El altavoz bluetooth

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About this article

Level A1 Reading focus

What you'll learn

Present tense of querer, tocar and salir; speaker, phone and connection words.

Andrés wants music in the kitchen while soup is on the stove. He turns on a small Bluetooth speaker with no cable, and the song comes out of the box. The name comes from Harald Gormsson, a king of Denmark more than a thousand years ago, nicknamed Blåtand, "blue tooth." The symbol joins two old runes, his initials. In Spain he says altavoz; in Mexico many people say bocina; in Argentina and Chile many people say parlante.

After reading

Article learning block

Phrases, words, grammar, and quick practice from this text.

15 items

Phrases for training

Add useful phrases to SRS or mark them as already known.

sin cables

new

without cables

Sin cables means without wires. It is the whole point of a Bluetooth speaker.

Core idea of the opening paragraph about wireless audio.

llevarlos a cualquier lugar

new

take them anywhere

The pronoun los (them) is attached to the end of the infinitive llevar: llevar + los = llevarlos.

Shows the Spanish habit of gluing object pronouns onto an infinitive.

Caben en la mochila

new

they fit in a backpack

Caben comes from caber (to fit). The verb is very irregular: yo quepo, él cabe, ellos caben.

A high-frequency verb whose yo form, quepo, nobody guesses.

deja de parpadear

new

it stops blinking

Dejar de plus an infinitive means to stop doing something: deja de parpadear, deja de llover.

One pattern covers to stop doing anything, so it pays back immediately.

Busca el nombre del altavoz

new

look for the speaker name

Busca is the tú imperative of buscar. The speaker name shows up in the phone Bluetooth list.

The instruction step you follow in the phone settings.

suele haber un botón

new

there is usually a button

Soler plus an infinitive says that something is usual: suele haber, suelen ser. Soler also changes its stem: o becomes ue.

English has no verb that works this way, so learners skip it and sound flat.

Key words

Vocabulary that carries the school-day topic.

Speaker

altavoz

speaker

Altavoz is the device that plays the sound. It is the word used in Spain; Mexico says bocina, Argentina and Chile say parlante.

Central word of the text, and its name changes from country to country.

Wireless

inalámbrica

wireless

Inalámbrica means wireless. It is built from the noun alambre (wire) plus the negative prefix in.

Once you see alambre inside it, the word stops being long and strange.

Backpack

mochila

backpack

Mochila is a backpack. Caben en la mochila says the small speakers fit inside one.

Everyday word, and the context sentence shows it in use.

Devices

dispositivos

devices

Dispositivos disponibles are the available devices listed in the phone Bluetooth menu.

The exact wording you will see on a Spanish phone screen.

It blinks

parpadea

it blinks

Parpadea means the light goes on and off quickly. The same verb describes blinking eyes.

Tells you the speaker is still searching, not yet connected.

You turn it on

enciendes

you turn (it) on

Encender changes its stem: e becomes ie in enciendo, enciendes, enciende. The infinitive keeps the e: encenderlo.

If you only learned encender you will not recognise enciendes.

Grammar in context

Patterns from the text worth noticing after reading.

Present tense: se conectan

Se conectan al teléfono

they connect to the phone

Se conectan is conectarse in the present, third person plural. The se is not a true reflexive here: it says the speakers get connected, without naming who connects them.

Spanish uses this se constantly to describe how a device behaves.

Estar: the connected state

ya está conectado

it is already connected

Está conectado is estar plus a participle: a state that results from an action. Ser conectado would be wrong here.

Estar marks states and results; ser marks what something is.

Imperative: Mantén

Mantén presionado el botón

hold the button down

Mantén is the tú imperative of mantener, built like tener gives ten. Presionado describes the button: keep it pressed.