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¿Cómo te llamas? / What’s your name?
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Cuando (when) you go to Andalucía, you will meet some people and you will have to introduce yourself, y you will also want to know their stories.
Por ejemplo, if you siempre go to the same bakery, it would be great if you ask the baker for his name, and greet him by his or her name every morning, don’t you think? For him or her surely would!
But don’t worry, buenas noticias!!! Good news! To learn to introduce yourself and demand information about someone, you will solo (only) need seis verbos (verbs). Sí * (Yes), I promise it’s true, solo seis verbos (only 6 verbs)! Si * (If) you know those verbs, you can fácilmente (easily) build all the sentences.
I give you a table con (with) los verbos. Read them and see cómo (how) they are written.
You can study them if you want, so you will have an advantage. Si (If) you don’t feel like studying them now, no te preocupes (don’t worry), we’ll learn them as the lessons progress.
* ¡ATENCIÓN!
In Spanish we use the word “si” with and without an accent mark:
- Sí : With an accent mark means “yes”
- Si : Without an accent mark means “if”
It would be nice if you can write these verbs a couple of times in your cuaderno, so that you will have a better idea for the rest of the módulo.
NOMBRE Y APELLIDOS / name and surnames
En España we have uno o dos nombres (names), especialmente women. Normalmente Maria is one of them porque (because) in the old days en España, the Catholic Church forced to call María (Mary) to every woman when they were baptized.
For this reason, many people are called María and another nombre, like me, mi (my) nombre is María Elena, or my sister Ana María.
Afortunadamente (fortunately), that rule doesn’t work longer today, in addition to fewer and fewer children being baptized.
We all have dos apellidos (two surnames), the first comes from our father, and the second from our mother: so, si (if) Antonio García Fernández y (and) María Luisa López Pérez had a daughter, she would be called Carmen (for example) García López.
From some years ago, the law allows couples to change the order and give the child mother’s surname first: Carmen López García, in order to equal rights between men and women. 💪🏼
Hay (there are) dos ways to ask someone por el nombre :
1. ¿Cómo te llamas? Yo me llamo Elena
The literal translation of this phrase would be: “How do you call yourself? I call myself Elena”.
This is the literal translation of the verb “llamarse” = “to call yourself”, because “llamar” is “to call”; the “se” is the reflexive particle: “oneself”. For the first person singular, the reflexive is “me” = “myself”. I’ll give you an example:
–Yo llamo a Elena – I call Elena
–Yo me llamo Elena – I am (my name is) Elena
It is like “I call myself” to say what is my name. I know it, it doesn’t make sense for you, pero… it is like that! Pero (but) don’t worry for the moment, we will see the reflexivos later on the módulo.
2. ¿Cuál es tu nombre? Mi nombre es Elena
What is your name? My name is Elena.
Por favor (please), note that we don’t use “Qué” (What) but “Cuál ” (which) to ask for the name, so literalmente translated we say “which is your name? My name is…“.
Note also that in this phrase we have used a possessive: mi = my
Here you can hear how these phrases are pronounced in Spanish
Y si (and if) I am con (with) a third persona, cómo do I introduce him/her? Or, how do I ask for his name? We will have to use the third person singular for that:
¿Cómo se llama? Él se llama Paco, Ella se llama Pilar
We have used the reflexive of the third person singular. Great, because it’s the same word regardless of whether it’s a man or a woman: él se llama, ella se llama “Se ” = “him/herself”. Remember, the verb is reflexive: “Llamarse”
¿Cuál es su nombre? Su nombre es Paco, su nombre es Pilar
Here we have used the possessive of the third person singular: “su ”, y in this case it is also the same for male and female: “su” = “his/her”. Everything is easy in Spanish! 😄
Here you can hear how these phrases are pronounced in Spanish
¡RECUERDA!
Remember that If you are going to fill out a cuestionario, they will probablemente (probably) ask you for this information as follows:
Nombre: _______________
Apellidos: ______________
Maybe means quizás, like the song quizás, quizás, quizás…, do you know it? So quizás this is a good time to talk about reflexives. Reflexive pronouns are used to indicate an action that a persona does to himself.
Los pronombres reflexivos are used with reflexive verbs, when the subject is performing an action for himself/herself:
Now take tu cuaderno y write these frases dos o tres times. That will help you fix the personal pronouns, the reflexives and also the conjugation of the verbo “llamarse”. All-in-one ejercicio! When you finish, go and do los ejercicios below.
¡SPELLING!
Check this box out! It will help you to complete the writing exercises easily. You will find this box just before every writing exercise, so that you can copy and paste the characters with the accent marks more easily.
á - é - í - ó - ú - ü - ñ - ¿ - ¡
¡Muy Bien! Ahora you can jump to the next topic. Cheer up!