2.7: ¡Aprendamos! Los verbos SER (to be) y TENER (to have)

You have now mastered the subject pronouns but let’s add meaning to them by pairing them with an action word—a verb. Verbs are broken down or conjugated according to the subject just as in English. A verb conjugation is a list of the six possible forms of the verb of each of the six persons used as the subject of the verb. For each tense: present, past or future, there is one verb form for each of the six persons.

Let’s conjugate the verb to be in the present tense in English.

Person singular	Subject pronoun	Verb: to be	Person plural	Subject pronoun	Verb: to be
1st	I	am	1st	we	are
2nd	you	are	2nd	you	are
3rd	he, she, it	is	3rd	they	are

The verb “to be” is the English verb that changes the most. Other English verbs only have two forms such as in “to have”:

Person singular	Subject pronoun	Verb: to have	Person plural	Subject pronoun	Verb: to have
1st	I	have	1st	we	have
2nd	you	have	2nd	you	have
3rd	he,she,it	has	3rd	they	have

In Spanish, verb forms change from one person to another so that when you learn a new verb, you must also learn how to conjugate it. Let’s learn to conjugate the verb “to be” = SER.

Ser o no ser…

Person	Inglés	Verb To be	español	Verbo ser	Put these words together in Spanish	If you put these words together in Spanish they mean
1st singular	I	am	yo	soy	yo* soy	I* am
2nd singular	you (informal-singular)	are	tú	eres	tú eres	you are
2nd singular	He, she, you (formal, singular)	Is or are	Él, ella, Ud	es	Él es Ella es Usted es	He is She is You are
1st plural	We	Are	Nosotros (as)	somos	Nosotros somos Nosotras somos	We are
2nd plural	All of you (informal, plural)	Are	Vosotros (as)	sois	Vosotros sois Vosotras sois	All of you are
2nd plural	They and all of you (formal, plural)	Are	Ellos, ellas, Uds	son	Ellos son Ellas son Ustedes son	They are They are All of you are

*Notice: In English the subject pronoun “I” is always capitalized, in Spanish “Yo” is capitalized only if it is starting the sentence.

Practiquemos:

Using the list of adjectives or describing words from the previous unit’s cognates and the structures above of the pronoun and the verb ser , let’s form questions and sentences. Notice how the questions and replies were formed.

1. ¿Es usted artístico? or ¿Usted es artístico? Sí, yo soy artístico(a).
2. ¿Es usted inteligente? or ¿Usted es inteligente? Sí, yo soy inteligente.
3. ¿Es usted presidente? or ¿Usted es presidente? No*, yo no* soy presidente.

*note the placement of the “no”.

Let’s try describing others!

1. ¿Es romántico Alejandro? or ¿Alejandro es romántico?

Sí, él es romántico. (Note the replacement of Alejandro with the subject pronoun “él”.)

2. ¿Es especial Talía? or ¿Talía es especial?

Sí, ella es especial. (Note the replacement of Talía with “ella”.)

3. ¿Es interesante José? or ¿José es interesante?

No,él no es interesante; él es aburrido (boring). (Note the replacement of José with “él”.)

Añadamos más vocabulario—Let’s add more vocabulary

Remember your word lists for class! For now, learn the vocabulary. After the next section, you will use this vocabulary with the verb to be “SER” to form the three types of sentences: declarative, exclamatory and interrogatory.

Español	Inglés
de	of / from
dónde	where?
cómo	how/what?
los Estados Unidos	The United States
México	Mexico
¡Qué chévere!	How great!
cumpleaños	birthday
Unos adjetivos	Some adjectives
bueno (buena)	good
malo (mala)	bad
famoso (famosa)	famous
simpático (simpática)	nice
bello (bella)	beautiful
bonito (bonita)	pretty
guapo (guapa)	handsome
moreno (morena)	brunette
rubio (rubia)	blonde
Unas nacionalidades : Never use capital letters	Some nationalities
estadounidense	United States citizen (some refer to this as American—however American refers to someone from North through South America.)
mexicano (mexicana)	Mexican
alemán (alemana)	German
francés (francesa)	French
inglés (inglesa)	English
africano (africana)	African
chino (china)	Chinese
Unas profesiones	Some professions
estudiante	student
doctor (doctora)	doctor
actor (actriz)	actor/actress
colega (used for male or female)	colleague
recepcionista (used for male or female)	receptionist
ingeniero (ingeniera)	engineer
abogado (abogada)	lawyer
dentista (used for male or female)	dentist
contador (contadora)	accountant
profesor (profesora)	teacher/professor
Unos títulos de respeto use capital letters as in English	Some courtesy titles
Don/Doña	Title of respect (usually with elders)
Señor (Sr.)	Sir, Mr.
Señora (Sra.)	Mrs. Madam, lady
Señorita (Srta.)	Ms. Miss, young lady
Los posesivos (note: they agree with the item possessed not the possessor. This is part of another unit.)	The possessives
mi/mis	my
tu/tus	your
su/sus	his, her , your
nuestro, nuestros nuestra nuestras	our
vuestro, vuestros, vuestra, vuestras	your (belonging to all of you & used in Spain)
su/sus	their/your

Comprendamos:

In Spanish, there are two verbs that can be translated as “to be”. One of these verbs is SER that we just learned about; one of the most important Spanish verbs. To make it simple for you to remember when to use, read the following memory aid or mnemonic where the first letter of each situation or reason spells a word when you look at them vertically.

Dr. EE

D —date

O —occupation

C—characteristics (permanent characteristics, personality traits, origin)

T—time

O—ownership/possession

R—reaction/opinion (cognates—es fabuloso, es importante, es posible…)

E—events taking place

E—essence—what something is made of

TAREA = HOMEWORK

Observa el ppt 1.2.10 and follow the prompts after the explanation to create the questions and sentences required. Remember to bring them to class to hand in as well as to help you prepare for the in-class dialogues.

A SlideShare element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://pb.libretexts.org/spanish1/?p=70

Practiquemos:

Fill in the correct form of SER for the following sentences. Pay attention to who your subject is. Also observe how the adjectives agree in number and in gender with your subject.

1. What does the verb ser mean?
   1. to dance
   2. to be
   3. to sing
2. Yo ________________ estadounidense.(singular, neuter)
3. Ella _______________ simpática. (singular, feminine)
4. Nosotros____________ abogados. (plural, masculine)
5. Ellos _______________ inteligentes. (plural, masculine)
6. La maestra __________ creativa.(singular, feminine)
7. Ashley y yo __________ estudiantes. (plural, neuter)
8. Nosotras ____________ americanas. (plural, feminine)
9. El chico _______________ guapo. (singular, masculine)
10. Beth _______________ mi amiga.(singular, feminine)
11. Los doctores _________ inteligentes. (plural, masculine)
12. Vosotras ____________ bonitas. (plural, feminine)
13. Ustedes ____________ españoles.(plural, masculine)
14. La universidad ____________ grande. (singular, feminine)
15. Tú ________________ creativo.(singular, masculine)

Number and Gender:

• In Spanish, all adjectives must agree in number and gender with the nouns they describe:
• Gender: nouns are masculine,feminine or neuter.
  • Number: nouns are either singular or plural.
• Masculine personal pronouns can apply as neuter:
  • group of females: ellas, vosotras, nosotras
  • group of males: ellos, vosotros, nosotros.
  • group of females and males: ellos, vosotros, nosotros. ← NEUTER:

MASCULINE = NEUTER

• Personal pronouns “usted, ustedes” apply to all, masculine, feminine or both.
• Adjectives ending in”e/es” are neutral and apply for a masculine or feminine noun:
  • Nosotras (all females) somos estudiantes.
  • Ellos (all females) son estudiantes.

TENER—to have and, believe it or not, in some expressions TENER means to be.

Remember for every subject there is a specific conjugation for a verb (an action word.) When a verb is not conjugated, like TENER, we say that it is the infinitive. It means you know the name of the action, but just like the word “infinity” implies an unknown end, the infinitive means one does not know who is doing the action since it is not broken down to correspond to a specific noun. When the verb is conjugated it means that the action is happening and that a specific subject is doing the action.

Study the following chart to learn the conjugations of the verb TENER. You will see that we have noted the meaning as to have but later in your studies, you will see that TENER is used to indicate hunger, thirst, success, age and other expressions.

TENER:

Person	Subject/Subject Pronoun	Conjugation of Tener	Meaning
1st singular	yo	tengo	I have Do I have? (for a question)
2nd singular	tú	tienes	You have Do you have? (for a question)
3rd singular	él , ella, ud	tiene	He has She has You have (Note: these also can be flipped into a question, Does he have…)
1st plural	nosotros (as)	tenemos	We have
2nd plural	vosotros (as)	tenéis	You all have Do you all have?
3rd plural	ellos, ellas, uds	tienen	They have You all have Do they have? Do you all have?

Practiquemos:

Let’s practice. Write the answer to the question according to your knowledge of subjects and conjugated verbs.

1. 1. Which form of the verb tener corresponds with Marco?
      1. ¿Cuál forma del verbo tener corresponde a…?
      2. Marco ______________à Marco has.
   2. ¿Cuál forma del verbo tener corresponde a mi amiga Rocío?
      1. Rocío ________ à Rocío has.
   3. ¿Cuál forma del verbo tener corresponde a los estudiantes?
      1. Los estudiantes _____________
   4. ¿Cuál forma del verbo tener corresponde con mi amiga y yo?__________________
   5. ¿Cuál forma del verbo tener corresponde a mí misma (yo)? ___________________

1. ¿Cuál forma del verbo tener corresponde cuando deseas determinar algo de tu amigo y preguntas (you ask) a tu amigo? ___________________

Apliquemos:

Let’s apply los números and tener with age (edad) when one wishes to express one’s age, tener is conjugated for the subject and the number is provided. It literally means we have a certain number of years instead of we are a certain number of years old. When you look at it philosophically, it makes sense. We are not a number but we have or own our years of experience.

In Spanish, we have years but in English you are old.

In Spanish, we never consider ourselves old but rather we have years of experience.

Yo tengo veinte años. I am 20 years old.

Tú tienes veinte y dos años. You are 22 years old.

(Remember you can also express numbers from 16-29 in 2 ways: the way noted above with 3 words or in one word veintidós.)

¿Cuántos años tienes tú? Vs. ¿Cuántos años tiene Ud.?

Note: that this question is only asked in situations where one needs to provide demographic information such as at a hospital or filling out forms.

Did you recognize another aspect of Spanish that you studied in the previous chapter. The “o” in veintidóstiene un acento.) That’s because it does not follow one of the rules you learned—about words ending in a vowel, n or s typically have the accent on the second to the last syllable. This word broke that rule so the written accent is noted to show you where to put more stress in your pronunciation.

Él tiene treinta años. Celia Cruz tiene setenta y siete años. Usted (Ud.) tiene ochenta y cinco años. Nosotros tenemos diecinueve años. Vosotros tenéis quince años. Ellos tienen noventa años. Mis amigos tienen treinta y cuatro años. Ustedes (Uds.) tienen sesenta y siete años.

Review the statements again above and indicate the age of the individuals noted in terms of a number next to the sentences above starting with “Él tiene treinta años.”*

Leamos:

Let’s read. Read the passage aloud about Celia Cruz and highlight all the words you recognize or are able to understand. Pay attention to a cultural difference in the Spanish culture related to names. In English we use our first name, middle name and last name. In Spanish, the first and the middle name are call “nombre de pila” and it can be one or several names. The last name is called “apellido”. The proper translation to English is surname. The Spanish speaking culture uses two surnames, one by the father (first) and one by the mother (second).

Celia Cruz es la reina de la salsa. La salsa es un baile (dance) pero también es un estilo de música. Ella es de Cuba. Su padre es Símon Cruz. Su madre es Catalina Alfonso. Su esposo es Pedro Knight. Ella estudia para ser profesora en la Universidad Nacional de Maestras y en el Conservatorio Nacional de Música de la Havana, Cuba. Su nombre completo es Úrsula Hilaria Celia de la Caridad Cruz Alfonso. Por su música, tiene veintitrés álbumes de oro y muchos premios de Grammy Latin. Es honrada por su música y su historia de perseverancia.

*Más información está disponible a http://www.biografiasyvidas.com/biografia/c/cruz.htm

Our final application for now of this concept brings us back to the comment in the short reading about Celia Cruz. Ella tiene veintitrés álbumes de oro. She has 23 gold albums. WOW! Listen to her music and learn more about her life. She was amazing!

• Ella tiene veintitrés álbumes de oro. ¿Cuántos álbumes tienes tú?
• Yo no tengo un álbum de oro pero tengo una pluma morada para indicar todas las metas que tú tienes como experto en español.

Apliquemos:

Let’s apply your understanding of the passage above to the questions

1. ¿Es famosa Celia Cruz? ____________________________________________
2. ¿Cuál es el nombre de pila completo de Celia Cruz?_______________________
3. ¿Qué es salsa? (aparte de ser comidaàbesides being food)_________________
4. ¿Cuántos apellidos tiene Celia Cruz?___________________________________
5. ¿Cuál es el apellido de su madre? _____________________________________
6. ¿Cuál es el apellido de su padre? ______________________________________
7. ¿Cómo se llama su esposo?___________________________________________
8. ¿De dónde es Celia Cruz?____________________________________________
9. ¿Dónde estudia ella? ________________________________________________
10. ¿Qué tiene ella? (What does she have?) _______________________________
11. ¿Qué diferencia cultural observas en la lectura?___________________________

Tarea:

Think again about the short reading on Celia Cruz. Identify what was familiar to you. Now using the vocabulary and the verbs ser and tener, create 10 sentences about yourself. Bring this assignment with you to class to submit as homework and to use as part of our discussions.