Lesson 9: Saber, si and long sentences

Question 1

How to say

If

Answer 1

‘Si’ - if
‘Sí’ - yes

Question 2

How do you say

Yes

Answer 2

‘Si’ - if
‘Sí’ - yes

Question 3

How to say

I want to know if she wants to come to the house to visit me”

Answer 3

Quiero saber - I want to know
si quiere - if she wants
venir - to come
a la casa - to the house
a visitarme - to visitar me

Note here the ‘a’ before ‘visitarme’. That’s because venir is a verb of movement so we need the ‘a’ after it but only once we have the object (the house) out the way.

Question 4

How to say

I want to know why she doesn’t want to come to the house to visit me”.

Answer 4

Quiero saber - I want to know
por qué no quiere - why she doesn’t want
venir - to come
a la casa - to the house
a visitarme - to visitar me

Question 5

What is the trick to learning Spanish

Answer 5

It’s worth pointing out here that one of the tricks to learning Spanish is substitution - finding a way to express yourself by finding alternative words in English. So we might want to say “Why doesn’t he want to let me know” but we don’t know the Spanish for “let me know”. A bit of time thinking and you will remember an alternative “inform” which as a ‘tion’ version so you can now express yourself and be perfectly understood.

Question 6

How do you say

Explain

Answer 6

explicar’ is not following the usual rules for a ‘tion’ word. If it did it would be ‘explanar’. But as we said general rules are useful but there are always exceptions and this is one of them.

There is actually a sort of version that exists in English - “inexplicable” (unexplainable) - which is the same in Spanish …