A dark street and an early bookshop
Inés wants to reach her small bookshop in Madrid before the shutter goes up. The street is still dark: the city keeps Berlin and Warsaw time, and it lies further west.
La calle todavía oscura
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About this article
What you'll learn
Present tense and querer in a morning when someone wants to arrive on time
Inés works in a small bookshop in Madrid and wants to be at the door before Raúl raises the shutter. The clock says it is time to leave, but the street still looks dark. Madrid uses the same time as Berlin and Warsaw and sits further west, so the morning sun comes later. She takes the metro, finds the shutter still down, and helps Raúl raise it. The sun reaches the balconies only after they are inside.
After reading
Article learning block
Phrases, words, grammar, and quick practice from this text.
Phrases for training
Add useful phrases to SRS or mark them as already known.
llegar puntual
newto arrive on time
Llegar puntual is the verb llegar plus the adjective puntual. Spanish uses an adjective here where English uses the phrase on time.
The phrase the whole article is built on.
salgo con tiempo de más
newI leave with time to spare
De más is a fixed piece meaning extra, more than needed: tiempo de más, dinero de más, una silla de más.
Idiomatic, and you cannot build it word by word from English.
Tarda casi una hora en llegar
newhe needs almost an hour to get there
Tardar en followed by an infinitive says how long something takes, and the person is the subject: Carlos tarda una hora, not it takes Carlos an hour.
Spanish builds this sentence around the person, which learners get wrong constantly.
preparar todo la noche anterior
newto get everything ready the night before
Anterior means the one before, and it works with any time word: la noche anterior, el día anterior, la semana anterior.
One word that works with any time expression.
Llamo a mi jefe
newI call my boss
Spanish puts a in front of a person who is the direct object: llamo a mi jefe, veo a Carlos. Without that a the sentence is wrong.
The personal a has no equivalent in English or Ukrainian and is easy to forget.
lo importante es avisar
newthe important thing is to let people know
Lo followed by an adjective makes an abstract noun: lo importante, lo bueno, lo difícil. Avisar means to warn or let someone know.
Lo with an adjective is everywhere in Spanish and has no direct English form.
Key words
Vocabulary that carries the school-day topic.
Time zone
huso horario
time zone
Un huso horario is a time zone. Huso is spelled with an h and is not the same word as uso (use).
Spain keeps the same clock as Germany although it lies far to the west.
Alarm clock
despertador
alarm clock
El despertador comes from despertar (to wake). The suffix -dor names the thing that does the action: despertador, ordenador, tenedor.
The -dor suffix lets you guess dozens of everyday object names.
On time
a tiempo
on time, not late
A tiempo means on time. Do not confuse it with a la vez (at the same time) or con el tiempo (as time goes by).
The opposite of llegar tarde, and the phrase the text keeps coming back to.
The journey
el trayecto
the trip, the ride
El trayecto is the stretch you travel between two points, especially a daily commute. It goes with durar: el trayecto dura veinticinco minutos.
The normal word for a commute, and it arrives with the verb durar.
The mail
el correo
the mail, the email
El correo covers both post and email. At work, revisar el correo means to check your inbox; the full name is el correo electrónico.
One Spanish word for two things English keeps apart.
The computer
el ordenador
the computer
El ordenador is the word used in Spain; Latin America says la computadora or el computador. All three are correct, they just belong to different countries.
One of the clearest Spain versus America splits you will meet.
Grammar in context
Patterns from the text worth noticing after reading.
Reflexive verbs in the present
Me despierto a las seis y media
I wake up at half past six
The pronoun matches the subject: me despierto, te despiertas, se despierta, nos despertamos, os despertáis, se despiertan. Despertarse also changes its stem, e to ie, in every form except nosotros and vosotros.
The whole morning routine runs on these verbs: despertarse, ducharse, vestirse.
Putting the steps in order
Primero me ducho y me visto
first I shower and get dressed
Primero, después, luego and al final put the steps in order. Note that vestirse changes e to i: me visto, te vistes, se viste.
These four words turn a list of verbs into a story.
Telling the time
las ocho menos cuarto
quarter to eight (7:45)
Spanish counts inside the hour: y cuarto (quarter past), y media (half past), menos cuarto (quarter to). So las ocho menos cuarto is 7:45. In Mexico and much of America people say un cuarto para las ocho instead.
You need both formulas: Spain uses menos, America uses para.
Ser with an ordinal, en and an infinitive
la directora es la primera en llegar
she is the first to arrive
Ser el primero en followed by an infinitive means to be the first to do something. The ordinal agrees with the person: el primero, la primera, los primeros. It works with último too: es la última en salir.
A ready-made frame you can reuse with any verb.
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