The Colour Does Not Come from Paint - A1 Spanish
An A1 reading about shaping, polishing and firing black pottery in San Bartolo Coyotepec.
El color no viene de la pintura
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A1 Grammar in this text
Check yourself: Statements and negation: sí, no, también, and tampoco
A few quick questions on the rule this text uses.
Question 1 of 3
Complete the replies. Olena studies at night. Andrés does not study at night either.
Words for the gaps
Tap a word to put it into a gap. Tap a filled gap to clear it.
About this article
What you'll learn
Negation with no and links with también and tampoco in a process.
Rosa explains that the black colour appears during firing, not through black paint.
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.
boca abajo
newface down, upside down
A fixed phrase, literally "mouth down". In the text the lower clay plate sits boca abajo and supports the upper one.
It works for objects placed upside down and for a person lying face down. The opposite is boca arriba.
El horno hace el resto
newto do the rest
Hacer el resto means to do what is left. The potter polishes the piece and the kiln does the rest: it changes the colour.
A tidy way to say that the remaining work happens on its own. Spanish says el resto, with the article.
del tamaño de mi mano
newthe size of
Del tamaño de + noun gives a size by comparison: the size of my hand.
Useful when you do not know exact measurements: del tamaño de una moneda, del tamaño de un libro.
gracias a
newthanks to
Gracias a + noun means thanks to someone or something. It is not the same as plain gracias, which means thank you.
It marks a cause with a positive tone: gracias a doña Rosa, gracias a la lluvia.
Key words
Vocabulary that carries the school-day topic.
el barro
el barro
clay
Barro is the damp clay a potter works with. The same word also means mud on a road.
Trabajar el barro is to work with clay. The raw mineral itself is more often called arcilla.
el taller
el taller
workshop
A taller is a place where someone works with their hands: a pottery workshop, a car repair shop. It also names a short practical class.
It looks like English "taller" but has nothing to do with height. Common uses: taller de cerámica, taller mecánico.
el horno
el horno
oven; kiln
One word covers the kitchen oven and the kiln of a potter or baker. In the text it is the kiln that turns the clay black.
Hence pollo al horno, roast chicken. A bakery can also be called el horno.
el alfarero, la alfarera
Los alfareros
potter
A normal masculine and feminine pair: el alfarero, la alfarera. The text uses both, una alfarera del pueblo, doña Rosa and los alfareros.
The word came into Spanish from Andalusi Arabic, but pottery in Spain is far older: what the Arabs brought were new techniques, such as glaze. The craft itself is la alfarería.
pulir (pule)
pule
to polish, to burnish
Pulir is a regular -ir verb with no stem change: pulo, pules, pule, pulimos, pulís, pulen.
It also works figuratively: pulir un texto means to polish a piece of writing.
el cántaro
cántaros
large clay jug, pitcher
A cántaro is a big clay vessel for water or another drink. The written accent marks the stress on the first syllable.
It gives the idiom llover a cántaros, to rain heavily.
Grammar in context
Patterns from the text worth noticing after reading.
no before the verb
Lucía no pinta el jarrón
Lucía does not paint the jar
To negate an action, put no immediately before the verb: Lucía no pinta. Only short object pronouns may come between them, as in no lo pinta.
This is the basic Spanish negative pattern: no helper verb like English "does not" is needed.
no hay
no hay torno eléctrico
there is not, there are not
Hay never changes for number: hay un plato, hay dos platos. The negative is just as simple: no hay. After no hay the indefinite article usually drops, hence no hay torno eléctrico in the text.
The pair hay / no hay covers almost everything you need to say about what a place contains.
no ... nada
no entienden nada
they understand nothing
When nada follows the verb, no stays in front of it: no entienden nada. Two negative words in Spanish do not cancel each other out.
Nadie and nunca behave the same way: no viene nadie. If the negative word comes before the verb instead, no disappears: Nada entienden.
no todas
No todas las piezas brillan
not all
Here no negates the word todas, not the verb. No todas las piezas brillan means some pieces shine and some do not.
Compare Ninguna pieza brilla, no piece shines. The meanings are far apart and the forms look close.
no before another element
no de un bote de pintura
and not from a paint tin
No does not have to sit next to the verb. Here viene stays affirmative and no negates only the phrase de un bote de pintura.
The pattern "X, no Y" is a neat way to correct someone: Es de barro, no de plástico.
está húmedo, no es negro
El barro está húmedo y no es negro
wet right now, grey by nature
Estar describes a state at a given moment: the clay is wet now. Ser describes what something is: it is grey, not black. That is why both verbs appear in one sentence.
Colour, material and origin normally take ser; a passing state and location take estar, as in la figura está en la ventana.
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