Catriona: Welcome to A Zero to A Hero! This is the new podcast for Spanish beginners from Babbel!  I’m Catriona and I do have to admit that my Spanish isn't very good at all. I am from Scotland and like most people, I love traveling. I have some friends who live in Spain and I've visited before. Apart from "una cerveza", "dos sangrias", I haven't got much for it in terms of speaking Spanish. I would love to change the role from the typical stereotype of English-speaking tourist abroad and really be able to have proper conversations with the locals. I'd also love to chat with my Spanish colleagues at work. Those are my true motivations for hoping that I'll turns things around and become conversational in Spanish. 

Besides that, I have not been studying as regularly as I know I should've been, so I decided to make a podcast, to make myself accountable and document all of my learning... and if you are a complete beginner or, like me, have fallen off the bandwagon and would like to tag along on my journey, you’re in the right place. Before we start I would like to remind our audience that you can always rewind this podcast as many times as you need to.

To help me navigate through the Spanish language, I got myself 
an expert, Héctor Hernández, one of the Spanish Editors here at Babbel. Hello, Héctor.

Héctor: Hello, Catriona! Thanks for having me! As you have already said, I work as an Editor at Babbel and I will be helping you become a Spanish superhero. So why don’t you start by telling me and our audience: what you’ve been struggling with?

Catriona: Well, as an English native speaker,  the multiple conjugations in Spanish are a bit tricky and a bit of a challenge. I cannot even get to introduce myself properly without sounding silly.

So, I’ve really been going through some of the Newcomer courses available on Babbel and I do have a few questions that I would like you to answer first. Then, in our  section El Tesauro, I would love it if you could teach me how to greet and introduce myself in different situations, formal situations and informal situations, in Spanish, of course. And then I know you have got some  challenges to put me to test.

Héctor: That’s right! Great, so let’s get started, are you ready to become a hero?

Catriona: ¡Lista!

Héctor: So why don't you start by telling me what you have been doing?

Catriona: Sure! So at work I've been trying to introduce myself to my colleagues or to become more conversational at my Spanish speaking colleagues.

Héctor: And what do you usually say?

Catriona: ¡Hola! and then I get a bit stuck.

Héctor: Oh well, that is a good first step. That is a neutral way of greeting somebody in Spanish, but you can also use different phrases depending on the time of the day. That is:

Héctor & Catriona:
“Buenos días”. 
“Buenas tardes”. 
“Buenas noches”.

Héctor: Did you know those?

Catriona: Definitely, I had heard them before, but I don't think I've ever actually used them.

Héctor: When do you think they are used?

Catriona: I assume you use “buenos días” in the morning, “buenas tardes” in the afternoon and “buenas noches” in the evening.

Héctor: Exactly!

Catriona: So “buenos” means “good” and “días” means “morning”?

Héctor: Well, In Spanish, the phrase uses plurals and would literally be translated as “Good days”.

Catriona: Ah OK, plurals I haven't quite got there yet but I see the literal translation would be “Good afternoons” and “Good evenings”?

Héctor: Yes, strictly speaking, Spanish does not distinguish between “evening” and “night”, so “buenas noches” would also comprise “Good nights”, if you want the equivalent in English, there you go.

Catriona: Good to know. This also reminded me that in Spanish there are feminine and masculine nouns. That’s the reason behind “buenos” and “buenas”, isn’t it?

Héctor: Exactly. It is, “el día” is a masculine noun, that’s why it is “buenos días” and “la noche” is a feminine noun, that’s why we say “buenas noches”.

Catriona: Wait a second, Héctor, what’s masculine about “the day” and feminine about “the night”? This makes no sense!

Héctor: I know, it is confusing at the beginning, especially if your linguistic background is a language similar to English with non-gendered nouns. We’ll explore this in detail later on this season. But just take it as it is: we have feminine nouns, and masculines nouns. Sometimes is not as straightforward.

Catriona: OK, I just have to learn them then! So, buenos días, buenas tardes and buenas noches and then?

Héctor: Then it’s time to say who you are. Do you know how to say that?

Catriona: I got this wrong earlier. Would be: “¡Hola! ¡Yo soy Catriona!”

Héctor: Great! Now you used the right verb “Yo soy”. Do you know what verb is that?

Catriona: I think this is the verb “ser”, Correct? 

Héctor: Yes, “yo soy”. That is accurate! Something you may have already noticed is that in Spanish it is not mandatory to always add the pronoun. Let me break this down. The equivalent of “yo soy” in English is “I am” where “I” is the pronoun and “am” is verb that is in this case “to be” conjugated. Given that in English verbs are not normally conjugated, here actually verb to be is an exception, not a rule, you always have to include the pronoun in a sentence. In Spanish, it isn’t so. The conjugation will tell what person you’re referring to. So, if I were to introduce myself, I can say either “yo soy Héctor” or “soy Héctor”.

Catriona: So I can either say “yo soy Catriona” or simply “soy Catriona”.

Héctor: Well done! Is this more difficult or easier than in English?

Catriona: Arguably easier, if I can miss out a little bit of the sentence, then there just is less to learn. 

Héctor: Exactly and there is also another way of saying your name in Spanish…

Catriona: Oh, God…

Héctor: So here you will learn the full phrase: “Hola, me llamo Héctor”.

Catriona: Hola, me llamo Catriona.

Héctor: Great! 

Catriona: Which version is more common to use?

Héctor: “Me llamo” is way more common than “soy” or “yo soy”. It’s literally translated as “I call myself”. If you’re being introduced for the first time you can say “mucho gusto”, after you say your name. So in this case, pretending that we are being introduced, I would say: “yo soy Héctor” or “me llamo Héctor, mucho gusto.” 

Catriona: OK, so, “me llamo Catriona, mucho gusto”.

Héctor: I would like to add a pronunciation note here, vowel sounds in Spanish are less dynamic, so to say, than they are in English. For example, you said “mi iamou”. Let’s start with the first word, the pronunciation is “me”, the sound is the same sound that we are going to find in the word “egg”, so it is an open “e”: “me”.

Catriona: Me.

Héctor: Exactly! Now, the second word I would like to focus on is “llamo” and I would like to focus on the ending in the letter: “o”, or the sound “o”. 

Catriona: “o”.

Héctor: In this case it is the same sound that we find in the word “horse”. So it is a completely round “o”, in so that it won't be pronounced “iamou”, instead it would be “llamo”.

Catriona: “Me llamo Catriona”.

Héctor: Exactly! I’m impressed!

Catriona: Great, so that is super, but I would also be nice to have a few other options or ways to greeting people. Are there maybe a few more that are more formal, less formal than the ones we have learned so far?

Héctor: Yes! For that one we would have to go to our section: El Tesauro!

Catriona: So, this section called El Tesauro is where we will learn new expressions to extend our repertoire and I'd like to get started with some formal expressions to greet somebody. Héctor, what should I say if I meet someone within this context?

Héctor: You can add some formality to a greeting by using the word “muy”, which means “very”. So you can say “muy buenos días”, “muy buenas tardes” and “muy buenas noches” to greet somebody in a more formal manner.

Catriona: Excellent, I'll definitely try to use those soon!

Héctor: That is a great idea actually. Putting what you learned to practice as soon as you can will help you put this phrase or phrases into context and remember it more easily!

Catriona: Perfect, and what about more informal situations? So for example I was saying to become more conversational with my colleagues at work. What could I use to make them think I'm pretty conversational in Spanish or any idea or sort of informal greeting that I need?

Héctor: For more informal situations you can just remove the second word and just use  “buenos” or “buenas” depending on the time of the day.

Catriona: Ah! OK! That would be “buenos” instead of “buenos días” and “buenas” instead of  “buenas tardes” and “buenas noches”.

Héctor: That’s right!

Catriona: Perfect! Héctor, I know that you are from México City. Is there any sort of greeting that is more typical for you? What would you usually say around your  friends?

Héctor: Yes, in Mexico City, we typically say: “¿qué onda?”

Catriona:  “¿Qué onda?”. What does it mean?

Héctor: It is an expression that would equate to wWhat’s up?”. It literally translates “what wave?”. If that makes any sense. 

Catriona: Not so much, but is this just used in Mexico?

Héctor: Well, cultural products such as TV, music, radio and what not from Mexico are very well-known in the Spanish speaking world. So I think that maybe nor a lot of people use it but they identify it as something that comes from Mexico. Is there something similar in Scottish English?

Catriona: I don't think for greeting. There is nothing so distinctive or apart. No, not so much! 

Héctor: But for example the accent, the Scottish accent is very distinguishable, right? 

Catriona: Usually, yes. A lot of people tell me mine is not good enough or strong enough. But on average, yes. It could be quite tricky to understand. Wordwise we do have huge variation in greetings. 

Héctor: Yeah, well whenever you are in Mexico, yeah you can say  “¿qué onda?”. I know that in Uruguay, they also use it quite often because I think in Uruguay there is a big taste for Mexican telenovelas.  

Catriona: Good to know! But before we overwhelm me with all this new Spanish. Maybe you should put me to the test, Héctor!

Héctor: Yes! 

Héctor: So we are going to divide our tests into two parts the first one is going to be a quiz. Given that quizzes are not real life, we are also going to do a role play. So I'm going to start with the first question: What greeting do you use in the morning? and what are its formal and informal equivalents for this expression?

Catriona: OK so the morning: “días, “buenos días”, and I want to make that more formal I can say “muy buenos días”, and informal “buenos”.

Héctor: OK and what about the afternoon?

Catriona: “Buenas tardes”, “muy buenas tardes”, for more formal or just “buenas”.

Héctor: Exactly. OK. What greeting do you use in the evening? 

Catriona: In the evening, is also femenine so I would have “buenas noches”, “muy buenas noches”, that being formal; or just “buenas”, again.

Héctor: Is there any difference between evenings and nights?

Catriona: It is a good question, Héctor. In Spain, I do not know what happens or in Spanish-speaking countries, for me there would be a difference between good afternoon, good evening, and good night.  But I guess “tardes” comprises afternoon and the evening.

Héctor: Yes, I think this also has to do with some geographical aspect. I mean, in Mexico it doesnt go dark as quickly as here in northern Europe. Also when is summer here, days extend forever: 10 p.m, 11 p.m you still have some sunlight. So I do not know if that has anything to do with the perception but yes you would use “noches”, for the evening starting around 7 p.m and would be like that until you go to bed.

Catriona: OK, excellent.

Héctor: Tell me two ways in which you can introduce yourself.

Catriona: I can either say “Yo soy Catriona” or maybe the more standard: “me llamo Catriona”.

Héctor: Very good pronunciation! Now let's roleplay.  Let's do some roleplays. Here I'm gonna set the scenario, I am going to describe it and you are going to tell me the phrase that suits best. OK? 

It’s 9 a.m. on a Monday morning and your Spanish-speaking boss enters the door. What would you say? 

Catriona: Well, I would love to say “¿qué onda?” but I think that might my Spanish-speaking boss might fire me. So probably I should say…

Héctor: Not if he is very friendly.

Catriona: No for very friendly, that's true. If he is a scary sort of boss, I'd probably say “muy buenos días” or just  “buenos días”. 

Héctor:  Exactly. Now, it’s 2 p.m. and you bump into an old friend of yours on the street.

Catriona: The answer to all of these are “¿qué onda?” but I could also say, 2 p.m afternoon, just “buenas”.

Héctor: Exactly, very good. Instead of “buenas tardes”, right?
It’s 7 p.m. and, while you’re leaving the office, you meet a colleague of yours.

Catriona: Here I'd probably say “buenas” again to clear the confusion between “tardes” and “noche”. To keep it informal and over the time issues.  

Héctor: OK! So now, we are going to extend our roleplay a little bit more. I’m a newbie at Babbel and you want to make me feel welcome. 

Catriona: OK! Héctor, how do I say welcome, as in "Welcome to Babbel"?

Héctor: OK you could use “bienvenido”, for a man, or “bienvenida” for a woman. 

Catriona: “Bienvenido”, “bienvenida”. OK. So I am welcoming you. I can say … “Bienvenido, Héctor. Me llamo Catriona, mucho gusto”.

Héctor: “Mucho gusto Catriona. Me llamo Héctor y soy nuevo en Babbel”, I'm new at Babbel. 

Catriona: ¿Y qué tal?

Héctor: Muy bien gracias. ¿Qué tal?

Catriona: Muy bien.

Héctor: Ok so, I just poing here you used the phrase: “¿qué tal?” This it also widespread in the Spanish-speaking world. It's very similar to “¿qué onda?” I would say a little bit more neutral. “¿Qué tal?” can be used with your boss or also with friends.

Catriona: So a good phrase to know. 

Héctor: So, I guess this closes our test for today. Very good, well done. So tell me what you would like to do next time?

Catriona: Well I've already seen there is this issue with the different forms of you, so “tú” and “usted”, “ustedes”, “vosotros”, all of these words that in English just translate to “you”. So that is a bit tricky I think. Specially for English native speakers.

Héctor: Yeah - let’s jump into that next time! It's a hot topic. I hope I can help with that. 

Catriona: I'm sure. So, listeners, if you are an A Zero like myself and you would like to make me company in my language learning journey while sharpen your Spanish basics, then subscribe to this podcast.

Héctor: Yeah, and if you would like to get in touch with us, just send us an email to podcasting@babbel.com, put A Zero to A Hero in the subject and we’ll read all your comments and suggestions.

Catriona: Don’t forget to subscribe to A Zero to A Hero wherever you get podcasts and leave us a review!

Catriona & Héctor: ¡Hasta luego!