Coffee Break Travel Diaries

Season 2, Lesson 1

Transcript and Notes

a Study text

Soy Ainhoa ¡y acabo de terminar la universidad! Así que un viaje por el

oeste de Sudamérica con mi amiga Luisa y su hermano Esteban parecía

una buena forma de celebrarlo. Hace dos días llegamos a Perú, pero

después de cruzar el charco y con el jet lag, solo dormimos. ¡En cambio,

ayer no paramos por Lima: había muchas cosas para ver y poco tiempo!

Madrugamos y cogimos el bus para ver el Puente de los Suspiros. La

leyenda dice que si se cruza el puente aguantando la respiración, tu deseo

se cumplirá.

acabo de terminar

I have just nished

The verb acabar on its own means “to end” or “to nish”. Many verbs in Spanish change

their meaning when followed by a speci c preposition, as in this case. When the word

de follows the verb acabar, the meaning changes to “to have just done something” and

this applies in all the tenses. For example:

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 Miguel acaba de salir.

Miguel has just gone out.

Miguel acabó de salir cuando empezó a llover.

Miguel had just gone out when it started to rain.

así que

so, therefore

un viaje por

a trip around, along

The words por and para often simply mean “for”. However por is used when there is a

sense of movement around or along somewhere. Notice the difference between these

two expressions:

Hice un viaje a Barcelona.

Hicimos un viaje por el norte de España.

The rst one means “we made a trip to Barcelona”, whereas the second one infers a

continual trip around the north of Spain.

el oeste
the west

parecía > parecer

it seemed

The verb parecer is a commonly used and a very useful one to know. Its most usual

meaning is that of “to seem” as in this text. It is also used when talking about

appearance.

Tu abuela parece mucho más joven que la mía.

Your grandmother looks a lot younger than mine.

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 When talking about things being alike, or people looking like each other, parecer

becomes re exive.

No te pareces en nada a tu hermana.

You don’t look anything like your sister.

Parecer can also be used if you are giving your opinion with the appropriate indirect

object pronoun.

Me parece una buena idea.

It seems a good idea to me.

celebrarlo

to celebrate it

Celebrar is used in the in nitive as it follows another verb, parecía, even though both

verbs are separated by the phrase una buena forma. As there is an in nitive used here,

the pronoun lo is added on to the end of the verb, rather than before it, as in for

example, lo celebramos, “we celebrate it”.

hace dos días

two days ago

Hacer is the verb “to make”, or “to do”, but when used in the third person with a time

expression means “ago”.

Hace veinte años fui a Madrid por primera vez.

Twenty years ago I went to Madrid for the rst time.

llegamos a

we arrived in

This is the rst of the verbs used in the preterite tense in this text. Remember the “we”

part of the verb in the this past tense is exactly the same as in the present tense.

Llegamos can mean “we arrive” or “we arrived”. We need to know the context of the

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 expression to decide which is the most appropriate translation. Often there are time

phrases to help.

Anoche llegamos muy cansados.

Last night we arrived very tired.

Son las ocho - llegamos a Cuzco a las nueve esta mañana.

It’s 8am, we are arriving in Cuzco at nine o’clock this morning.

Also note to say “arrive in”, we use llegar a and not en.

cruzar el charco

to cross the pond

The word charco means “puddle” or “pond”. Here it is being used colloquially to talk

about the Atlantic Ocean which is known in English as the Pond.

solo dormimos

we only slept / all we did was sleep

This is another example of a preterite tense verb in the rst person plural, or “we” part.

Dormimos can also mean “we sleep” in the present tense, and the verb dormir is a

stem changing verb. Solo can be the adjective or adverb for “alone”, or the adverb for
“only”.

en cambio

however, whereas

no paramos por

we didn’t stop in

We continue with examples of the preterite tense in the “we” part of the verb. Here is a

reminder of the regular -ar endings in this tense:

é/aste/ó/amos/asteis/aron

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 Obviously in spoken Spanish the accents let us know where the stress of the word falls

but it is important to include accents in written Spanish as they can change meaning.

If we contrast paro with paró, the rst is the present tense for “I stop”, whereas the

second is the preterite tense for “he/she stopped”.

había muchas cosas para/por/que ver

there were many things to see

In the present tense we use the word hay to say “there is” or “there are”, and this comes

from the verb haber. Here we see an example of hay in the imperfect tense había,

meaning “there was” or “there were”.

poco tiempo

little time

madrugamos

we got up early

The verb madrugar is a lovely word meaning “to get up early”. The noun from this verb

is la madrugada, which refers to the early hours of the morning.

cogimos > coger

to catch

el Puente de Suspiros

the Bridge of Sighs

la leyenda

the legend

si se cruza > cruzar

if you cross > to cross

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 The se in this phrase is not the re exive pronoun, it is used as the passive se. This

happens when we are not specifying who is actually doing the action. In English we

would probably translate this as “you” but it is unspeci ed and means people in general.

aguantando la respiración

holding your breath

Aguantar also means “to stand” in the sense of “to put up with” or “bear”. For example,

no aguanto el calor meaning “I can’t stand the heat”. Here it is in the gerund, the

equivalent part of the verb which ends in -ing in English.

tu deseo se cumplirá

your wish will come true

A direct translation of cumplir is “to ful ll” and you might recognise at least part of this

verb from the word for birthday, cumpleaños, whose literal meaning is “to ful ll years”.

Después, fuimos hacia el norte por la costa para ver el Faro de la Marina.

También vimos Huaca Pucllana, las ruinas de una pirámide escalonada del

siglo I. Está en medio de la ciudad, por lo que fue bastante sorprendente.

Antes de continuar, comimos por el centro. Pedimos causa rellena, papa a

la huancaína y cau cau. Escogimos esos platos porque tenían un nombre

peculiar, ¡pero todo estaba buenísimo! Finalizamos el día viendo la Plaza

de las Armas y la Plaza de San Martín, la Basílica de San Francisco y el

Mercado Municipal Gran Mariscal Ramón Castilla. ¡Lima es una ciudad de

contrastes!

hacia el norte

towards the north

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 Watch this little word hacia, as it means “towards”. However, if we add an accent to the i,

the word changes in meaning to the verb hacer in its imperfect tense. Accents are

always important!

por la costa

along the coast

para ver

(in order) to see

There are lots of examples of por and para in this episode, and they are not always

being used to mean “for”. Para is often used with the in nitive to talk about purpose,

and an appropriate translation is “in order to”. However, when we translate into English,

we would normally omit “in order” as this is implied, and simply translate as “to”.

el Faro

the lighthouse

vimos > ver

we saw > to see

This is another rst person plural example of a verb in the preterite tense. This tense is
used when talking about completed actions in the past. Ver is an irregular verb in this

tense and interestingly follows the pattern for the -ir verbs, but it does not require any

accents.

vi/viste/vio/vimos/visteis/vieron

una pirámide escalonada

a stepped pyramid

As our travellers are visiting the tourist areas of Peru, they are visiting ancient pyramids

which you can imagine had steps climbing to the top. The word escalonada comes from

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 the verb escalonar meaning “to arrange” or “to spread out”, therefore a good

translation for the idea of a “stepped” or “tiered” place.

Another word for “step” as on a staircase is peldaño, but if we were talking about

“steps” in the sense of walking or dancing, we would use the word paso, as in the dance

paso doble, meaning “double steps”.

del siglo I

from the rst century

en medio de

in the middle of

por lo que

for that reason

sorprendente

surprising

antes de continuar

before going on

Antes de plus an in nitive is a common way of saying “before doing something” and

can be useful to avoid complex verb structures and the subjunctive as the phrase antes
de que usually triggers the subjunctive.

comimos > comer

we ate

pedimos > pedir

we ordered

Another example of a verb in its rst person plural form and another irregular verb.

Pedir is the verb “to ask (for) and is also used when ordering food and drink. The

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 English word “petition” comes from this Latin root. Pedir in the present tense is a stem

changing verb:

pido/pides/pide/pedimos/pedís/piden

The verb “to ask (a question)” is the regular -ar verb preguntar.

causa rellena /limeña

a Peruvian potato salad

papa a la huancaína

Huancayo style potatoes

cau cau

Peruvian tripe stew

escogimos > escoger

we chose

tenían un nombre peculiar

they had strange names

nalizamos el día viendo

we ended the day seeing

In Spanish we often hear the gerund, the part of the verb in English which ends in -ing

and in Spanish in -ando or iendo, being used with the verb estar in the present

continuous tense. However it is also used with verbs like nalizar or acabar to mean “to

end up doing something”.

acabamos el día comiendo platos típicos.

We ended the day eating typical dishes.

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