Haber (A Ver) cuando

Since I'm the only one of my friends who speak Spanish, it's not uncommon for one of them to ask me to translate the occassional text message, and usually this is not a problem. Usually. But this time they sent me one that had me stumped...

Saludos, haber cuando vienes a Tijuana

I kinda figured the message meant something to the effect of "when are you coming to Tijuana". But I had absolutely no idea what haber cuando meant, so it was time to bring in the big guns. I called my profesora, and she gave me a wonderful explanation.

In fact, her explanation is so good that I'm not even going to bother to attempt to explain it myself, I'm just going to post her reply verbatum.

Here it is:

I know things like this tend to be kinda complicated.

1st of all....HABER es un verbo auxiliar - to have.....

which doesn't help to answer your question...obviously.

It's just one of those crazy ways to say things.... in your case... it translates like this...

Greetings, let's see when (hope that..) you come to Tijuana.
Meaning---- when are you coming to mexico? I want to see you.


Ejemplo. If I tell you. When are we having a class at the river? (It's a nice place- therefore I wanna go)

I could say....

Haber cuando tenemos una clase en el rio....

SO....some possible answers could be ......

No, no me gusta el rio.....
Tal vez la semana que viene....
Claro, tengamos la clase del sabado en el rio....
Etc.....

In Mexico is very common that people invite for dinner (because we're just cool like that) lol ....and they would say....

Haber cuando vienes a cenar con nosotros.
Haber cuando vienes a la casa a cenar con la familia.....

Also, since you like dancing...your friends or you might say....

Haber cuando vamos a bailar, tengo ganas de bailar salsa.

Traveling....

Haber cuando vamos a las Piramides de teTeotihuacan
Haber cuando vamos al Castillo de Chapultepec

Conclusion....

It can mean different things....such as....
.....hope that...(you, we,etc) do something or go somewhere....
.....we should go to......
......I like (something) let's do something....


Hope I was a little clear.... ;-)

In your case you could say.....

Gracias por los saludos....
Si me gustaria ir a Tijuana, tal vez vaya en unos meses.....
etc...

Here... the person meant...hoping that...you come to Tijuana...

So there you have it. A (relatively) short explanation with several good examples. Although our good friends at WordReference had one more thing to add: The correct expression is a ver, not haber. The confusion happens because they sound the same in spoken language. You can read about it yourself in this thread.

From a more practical standpoint, it's obvious that haber cuando is heavily used, and therefore we need to know what it means and how to use it, even if the correct grammatical expression is a ver cuando.

I hope you find this piece of Spanish as interesting as I did.

¡Cuidense!

Learn Spanish Free

I keep getting this nagging feeling that's it's just wrong to have a site about learning Spanish and not having a list of resources. It's like the obligitory "Welcome to my blog post", it just has to be there.

But in the spirit of my blog, I'm not going to recommend any sites that focus primarily on grammar. I'm going to send you to the best "Learn Spanish Free" sites I've found so far that give you not only text, but audio and/or video in the context of real life scenarios. All of which are free. And if you're interested in learning spanish, the best way to learn spanish is to learn spanish for free.

The number of sites available for you to learn spanish for free is truly amazing. In fact, I often wonder why so much free material to help you learn spanish is available, and who has the time to put all this free stuff together. Bueno, no importa. What is import is identifying some of this free material and sharing it with you.

Let's get started...

Language Media

This site is composed of amatuer video filmed in several countries, namely Argentina, Ecuador, México, Nicaragua and Spain. What's great about this is someone grabbed a camcorder and hit the streets recording real life conversations as they conduct their day to day business in the streets.

You'll see footage of someone ordering ice cream, talking to cab drivers, buying medicine at a pharmacy, and a whole lot more, this is the real deal. Nothing fake, nothing scripted. They also provide transcripts in both English and Spanish. And the videos are downloadable.

Lingus TV

These guys produce very funny videos about whatever. Every single one of them is like a mini Seinfeld epsiode. Cien por ciento en español. And if memory serves me correctly, the videos have captions that display in either English or Spanish, you choose. And the videos are DVD quality, or at least pretty darn close. Great stuff, downloadable in various formats and transcripts are provided. And if you download them, you still get the captions on playback.

The University of Texas

This site delivers video in levels, beginner thru superior. Each level is broken down into categories like 'Count to ten', 'Introduce Yourself' or 'Life without electricity' and even role playing. The list of categories is extensive. This site is impressive. And like the other sites, they supply video and transcripts. The videos are all interviews with native speakers from different countries, talking off the cuff.

Each category has 4-5 vidoes, with the first video being straight-forward; no slang, the Spanish is spoken at a moderate pace, proper enunciation, etc. The remaining videos are of people speaking naturally, whatever that is for them. They provide transcripts, short, simple grammar explanations related to the conversation and vocabulary. Another great site.

Mi Vida Loca

This site is an interactive telenovela. Yes, I said interactive. You have to see it to apreciate it. It's more directed to beginners, but it's interesting just the same. The story takes place it Spain, and I have to say I find it interesting. You actually have some input on the direction the storyline takes. The technology is truly amazing. Mixed in with the story are some explanations of the Spanish used and some grammar as well. Another must see.

The Destinos

I can't say enough about this site. It's another online telenovela.

This course was produced by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It's not only a telenovela, it's a well thought out curriculum to teach you Spanish through what is essentially an incredibly long movie. The acting is very good, the story line will capture your heart and your interest. There's an outline of what each chapter (there are 52 of them) focuses on.

You can even buy supplementary material such as a textbook (I happen to have it, thanks to a very good friend of mine), work books, a transcript of all 52 episodes, and maybe even more things than what I've already mentioned. Each episode is about 30 minutes, and over the course of all 52, you'll cover the present tense to the subjuntive and I don't even know what else.

Another must see. The episodes are not downloadable though, but if you look hard enough you can find The Destinos on DVD.

Lastly, but by no means least we have...

Audiria

This site is all audio and text based, but everything is in Spanish. You will not see or hear one single word of English in any audio or transcripts they produce. This site will definitely seperate the men from the boys, so to speak. The topics the audio files cover are many - TV, news, radio, and books just to name a few. If you're ready to test yourself or step up your game, this is the site to do it at.

Well, that should be more than enough to keep you busy. There are a ton of sites where you can learn spanish for free. I find these types of sites all the time (ok, maybe not all the time) and I'll keep you posted as I find more.

¡Cuidense!

Hablame al contado no en abonos

What I love about learning Spanish is that I have so much to learn. Everyday I use my Spanish I get the opportunity to learn something new. Today was one of those days.

Before I can explain what "Hablame al contado no en abonos" means, I have to explain a few things first.

"al contado" means to pay for something in cash - one lump sum payment. To pay in "abonos" means you're putting it on layaway, in other words, making payments.

Now that we have that bit of knowledge behind us, we can get down to the business of understanding our phrase.

At some point in time we've all had conversations with someone who stutters or perhaps for some reason is just having a hard time getting the words out. It might go something like this: "Lo que quiero decir es...bueno, es que, pues, este...". By the way, "este" in this context is the equivalent of "ummm...". I think you get the picture. In english we might say something like "just spit it out". In Spanish you could say "Hablame al contado no en abonos".

I'm guessing most of you are pretty quick on the draw and have already figured this out. But let's go ahead and take a closer look at things.

Remember "abonos" means to make payments, one at a time, which is exactly how our unfortunate stuttering friend is delivering his words. We're requesting that he speak to us "al contado" - tell us everything at once, not one painful word at time.

Personally, I found this pretty funny. While it may not be very useful, it will definitely make your Spanish sound very natural and authentic. You'll probably even get a few laughs and surprises out of your friends after you throw this out. I enjoy seeing the look on the faces of my amigos when I surprise them with a bit of Spanish they just aren't expecting to hear.

While I'm not entirely sure, I believe this may be a Mexicanism, but you can always ask your Spanish speaking friends wherever they happen to be from if they've heard this before. Or better yet you can use it and teach them something!

¡Hasta la proxima!

Olvidar - Olvidarse - Part 4

OK, let's see if we can put everything together from the previous posts. You can view all the other posts here.

Sticking with our examples, below is a compilation of all three ways to say "I forgot":

Did you go to the bank?
No, se me olvidó
No, me olvidé
No, (yo) olvidé

I forgot the keys
Se me olvidaron las llaves
Me olvidé las llaves
Olvidé las llaves

I forgot about him a long ago
Hace mucho que se me olvidó de él
Hace mucho que me olvidé de él
Lo olvidé hace mucho (tiempo)

I forgot to call you
Se me olvidó de llamarte
Me olvidé de llamarte
Olvidé llamarte

I forgot the book
Se me olvidó el libro
Me olvidé del libro
Olvidé el libro

I forgot to bring the keys
Se me olvidó  traer las llaves
Me olvidé de traer las llaves
Olvidé traer las llaves

I forgot to call you
Se me olvidó llamarte
Me olvidé de llamarte
Olvidé llamarte

Each of these sentences can be expressed three different ways, and all three translations convey the same meaning. So what's the difference, which one do we use? Well, it comes down to what many things in Spanish boil down to, regionalisms and personal preference. In other words, Spanish speakers from different parts of the world may prefer one option over the other.

The reality of it is, you'll hear all of these constructions at some point in time. You'll even find that a native speaker will use different constructions in different situations.

Hopefully this series of posts has been helpful, and will make things a little easier for you than it was for me.

¡Suerte!

***NOTE: There are 4 parts to this subject, and you can see them all by clicking here

Olividar - Olvidarse - Part 3

The time has come to take another step down the road of confessing our olvidadizos - forgetfulness.

If you haven't read part one or part two, you may want to take a look at them. You can read them in any order, so feel free to finish this post and then look at the others.

OK, now let's look at our example sentences again, but this time using olvidar.

Did you go to the bank? - No, olvidé.

Olvidé las llaves - I forgot the keys

Olvidé traer las llaves - I forgot to bring the keys

Lo olvidé hace mucho (tiempo) - I forgot about him a long ago

Olvidé llamarte - I forgot to call you

Olvidé el libro - I forgot the book

If you noticed, using olvidar is a tad bit easier than using olvidarse, because we don't have to worry about remembering whether or not to use that pesky "de". And conjugating olvidar is much simpler because it's not reflexive.

So now we have 3 different ways to say the same thing - I forgot [something] or I forgot [to do something].

In the next post, I'm going to place everything side-by-side, so we can have a nice cross reference.

¡Hasta la proxima!

***NOTE: There are 4 parts to this subject, and you can see them all by clicking here

¿Te queda en camino?

Somethings come out the blue and hit me like a ton of bricks. Like this little gem: ¿Te queda en camino?

My first response was a blank stare. Each time she repeated it, I had a new answer - first was "¿cómo?", then "qué, then "repite". After that my friend caught on that I had no clue as to what she was talking about. I wonder what gave it away?

It all started when I asked a simple question, ¿Necesitas un aventón? - Do you need a ride? Her response was ¿Te queda en camino? - Is it on your way? You can also say ¿Esta en tu camino a casa?

Once she told me what it meant, it reminded me of Estoy en camino - I'm on the way. You can also say Estoy de camino, which colloquially seems to mean the same thing, although I think grammatically there is a difference.

Here's a few more examples:

Está de camino al súper - He's on his way to the super market

No está de camino - It's not on the way

Me queda por el camino - It's on my way

If you want to learn more, poke around at my absolute favorite resource - WordReference.com. Here's a couple of links regarding this topic that should helpful:

En camino and De camino

Estoy de camino vs Estoy en el camino

That's it for now. I hope you find this useful, and as always, feel free to comment and share your thoughts!

Olvidarse - se me olvidó - Part two

Let's pick up where we left off, telling the world just how forgetful we are. In Spanish of course. An important skill, especially for an olvidón ( forgetful person) like myself.

In part one of this series, we looked at several examples and translated them using me olvidé, so let's continue to look at those, but this time let's see how we can say the same thing using se me olvidó. This is known as the passive voice, but we arent going to worry about that right now. For now all you need to know is that this another way to say "I forgot".

Now let's revisit our examples:

Did you go to the bank? - No, se me olvidó

I forgot the keys - Se me olvidaron las llaves

I forgot to bring the keys - Se me olvidó traer las llaves

I forgot about him a long ago - Hace mucho que se me olvidó de él

I forgot to call you - Se me olvidó llamarte

I forgot the book - Se me olvidó el libro

Not so bad eh? Grammar wise, there's a whole going on here. My advice? Don't worry about it for now. Take the examples and start using them. There's just two simple rules you need to know right now:

(1) To say you forgot something, use se me olvidó [object]

(2) To say you forgot to do something or about someone, use se me olvidó [forgotten action].

If you've read part one, these rules sound awfully familar.

Now, one thing we haven't talked about yet, is olvidar, the non-reflexive way of saying "I forgot". Well, we'll get to that in the next part of this series. We'll look at the same examples and translate them using olvidar.

¡Hasta la proxima!



***NOTE: There are 4 parts to this subject, and you can see them all by clicking here