Conversational Spanish 201  

Spanish Resources Conversational Spanish 201

Conversational Spanish Lessons

The verb is such a main part of the sentence that without it no meaning can be formed, nor can any concept be expressed. This is how its very name verb manifests it, which means word; because although the other parts of the sentence are called words, this one is par excellence. There is an almost infinite variety of opinions about its definition, arising perhaps from the fact that some have wanted to restrict it to existence, others to action and passion, others to affirmation. A more extensive definition could be more -p. 57- exact, and less inconvenient: such is the one proposed here. The verb is a principal part of the sentence that serves to signify the essence, existence, action, passion, and affirmation of all things animate and inanimate, and the exercise of any faculty that these things have, or are attributed to them.

The verb is the part of the sentence that indicates states of mind (to get angry), feelings (to love, hate), movement (to run), existence (to be) and affirmation (when a verb is used to affirm its meaning, for example: You love) of both inanimate and animate things, and the action that can be executed or performed by each of these things or that can be attributed to them.

This definition could occur due to the inconveniences found in the others, because the substantive verb to be means essence: to be means existence: to love means action: to be loved (because in our language there are no passive verbs) passion: to sleep means the exercise of this faculty that the living have; and all these verbs also contain affirmation, because he who says of himself, or of another: I am, or I am, you love, Pedro sleeps, affirms what the verbs mean.

Learn Conversational Spanish

Divisions of verbs - intransitive or neuter
These verbs do not need to convey the action or meaning to another thing or person, such as: live, die and be born.

Transitives - Neutrals, or intransitives are those, whose meaning does not pass to something else, such as: to be born, to live, to die. Thus the Latins called those who were neither active nor passive. Among us (we don't have passive verbs) they shouldn't be called neutral, but rather intransitive, but that's how usage has wanted it.

Reflective - These verbs have the characteristic that they do not pass the action or meaning to something else and that it also reflects the action or meaning to what or who gives the action or movement to the verb, by means of a personal pronoun.

Reciprocal, or reflexive they call verbs, whose meaning not only does not pass to something else, but goes back through some personal pronoun, to which it gives action or movement to the verb, such as: fix, repent, buckle. And so it is said: I don't rig it: you repent: they buckle down. These verbs, which are never used without personal pronouns, should not be called reciprocal, nor reflexive, but pronominal. They express a reciprocal action between two or more people, example: help the teachers, this means that the teachers help each other, but as the verb by itself cannot express this reciprocal situation and the pronoun SE is where the action of the verb and that is in place of the same teachers

Reciprocal would be those that by themselves express the reciprocal action between two or more persons, as if in this sentence: men love each other, it could be understood without ambiguity of meaning, that men love each other; but as the verb to love by itself does not have this value, and the pronoun is in the place of the same men as a term where the action of the verb passes, it comes to remain in this, and similar expressions in the active class.

Conversational Spanish

If you want to express reciprocation, you must add other words that denote it, such as: one another: among themselves: mutually: reciprocally. Without these words, the meaning of: love, help, favor men is ambiguous, because it can be understood that men love, help, or favor themselves, but not among themselves mutually and reciprocally.

Reflexive would be those verbs that signify the action of two agents, of which one was only moving it, and the other received it, and immediately rejected it, or dismissed it, because this being the physical and real reflection, it must have correspondence with it the metaphorical; but the verbs that are called reflexive do not have this meaning, since there is only one person or agent in them, and a single action that falls on the same person, agent, and this person receives it and suffers it, and does not dismiss it from itself, as : buckle up, repent, etc.. It turns out that there are no reflexive verbs.

Since, then, these verbs are neither reciprocal nor reflexive, another denomination should be applied to them, and none would suit them more than pronominal, because they cannot be used without pronouns. Notwithstanding these reasons, the use of calling them reciprocal has prevailed; and understood in this way there is no inconvenience in using this denomination, because by reciprocal verbs we will understand the same as by pronominal verbs. In this same sense we say that some verbs are used as reciprocals, when they admit pronouns: v. g. go out, go out, sleep, fall asleep, die, die: because sometimes they can be without a pronoun, and others with it.

Learn Conversation Spanish

There are four types of verbs.
Indicative, the one that simply indicates or demonstrates things, such as: I am, you love.
Subjunctive, which needs to be joined with another express or supplemented verb that perfects the meaning of the sentence, such as: it is fair that I love someone who loves me: I would write if I could.
Imperative, the one used to command, such as: bring paper: write that letter.
Infinitive, which does not stick to times, numbers, or people, and needs another verb to determine the meaning, such as: it is convenient to keep quiet: I want to write. For this reason, the infinitive should not be counted among the modes, since this word to love by itself does not say who loves, when, or how; but nevertheless, grammarians commonly call this principal word mode, and the root of each verb.
When the infinitive is by itself without another verb that determines its meaning, it serves to distinguish some verbs from others, and thus it is said: the verb to speak, the verb to read, the verb to write: and that is why it is used of the infinitive in Dictionaries of the vulgar languages, in preference to all other endings.
When the masculine article precedes it, it acts as a noun of the same gender, and thus it is said: walking is good: running is bad.







Popular Phrase: how do you say | Vocabulary | Conjugated Verb: canturrear - to sing softly to oneself [ click for full conjugation ]