You want to hear a funny story?
Today my shirt says “peor”.
That means “worse”.
But I meant to write “PERO”, which is “but”.
I’m trying to put common words on my shirts... “pero” is a very common, useful word “but”.
But “peor?”
“Worse?”
A little negative for my tastes.
I would’ve gone with “mejor” which is “better”.
Those are two good words to know, so I got lucky.
“Pero” is “but”.
“Mejor” is “better”.
And “peor” is “worse”.
Now, let’s go to the planned opener.
Hola, yo soy Jordan and this is a Spanish Quickie--fast, easy Spanish lessons from somebody
who speaks your language.
In today’s lesson we’re gonna go over something that’s pretty straight forward
and easy to understand--if you’ve already watched the video called The Sexualization
of Nouns.
If you haven’t and anything in this video doesn’t make sense, you should probably
go back and watch that now.
Spanish nouns work almost exactly like English nouns when it comes to their plural forms--but
like always, there are a couple things you need to watch out for.
In today’s quick and easy lesson, we’re going over the Plural Forms of Nouns.
Okay, the sex of a noun--that’s a bit weird for we Gringos--but today’s lesson--the
plural form of nouns--that’s not so hard.
In Spanish, not only does this technically work pretty much like English, but generally,
the sounds are even the same.
I’m going to give you two simple rules that will govern 100% of nouns.
But just like the sexuality of nouns, it’s best to not focus too much on memorizing the
rules.
Just learn some words, and soon, it’ll be very natural--this is one of the easier lessons.
Okay, if a noun ends in a vowel, you just add S to the end to make it plural.
So “chico” is “boy” and “chicos” is “boys”.
See how “chico” ends in O--that’s a vowel.
Anytime a noun ends in a vowel, you can make it plural just by adding S.
Then, if a noun in Spanish ends in a consonant, you add an ES to the end to make it plural.
So “televisión” is “television” and “televisiónes” would be “televisions”.
“Televisión” ends in a consonant so we add an ES to the end to make it plural.
“Televisiónes.”
That’s kind of how it works in English.
In English we just add an S to “book” to make “books”.
But then with “horse” we still just add an S, but because the E in “horse” is
silent, by just adding the S, we’re still changing the sound of the word from “horse”
to “horses”.
“Chico” to “chicos” is like “book” to “books” and “televisión” to “televisiónes”
is like “horse” to “horses”.
Make sense?
The cool thing about Spanish compared to English in this case is, to the best of my knowledge,
there are absolutely no exceptions to these two very specific rules.
If the noun ends in a vowel, you add S to make it plural.
If it ends in a consonant, you add ES to make it plural.
Nice.
No exceptions.
Don’t get used to that.
Now one little additional item, then we’ll get out of here.
When there’s a group of boys and girls, you use the masculine form of the word.
So “chicos” would be used for “boys” but it would also be used if some “boys”
and some “girls” were included in the group.
If a boy and a girl were walking together to meet a third friend, that third friend,
upon seeing the boy and the girl could say, “hola chicos” even though one of the people
they’re talking to is a girl.
Another example.
You could say you have some “amigos” or “friends”.
That could mean specifically multiple male “friends”.
But you could also be referring to a group of “friends” made of boys and girls.
The only way to tell is to specifically say so.
If it’s important, that’s what you’d do.
This is a good example, because “friends” works the same way in English.
If you say “I was with a bunch of friends” that could be all girl friends, all boy friends,
or a mixed group.
So in this case, Spanish is actually more specific.
You can tell when it’s all girls and all boys, it’s just a mixed group that is ambiguous.
Don’t get used to this either.
In most cases, Spanish is the more ambiguous one.
Like in our “chico/chicas” example.
If we had a group of “boys” and “girls”, we’d say “boys and girls” in English.
But they could say the more ambiguous, “chicos”.
If the speaker or listener needed clarification as to the sex of the group, they could just
say or ask.
Make sense?
That’s it for today.
Over at GringoEspanol.com/nouns-plural/ I’ve included a quick Plural Nouns Worksheet that
you can do in just a few minutes.
I took every noun you’ve already learned, but it in one place, and it’s your job to
make it plural.
The Answer Key is also posted at GringoEspanol.com/nouns-plural/
So go there now, download the Worksheet, do it and then go goof off.
Do you know anybody else who wants to learn Spanish?
Share this video with them!
Even if it’s not publicly.
If you know anybody who might benefit from not having to shell out hundreds of dollars
on Rosetta Stone, send them a quick email with a link to this video.
You’re giving them free Spanish lessons, it’s not like you’re trying to sell them
something.
I’ll see you next time!
Hasta luego.