiero ...

Spanish	English
Intento publicarlo	I'm trying to publish it

Remember how you get publicar:

It hasn't been mentioned in this course but we have the English word Publication
Take off the 'tion' and add an 'r' to get the Spanish verb Publicar (to publish)

So we can do the same thinking for other sentences where we don't yet know the verb.

We need "to administer"
We have administration
We can get administar

Spanish	English
Intento administrarlo	I'm trying to administer it

We need "to imitate"
We have imitation
We can get imitar

Spanish	English
Intento imitarlo	I'm trying to imitate it

'H' in Spanish

'h' exists in the Spanish written language but it is completely ignored when spoken.

Spanish	English
Hospital	Hospital
Horrible	Horrible
Habitual	Habitual
Habitualmente	Habitually

Ahora (Now)

The Spanish for "Now" is Ahora and you can remember it by knowing two more Spanish words:

a = to
hora - hour

So Ahora is literrally "to the hour" .. but remember the 'h' is absolutely silent in the spoken word!

Spanish	English
Ahora	Now

So let's try and take on a big sentence - "I want to cancel it but I don't want to cancel it now" - by breaking it down:

I want - Quiero
to cancel it - cancelarlo
but - pero
I don't want - no quiero
to cancel it - cancelarlo
now - ahora

By breaking down long sentences into their parts and just concentrating on each part one at a time even impossible looking texts suddenly become manageable.

Voy (I go or I'm going)

Spanish	English
Voy	I go / I am going

Notice how the 'v' is actually pronounced like a soft 'b'. This is true a lot of the time in Spanish.

Good tips

Pronounciation - Don't get too hung up on this. I continued to say 'v' for a long time when I was learning Spanish to remind myself of how the word was spelt. As long as you keep it as a soft 'v', almost an 'f', you will be fully understood. Later as you become more confident in the language you can start moving your 'v' to 'b'

Remembering - think of 'voy' as in 'voyage'. In a voyage you are going somewhere and 'voy' is 'I go'.

Spanish	English
Voy ahora	I am going now
No voy ahora	I'm not going now
Quiero visitarlo	I want to visit him
Quiero visitarlo	I want to visit it
Visible	Visible
Viral	Viral
Virus	Virus
Conveniente	Convenient

As you can hear the 'v' to 'b' really is subtle so don't stress out about it if you want to stick with a soft 'v' to begin with.

Lesson Seven: Voy a and verbs of movement