El Testamento (1/6)

Un certain hombre was a punto* de death. No he was very rico💰. Only he had un perro🐶 y un caballo🐴. No he had children but he did have una mujer👩🏽💍.

Shortly before dying, he called a** his mujer y to·her he said:

*In some repeated phrases in Spanish, the article isn’t used when it might be in English; however, another way to look at this sentence would be “A certain man was at deathpoint.”
**Personal a: an “a” is always required before persons in Spanish when they are the object of the sentence.

El Testamento (2/6)

—Already you know that I’m going a die. No you I have forgotten en mi testamento📜; but no I am rico y no I have more property than un perro[dog] y un caballo[horse].

—I will appreciate your memory, mi marido👨🏼💍, —said la mujer[woman/wife] crying.

El Testamento (3/6)

—After mi death, —continuó[continued] el marido[married man],— you must sell el caballo y deliver el money a¹ mis family members.

—¡How! ¿I must deliver el money a your family members?

¹See 1/6, personal a: an “a” is always required before persons in Spanish when they are the object of the sentence.

El Testamento (4/6)

—Yes; but wait. To you I gift generosamente el perro. You can sell it if you want, or you can conservar it in order to guardar la casa🏠. Es un animal faithful. You he will serve as great¹ comfort.

El hombre died. La mujer wanted to obedecer a*¹ her marido. Una morning she took el caballo🐎 y el perro🐕 y them brought a la fair.

¹See 1/6: in some cases in Spanish, articles are not used though they would be in English (and vice versa).
*¹See 1/6, personal a.

El Testamento (5/6)

—¿How much do you want por[for] that caballo? asked un hombre.

—I want to sell el caballo y el perro together, —respondió[responded] la mujer.— I want por el perro dos thousand pesos y por[for] el caballo🐴 diez[10] pesos.

El Testamento (6/6)

—I accept, —said el hombre,— because el precio de los dos together es razonable.

La good mujer gave a¹ los family members de her marido👨🏼💍 los diez pesos that recibió por el caballo y conservó los dos thousand pesos que recibió por el perro. Like so obedeció a her marido.

¹See 1/6, personal a: an “a” is always required before persons in Spanish when they are the object of the sentence.

UN HOMBRE INSACIABLE – 1/7

En Estremadura was living un hombre👨🏼. El hombre era[was]* rico💰. Era muy[very] rico. Tenía[He had] casas🏘 y viñas[vineyards], cows y sheep, horses y pigs. Las casas eran[were] big y new. Las viñas tenían[had] many uvas🍇. Las cows, las sheep y los pigs estaban[were]** muy fat. Los horses eran los most beautiful de[of] Estremadura.

*era: in English, there are only 2 words for discussing “to be” in the past–“was” and “were”. That’s 2 conjugations of a single verb in a single past tense. In Spanish, there are 18 because there are 4-5 conjugations of 2 different verbs for “to be” (“ser”[identity] and “estar”[status]) in 2 different past tenses–the preterite (momentary past) and imperfect (past duration). “Era” is used for past identities of “he”, “she”, or “it” that existed over a duration.
**estaban: used for past statuses of plural people or things that existed over a duration. “Eran” could be used here as well, but “estaban” implies a greater focus on the animals being fattened for consumption as a status rather than as an identity.

UN HOMBRE👨🏼 INSACIABLE – 2/7

El hombre tenía* still more. Tenía[He had] una good woman y good children. Tenía all that he could desear; but el hombre no[not] estaba satisfecho😊. No estaba[he was] satisfecho with God nor with his woman nor with his children. Neither estaba satisfecho del[of(with) the] tiempo[weather].

When hacía[it would make] cold** he would say: —Hace cold; this tiempo no is good for mis[my] viñas. When it would rain, exclamaba: —It rains too much; el tiempo[weather] is muy[very] damp. We should tener[have] sun.

*tenía: even though we would always say “had” in English, “tenía”, being imperfect tense, distinguishes itself from “tuvo” as having something over a duration of time rather than just a moment.
**hacer + ___: the verb “hacer” (to do) is used to discuss certain states of nature. “Hacer frío” is literally to “make cold”, but would be translated as “to be cold”. The same applies to heat and sun (when the sun is out), weather, etc,…

UN HOMBRE INSACIABLE – 3/7

When hacía[it would make] sun, neither estaba satisfecho😊. Today hacía mucho cold, tomorrow mucho heat; now el tiempo* era muy damp, next it will be muy dry.

Un[One] day entró[he entered] en his viña. There estaban[were] las beautiful uvas. Tenía more uvas🍇 than all las other personas de Estremadura; but no estaba satisfecho. —These uvas are muy[very] small —dijo[He said]—. Hace[It makes] bad tiempo; hace mucho cold. No hace enough heat.

*”tiempo” can mean either “time” or “weather”

UN HOMBRE👨🏼 INSACIABLE – 4/7

En this momento appeared en la viña[vineyard] un hombre tall y[and] beautiful. This hombre dijo: —Never are you satisfecho😊 del tiempo[weather]. Always hace[it makes] cold or heat, it’s muy damp or muy dry. ¿Can you hacer un tiempo better? —Yes, —respondió[answered] el hombre rico,— I can hacer better tiempo. —Well OK, —dijo[Said] el foreigner,— el year that comes must you hacer el tiempo for your viñas.

Then el foreigner desapareció.

UN HOMBRE INSACIABLE – 5/7

El year next arrived. Era[It was] el month de[of] March. —I want snow, —dijo el hombre rico💰. Then it started a[to] snow. Arrived el month de abril. —Now I want rain, —dijo el hombre rico[rich]. Then it started a rain. —Muy well, —dijo[said] el hombre—, but now I want un tiempo hot. Then hacía sun y el hombre estaba satisfecho with his viñas y with el tiempo[weather].

UN HOMBRE INSACIABLE* – 6/7

Like so el hombre hacía[would make] el tiempo all el summer. It would rain when he would want y hacía sun when he would want. Tenía en la viña many beautiful* uvas. Then dijo: —Mis uvas🍇 are las most beautiful de Estremadura. Never have I seen uvas so beautiful.

*while it’s more common to see adjectives after nouns in Spanish, they can also come before. Generally, the adjective follows the noun if the adj. makes the thing distinct from other things like it and precedes it if the adj. refers to a common trait of those things. So “las hermosas mujeres” is a homage to the beauty of all women as a trait they all share, but “una mujer hermosa” calls attention to this specific woman as more beautiful than the average.

UN HOMBRE INSACIABLE – 7/7

Al[At the] end arrived el autumn y started la harvest. El hombre took some uvas but eran ácidas like el vinagre. Never had he seen uvas so sour. En this momento arrived el foreigner. —This year, —dijo— hace you* el tiempo. ¿How do you find las uvas? —Bad, muy bad, —respondió el hombre rico—, They are ácidas like el vinagre.

Then dijo el foreigner, —Already comprendo[I understand]. You have given a la viña snow, rain, sun, heat y cold, but you have forgotten el wind.

*formality: “hace” is used here instead of “haces” because the foreigner is addressing the rich man in the Spanish formal tense, just like we might in English during Elizabethan times in a question like “what does her ladyship desire?”

Vocabulary

You can study the vocabulary practiced in this story via an online flashcard deck: https://quizlet.com/_4skin2

In-Depth Explanation

Grammar Prep – 1/7: “ir + a” to Discuss the Future

Let’s Begin with the Story!

The Cuento[Account>Story] of the Pollo🐥 – 2/7 (The Beginning)

Un día un pollo🐥 entra en un forest. Una acorn falls en its cabeza[head]🗣. The poor pollo cree[creed>believes] that the cielo[sky] ha[has] caído[fallen] upon it. It runs in order to informar al¹ king.

En the camino[way] encuentra una hen.

—¿A[to] where* vas¹? —asks the hen.

—¡Oh! —says the pollo🐥,— the cielo ha caído en mi cabeza and voy¹ a informar al king.

*In Shakespearian English, the word “whence” means “from where” and “whither” means “to where”. It helps bring clarity in regards to the direction being taken. Spanish uses this as well, and “a” or “de” is basically required before “dónde”[where] whenever a specific direction taken is meant.

¹See 1/7

One of the most well-known no-nos of language-learning is allowing ourselves to translate the other language into English every time we hear it before responding and thinking in English, and translating in our heads before speaking.

This isn’t efficient in conversation because it adds an additional step to each statement and two steps to the conversation as a whole

The better alternative is to become accustomed to the words and phrases and–to some degree–the grammar of the other language so that it becomes almost an extension or expansion to our own language, and we can readily understand inputs in that language to also readily respond without having to translate in our heads.

After all, we are still learning new English words all the time, and we don’t have to translate them in our heads to simpler English words when we hear them and respond with them once we’ve learned them. So Spanish vocabulary can be added to our communicability just as easily as more English vocabulary.

The most difficult part about thinking in Spanish, then, is the syntax and grammar because this requires a clearly defined differentiation from that of English.

We should learn how to do this from the very beginning of our language learning–even if we’re absolute beginners.

Why not, then, start reading passages that have been translated word-for-word from Spanish, but that retain Spanish grammar and word order? This way, a student can remain in the comfort zone of his or her language as long as possible while learning to “think” in Spanish by deconstructing how the communication is happening through a Spanish word order?

An example of this can be found in the following passage:

“A certain man was about to die. Not he was very rich. Only he had a dog and a horse. Not he had children, but he did have wife.”

From this passage alone, we can see that Spanish doesn’t have a word for “don’t” exactly, and that it instead negates statements simply by placing the equivalent of the word “not” in front of the statement. Also, we can see that the placement of the adverb “only” is a little different from what we might expect in English.

The different placement of the words “no” and “only” aren’t illogical, though, and don’t change the meaning of the sentences in any way. The sentences are very easy to understand like this as long as we get used to the construction and the order of words.

So why is it that we have always been taught Spanish in such a way that we have to learn the new vocabulary at the same time as the new constructions? It can be jostling and often leaves students feeling superior about their own language and ridiculing Spanish-speakers for using such strange constructions.

The reason is that the logic of the constructions gets lost in the process of focusing on learning new vocabulary.

If we could spend time practicing the logic of the constructions with our own language, and make sense of them that way, we could then see that our own ways of constructing sentences are arbitrary as well, and that each language is equally arbitrary and equally effective at communicating, though the formed habits of doing so happen to have developed distinctly.

Learning Word Order in Pieces

In my research, I realized that there is neither one single rule that governs the differences in word order between English and Spanish nor is there an infinite number of rules. The number of rules is finite and each is generally associated with particular parts of speech:

• nouns and adjectives: there are certain rules that govern whether an adjective comes before or after the noun in Spanish, while it always comes before in English.
• pronouns and “no”: the use of pronouns is very different in Spanish because object pronouns often come before the verb instead of after–“no” as well.
• prepositions: when two nouns combine to create a single noun in English such as in “warship”, Spanish would use “de”[of] to keep them separate: “buque de guerra”[ship of war].
• adverbs: adverb placement within sentences occurs in an even more logical way in Spanish than in English, but in ways that we might not expect as English speakers

The vast majority of word order differences in the two languages are covered by the above rules. Therefore, we can associate word order differences with specific vocabulary groups consisting of the various words within a given part of speech.

Stories de la Jungle

In “Stories de la Jungle”, vocabulary is introduced by level over the course of 13 different levels generally according to the frequency of the use of that vocabulary within the book.

Level one is an exception that introduces strong cognates between the languages regardless of their frequency–including many nouns and adjectives.

Because of this, in level one, whenever a cognate noun or adjective within a noun-adjective pair is introduced, the pair will show itself according to its Spanish word order. The English order remains in all other cases. This is the first taste of Spanish word order that a student receives, and it allows them to start thinking in Spanish in this little piece without being distracted or discouraged by a bunch of Spanish vocabulary that they don’t know and without being distracted by the other differences in word order between the two languages. For example:

Level 2

Since some of the most frequently used words in all of Spanish are common prepositions such as “de”, level 2 dives right in to introduce these and includes that Spanish word order for any phrase similar to “ship of war”.

For example:

“Never was there criatura de la jungle with nombre stranger”

Level 3

In level three, the pronouns that affect word order are introduced as new vocabulary, and–at the same time–so is that word order. This way, students can associate the word order change with the appropriate vocabulary and the vocabulary with the word order change.

Example:

“¿No me[to me] you’re going a[to] do anything?”

Conclusion

This approach allows students to stay within the comfort of their own language as much and as long as possible, only moving into Spanish as necessary, and according to the logical order of learning vocabulary in the order of its frequency and syntax along with the vocabulary with which it associates itself in pieces and in the order of the frequency of that associated vocabulary.

This gives students focus and trains them to start thinking in Spanish as soon as possible, even while in the majority comfort of their own language. They learn in pieces, rather than ever being overwhelmed by examples of fully Spanish sentences that include vocabulary or syntax that they don’t yet understand or haven’t yet been introduced to.

Other Resources

Two great videos that go along with these ideas:

• Honoring Spanglish As Resource | Eric Johnson | TEDxRichland: https://youtu.be/5kMDx6T3DmQ
  What’s up with SPANGLISH? | Superholly: https://youtu.be/2SYio0mbDUw