Sofia's favorite profession: Spanish A1 reading
Sofia is twelve and visits her aunt Clara's primary class. How maestra and profesor differ in Spain, the Greek origin of pedagogo, and the university path.
La profesión favorita de Sofía
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About this article
What you'll learn
present tense, querer and ir a plus infinitive, school and profession vocabulary
One afternoon Sofia visits her aunt Clara, a primary teacher. She sees the class, hears about a child who learns to read between September and June, and learns that in Spain a maestra and a profesor do not do the same job. Clara explains the Greek origin of pedagogo and the path: finish instituto, study at university (many people still call those studies Magisterio), and do teaching practice. That night Sofia will explain math to a friend. It is her first step.
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.
qué quiere ser de mayor
newwhat she wants to be when she grows up
Ser de mayor is the Spanish way of saying when I grow up. Spanish keeps the present tense here: quiere, not a future form.
The first question anyone asks a child in Spanish.
se siente muy feliz
newshe feels very happy
The verb is sentirse, not sentir: the pronoun se belongs to the verb. Sentirse takes an adjective that agrees: se siente feliz, se sienten felices.
How Spanish says how somebody feels.
Desde pequeña
newsince she was little
Desde pequeña marks when something started, and the verb stays in the present: quiere, because she still wants it now. The -a agrees with Sofía.
Spanish uses the present where English uses has wanted.
un lugar alegre con muchos colores
newa cheerful place with lots of colours
Spanish adjectives normally follow the noun: un lugar alegre, not un alegre lugar. Colores is the plural of color.
The word order that sounds Spanish rather than translated.
le gustan muchos trabajos diferentes
newshe likes many different jobs
Gustar works backwards: the jobs are the subject, so the verb is plural, gustan. Sofía is the indirect object le, doubled by a Sofía. Compare le gusta ayudar, one thing, singular.
The hardest A1 structure, and gustar appears four times in this text.
la mejor recompensa
newthe best reward
Mejor is the irregular comparative of bueno; with the article it becomes the superlative, la mejor. You never say la más buena here.
One of the few adjectives that does not use más.
Key words
Vocabulary that carries the school-day topic.
Primary teacher (f.)
maestra
primary-school teacher
In Spain a maestro teaches primary school and a profesor teaches secondary school or university. The feminine is maestra, la maestra.
Two different words where English has only teacher.
Patience
paciencia
patience
Paciencia is feminine, so it takes mucha and not mucho: se necesita mucha paciencia.
The quantity word has to agree, and this is where learners slip.
Pupils
alumnos
pupils, schoolchildren
Careful: Spanish alumno is a pupil who is at school right now, while English alumnus is somebody who already graduated. Forms: alumno, alumna, alumnos, alumnas.
A false friend that flips the meaning of a sentence.
Creative
creativo
creative
After hay que ser the adjective stays masculine singular, creativo, because it refers to nobody in particular. Compare: Sofía es creativa.
Impersonal sentences keep the default masculine form.
Good marks
buenas notas
good marks, good grades
At school una nota is a mark or grade, not a note. The usual phrase is sacar buenas notas, to get good marks.
A false friend every learner meets in the first school text.
Her dream
su sueño
her dream
El sueño means both a dream and sleepiness: tengo sueño is I am sleepy. The verb is soñar con, and it changes o to ue: sueño, sueñas, sueña, but soñamos.
One noun with two meanings and a stem-changing verb behind it.
Grammar in context
Patterns from the text worth noticing after reading.
Age with tener
Sofía tiene doce años
Sofía is twelve years old
Spanish states age with tener, to have, and never with ser or estar: tiene doce años. The word años cannot be dropped.
Sofía es doce is simply not Spanish.
Impersonal hay que
hay que respetarlos
you have to respect them
Hay que plus an infinitive states an obligation without naming anybody. Se necesita mucha paciencia works the same way. When you do name the person, use tener que: Sofía tiene que terminar el instituto.
How Spanish gives a rule without addressing anyone in particular.
Sequence and the near future
Primero tiene que terminar el instituto
first she has to finish secondary school
Primero and después put the steps in order. The second step uses ir a plus an infinitive, va a estudiar Magisterio, which is how spoken Spanish normally talks about the future.
Two connectors and the future form you will actually hear.
The future with ir a
va a tener su propia clase
she is going to have her own class
Ir a plus an infinitive is the everyday future in Spanish: va a tener, va a estudiar, va a pasar. Only ir is conjugated; the second verb stays an infinitive.
Spoken Spanish uses this far more than the one-word future tense.
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