Catriona: Buenos días and welcome back. 

Héctor: ¡Hola a todo el mundo!  Welcome to another episode of A Zero to A Hero. ¿Cómo estás, Catriona?

Catriona: ¿Cómo se dice “hungry and thirsty”?

Héctor: Hambrienta y sedienta.

Catriona: “Estoy hambrienta y sedienta”. Did I use “estoy” correctly?

Héctor: Yes,  one of the functions of the verb “estar”: it describes a feeling, I am hungry, I am thirsty. Hopefully after this episode you can grab a bite.  

Catriona: I hope so too! My stomach is rumbling already!

Héctor: But it is not that common to listen to somebody say those phrases, it would be more common to say tengo sed, I'm thirsty or tengo hambre, I'm hungry. Something Mexican, Argentinian, Spanish, Colombian, Venezuelan? The variety of food in the Spanish-speaking world is huge!

Catriona: I have to admit that I’m not a connoisseur of those cuisines, so I wouldn’t know. So today I would like to continue learning more about verb conjugations while you talk about food and drinks.

Héctor: Sounds like a plan! So take your forks and knives out, people, because today we are having a buffet.

Catriona: ¡Qué rico!

Catriona: In the last episode we looked at two common regular verbs “hablar” and “estudiar”. Remember, dear listeners, that in Spanish, infinitives end in “-ar”, “-er” and “-ir”. Today, we’ll take a look at the second group, ending in “er”, with the verbs “comer”, to eat and “beber”, to drink.

Héctor: ¿Qué desayunas, Catriona?

Catriona: ¿Qué significa eso?

Héctor: What do you have for breakfast?

Catriona: The verb here then is “desayunar”, right?

Héctor: It is!

Catriona: Ok, got it! So “desayuno tostadas con marmelade normalmente”.

Héctor: Ok, “pan tostado“, although in Spain you can call also say “tostadas”.

Catriona: “Pan tostado”

Héctor: Exactly.

Catriona: “Pan tostado con marmelade y siempre un café”.

Héctor: Ok let's just rephrase that, it would be: “Pan tostado con mermelada”.

Catriona: Pan tostado con mermelada.

Héctor: Now, try with the verb.

Catriona: Desayuno pan tostado con mermelada.

Héctor: Ok, very good.

Catriona: Y siempre un café, es importante.

Héctor: That's important yes. 

Catriona: Y, tú, Héctor, ¿qué desayunas normalmente?

Héctor: Desayuno yoghurt con fruta y avena. Ah, y un café también.

Catriona: ¿Qué es avena?

Héctor: “Avena” es oatmeal.

Catriona: Ah so, similar to the Scottish breakfast of porridge then! So you have a specific verb for to have breakfast, is “comer” something more general. 

Héctor: Yes, “comer” covers all eating activities, so in some sense it is more general, but it is also used to say to have lunch. “Yo como arroz con carne y verduras todos los días, ¿y tú?.

Catriona: “Todos los días”, everyday?

Héctor: Good! So know that we have our first example, can you tell me how to conjugate regular verbs with the ending “-er” for the first person, “yo”?

Catriona: So, again we have the ending “-er” which we take off and for first person add ending “-o”.

Héctor: OK so then we have one verb before: desayunar you conjugate it:

Catriona: Yo desayuno.

Héctor: and those are verbs ending in “-ar”., and for verbs ending in “-er”: “comer”.

Catriona: Yo como.

Héctor: Indeed, same as with the verbs ending in “-ar”, we drop the ending of the verb “comer” and change it for the letter “-o”.
¿Qué comes normalmente, Catriona?

Catriona: “¿Qué comes tú”, so “comes” is the singular you version of the verb.

Héctor: Exactly, very good.

Catriona: Perfect. “Normalmente como en invierno mucha sopa y también como chocolate siempre”. 

Héctor: Muy bien.

Catriona: And I can just ask you back then. “¿Qué comes normalmente, Héctor?”. Right?

Héctor: That is accurate! “Como arroz con carne y verduras, todos los días”.

Catriona: OK so what about “él” and “ella”? I’m getting more confident here, so let me try. We’ll keep dropping the infinitive ending, don’t we?

Héctor: ¡Sí!

Catriona: And then…

Héctor: OK, let’s illustrate this conjugation with a difference between English and Spanish. In English, “people” are always counted as a plural noun.

Catriona: So I take it singular in Spanish, then?

Héctor: Yes, in English you always say “people eat”, perhaps you’ve noticed that one common mistake made by Spanish speakers is adding the third person “-s”, so they might say “people eats” instead.

Catriona: Yes, I have always noticed that and wondered why it was a common mistake…

Héctor: That is because in Spanish, you would use the conjugation for “él” and “ella”. “Come, el come, ella come, la gente come”.

Héctor: En México, la gente come tacos. ¿Qué come la gente en Escocia?

Catriona: I'm guessing “Escocia” means Scotland so… “En Escocia, la gente come pescado y papas fritas”.

Héctor: So what is the rule for the conjugation of regular verbs with the ending “-er” for the third persons, “él” and “ella”?

Catriona: Again we take off the ending “-er”and replace with “-e”,  “come”. 

Héctor: Exactly. Remember that the conjugation for formal “you” is the same as for “él”, “ella” and “la gente”.

Catriona: OK, if I want to make, for example, “tú comes avena” more formal I would say “usted come avena”, correct?

Héctor: That’s accurate! So why we don't check “nosotros” and “nosotras”? 

Catriona: “Nosotros” and “nosotras” has the most regular conjugation, I think I know this one!

Héctor: OK, but let’s change the verb, let’s use “beber”, to drink. “¿Qué beben ustedes en Escocia?”

Catriona: OK, so the rule first of we still drop the ending “-er” and change it for “-emos”. “Beber - Bebemos”. En Escocia bebemos whiskey, ¿y en México?

Héctor: ¡En México bebemos mezcal!

Catriona: OK, and how about “vosotros”, “vosotras”, this one is also pretty regular, right? “Comer, coméis”?

Héctor: Exactly, “coméis”. “¿Qué coméis en Navidad en Escocia?”

Catriona: En Escocia la gente come, ¿cómo se dice “turkey”?

Héctor: Pavo.

Catriona: La gente come pavo con patatas y verdura.

Héctor: ¡Perfecto!

Catriona: ¿Qué coméis en España?

Héctor: En España comemos tortilla de patatas y tapas.

Catriona: Héctor, I’m getting hungrier by the minute!

Héctor: You’re all but done! I know that you were in Portugal a few weeks ago and I wanted to ask you: “¿qué comen en Portugal?”

Catriona: OK, so the conjugation for regular verbs ending in “-er” for “ustedes” and “ellos”. I have to drop the ending as always and add “-en”, so “comen”.

Héctor: Exacly. “Comer, comen”. ¡Muy bien!

Catriona: “Comer, comen”

Catriona: ¿Cómo se dice “The Portuguese”?

Héctor: Los portugueses y las portuguesas.

Catriona: Los portugueses, las portuguesas.

Catriona: Los portugueses y las portuguesas comen pescado.

Héctor: OK. “¿Qué tipo de pescado?” What type of fish?

Catriona: El bacalao.

Héctor: OK.

Catriona: Y también la torta de crema que se llama pastéis de nata.

Héctor: Yummy. OK. ¡Bravo!

Catriona: Gracias.

Catriona: OK, so maybe I would also like to ask people about their favorite food and dishes. That’s always a fun topic of conversation.

Héctor: Oh, I know what time it is.

Catriona: Yes! Time for El Tesauro!

Catriona: So, Héctor, cómo se dice: “what’s your favorite cuisine?”

Héctor: Ok, you could ask “¿cuál es tu comida favorita?” if you want to specifically listen from the other person food from specific country, then you can give examples. Because in Spanish it would be a little ambiguous, it could also mean what your favorite dish is. So if you want to specifically ask the type of cuisine it's best if you give examples so: “¿cuál es tu comida favorita, italiana mexicana, portugesa?” and so on. So the question is “¿cuál es tu comida favorita?”

Catriona: ¿Cuál es tu comida favorita?

Héctor: Mi comida favorita es la comida mexicana. ¿y la tuya?

Catriona: Mi comida favorita es la italiana.

Héctor: OK, very good. 

Catriona: Y, ¿cómo se dice: “What’s your favorite restaurant?”?

Héctor: ¿Cuál es tu restaurante favorito?  

Catriona: ¿Cuál es tu restaurante favorito?

Héctor: Very good. Mi restaurante favorito en México es El Cardenal. ¿Cuál es tu restaurante favorito?

Catriona: Mi restaurante favorito en Escocia es Ubiquitous Chip.

Héctor: That's quite a mouthful.

Catriona: ¿Cómo se dice: “What’s your favorite dish and drink?”?

Héctor: ¿Cuál es tu platillo favorito?

Catriona: ¿Cuál es tu platillo favorito?

Héctor: Mi platillo favorito son las enchiladas. ¿Y el tuyo? ¿Cuál es tu platillo favorito?

Catriona: Mi platillo favorito es salmón, creo.

Héctor: I love salmón. “Me encanta el salmón”.

Catriona: Yo también.

Héctor: ¡Bravo! ¿Cuál es tu bebida favorita?

Catriona: Mi bebida favorita es el whisky.

Héctor: Naturalmente.

Catriona: Of course, “y ¿tú?”

Héctor: Mi bebida favorita es el mezcal definitivamente.

Catriona: Naturalmente.
 
Héctor: For those who don't know what mezcal is, I bet you're familiar with tequila, the difference between mezcal and tequila, although they are both made out of agave is that tequila is exclusively out of blue agave.

OK si I think we have a lot of things to practice. Are you ready for your quiz?

Catriona: I hope so. 

Héctor: So for the quiz we have several phrases and they include the verbs eat and drink. So I am going to tell you the phrases and you have to tell me their equivalent in Spanish. Let's travel to france, and the first sentence is: I eat crepes.

Catriona: I'm hoping crepes is universally accepted, so “como crepes”.

Héctor: Yes, you can actually use “crepes” in Spain and in Mexico you say “crepas”.

Catriona: Crepas. Yo como crepas. 

Héctor: OK the second sentence: you eat fish and chips. Let's try first with the informal you.

Catriona: OK so “tú comes pescado y patatas fritas”?

Héctor: Very good and the formal?

Catriona: Usted come pescado y patatas fritas.

Héctor: Very good. 

Héctor: OK, the third one: Melissa drinks mezcal.

Catriona: Melissa bebe mezcal.

Héctor: Very good. 

Héctor: The fourth one: we eat pretzels. 

Catriona: Nosotros o nosotras comemos pretzels. 

Héctor: Very good. 

Héctor: Next one: in Germany people drink beer.

Catriona: A stereotype but true. “En Alemania la gente bebe la cerveza”.

Héctor: Or you can just say “bebe cerveza”.

Catriona: “Bebe cerveza”.

Héctor: Ok, now let's try with “you” plural. You guys eat burritos. Let's try first with the latinamerican variation: ustedes.

Catriona: Gracias. Ustedes comen burritos.

Héctor: Yeah, very good. Let's try now the european variation “vosotros”.

Catriona: Vosotros, vosotras coméis burritos.

Héctor: OK in the last one, we are going to use two verbs here. Mexicans eat tacos and drink tequila.

Catriona: A stereotype.

Héctor: But true.

Catriona: Los mexicanos y las mexicanas comen tacos y beben tequila. 

Héctor: Very good. I think we have spoken a lot of Spanish today. How do you feel?

Catriona: Creo di si.

Héctor: Creo que sí.

Catriona: “Creo que sí”, still making mistakes but closer.

Héctor: I can see that sometimes your italian takes over.

Catriona: This is true.

Héctor: But sometimes is not as is it unhelfpul, sometimes it kinds off gives you a hint of where to go.

Catriona: I think that's true.

Héctor: OK, so step by step you're becoming more and more confident. ¿Qué tal?

Catriona: Muy bien, I do think that it is helpful repetition definitely and just trying things out. Having you to correct me and I'm sure bit by bit small mistakes will dissappear, I could have give you my feedback in Spanish, but I'll give it in English for this week and maybe next week we will end up the whole podcast in Spanish.

Héctor: Awesome, that sounds like a good idea. Yes, so I will always recommend our listeners to connect grammar with conversations. Try to think not only of grammar as something isolated but something that occurs in natural conversation is always connected to a message, or a conversational topic and that's something I always try to do to reinforce while I learn I'm learning a new language.

Catriona: I would agree. I think that very much helps so if you're using different verbs, learn the endings, try to use as many different subjects as possible, as many different verb forms, and bit by bit it will just become engrineed.

Héctor: Yes, exactly. So, dear listeners, I would certainly invite you to tell us what you usually eat and drink in Spanish, lo que comen y beben. What you favorite cuisine is and anything that you want to share with us.

Catriona: You can contact us via email at podcasting@babbel.com. Remember to write A Zero to A Hero in the subject and we’ll try to address all your comments and suggestions.

Héctor: And don’t forget to leave us a review! Thanks for listening! That’s all for today and we say…

Catriona: ¡Adiós!

Héctor: ¡Hasta pronto!