LESSON NOTES

Beginner S5 #22
Style Yourself Spanish

CONTENTS
2 Informal Spanish
2 English
2 Vocabulary
3 Sample Sentences
3 Vocabulary Phrase Usage
4 Grammar
6 Cultural Insight

# 22
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 INFORMAL SPANISH

1. LOURDES: Hola Stefanie. Wow, te ves diferente ¿qué te hiciste?

2. KATERINA: Ay sí, pues adivina.

3. LOURDES: Mmm, te cortaste el pelo. ¿O estás usando diferente maquillaje?

4. KATERINA: Ninguna de esas. Soy Katerina, ¡no Stefanie!

ENGLISH

1. LOURDES: Hi, Stefanie. Wow, you look different—what did you do?

2. KATERINA: Yeah! Take a guess.

3. LOURDES: Hmm, you cut your hair. Or are you using different makeup?

4. KATERINA: Neither of those. I'm Katerina, not Stefanie!

VOCABULARY

S panish English C lass Ge nde r

adivinar to guess

cortar to cut verb

maquillaje make up noun masculine

ningún none, not any indefinite adjective

diferente different

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 verse to look at oneself verb

pelo hair noun masculine

usar to use verb

SAMPLE SENTENCES

Adivina a quién me encontré hoy. Hace mucho tiempo que ella no se

corta el pelo.
"Guess who I bumped into today."
"It's been a long time since she's cut
her hair."

La modelo se está poniendo el En ninguna ocasión te he tratado

maquillaje. mal.

"The model is putting on make up." "On no occasion have I treated you
poorly."

Elena y su hermana son Te ves muy bonita.

completamente diferentes.
"You look beautiful."
Elena and her sister are completely
different.

El pelo de Susana es muy sedoso. El programador está usando el

ordenador.
"Susana's hair is very silky."
"The programmer is using the
computer."

VOCABULARY PHRASE USAGE

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adivinar ("to guess")
This is an ar verb that means "to guess."

cortarse ("to cut oneself")

This verb is the reflexive form of the verb cortar, which means "to cut."

el maquillaje ("the makeup," "cosmetics")

The noun maquillaje is masculine; therefore, we use the particle el in front of it. Now, el
maquillaje refers to "the makeup" that a person has on her face, but when we use maquillaje
by itself, it can mean "cosmetics" as well.

ninguno/-a ("none," "nobody," "no one," "neither")

In the dialogue, this adjective means "none."

GRAMMAR

The Focus of This Lesson Is Reflexive Verbs.

Te ves diferente-que te hiciste?
"You look different—what did you do?"

We use reflexive verbs when the subject and the object of a sentence are the same. For
example, if you look at the sentence "I wash myself," the subject and the object are the same.
Therefore, we need to use a reflexive verb. The way we form reflexive verbs is by adding the
reflexive pronoun se to the infinitive verb.

Here's an example of a regular verb and its reflexive counterpart: lavar ("to wash"), which is
non-reflexive, and lavarse ("to wash oneself"), which is reflexive.

We can clearly see that the reflexive form has the word se, a reflexive pronoun, on the end. To
learn how to conjugate the reflexive verbs, we also need to learn the pronouns that are called
reflexive pronouns. Remember that reflexive pronouns are not subject pronouns, but instead
object pronouns. When we conjugate reflexive pronouns, the reflexive pronouns come before
the verb and we drop the se at the end.

Let's review the reflexive pronouns.

Spanish "English"

me "myself"

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te "yourself"

se "herself," "himself," "yourself"

nos "ourselves"

os "yourselves"

se "themselves," "yourselves "

The reason why we use reflexive object pronouns is to show that the action of the verb
remains with the subject. If we notice, there is one reflexive verb that we have seen from the
beginning, and that is me llamo, "I call myself."

Let's look at the reflexive verb lavarse conjugated:

Spanish "English"

me lavo "I wash (myself)"

te lavas "you wash (yourself)"

se lava "he/she washes (himself/herself)"

nos lavamos "we wash (ourselves)"

se lavan "they wash (themselves)"

Examples from This Dialogue

1. Te ves diferente-que te hiciste?

"You look different-what did you do?"

2. Mmm, te cortaste el pelo.

"Hmm, you cut your hair."

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Sample Sentences

1. Comprarme una cartera es una buena idea.

"Buying myself a purse is a good idea."

2. Vernos por internet es algo increible.

"To see ourselves on the Internet is something incredible."

3. Te comiste toda la torta.

"You ate the whole cake yourself."

CULTURAL INSIGHT

Can You Judge a Book by Its Cover in Latin America?

Talking about makeup and hairstyles in Latin America, I have to say that people's choices
have to do with social class. The reason why I say this is because the people who are able to
travel and see what's in fashion at the moment are able to follow it. Now, if we talk about
people who are not surrounded by fashion or money and have other things to worry about, I
would say that the makeup that they use is a bit too much: usually the eyeshadows that they
put on are a bit too bright and the lipstick colors are usually dark. If we talk about hairstyles,
people usually cannot afford a curling iron, flatiron, or other equipment that can help make a
hairstyle, so I would say that braids, ponytails, or just having the hair down are very common.

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