Las Meninas at the Prado Museum
A visit in Madrid to see Las Meninas. The museum opened in 1819. In the painting, Velázquez stands before a canvas.
Museo del Prado
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About this article
What you'll learn
Present tense for a museum visit, and the words cuadro, lienzo, sala, infanta, and meninas.
In Madrid, someone wants to check whether Velázquez painted himself inside Las Meninas. The building was not a palace: Charles III ordered it, Villanueva designed it, and it opened as a museum in 1819. On the way they pass Goya's black paintings, El Greco, and Bosch. At the painting they see Infanta Margarita, her ladies, and the painter.
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.
El Museo del Prado está en Madrid
newthe Prado Museum is in Madrid
Estar answers where something is. Ser would answer what it is: es un museo, está en Madrid.
The first thing you say about any place.
Millones de personas lo visitan cada año
newmillions of people visit it every year
Lo stands for el museo and goes in front of the verb, where English puts the object after it: lo visitan, they visit it.
Object pronoun order, the difference that trips up every beginner.
El edificio no era un palacio real
newthe building was not a royal palace
Era is the imperfect of ser and describes how something was over a stretch of time. The negative goes in front: no era.
Corrects the usual guess about the building, and models era for a lasting past state.
Abrió sus puertas en mil ochocientos diecinueve
newit opened its doors in 1819
Years are read as plain numbers in Spanish: mil ochocientos diecinueve, one thousand eight hundred nineteen. No word for and, no pairs like nineteen nineteen.
How every date in a museum is read aloud.
Necesitas varias horas para verlo bien
newyou need several hours to see it properly
Para plus an infinitive gives the purpose: para ver, in order to see. The pronoun lo attaches to the end of that infinitive: verlo.
Two things at once: purpose with para, and a pronoun glued to an infinitive.
La entrada es gratis las dos últimas horas de cada día
newadmission is free for the last two hours of each day
Gratis never changes form: entrada gratis, museos gratis. Do not add an -s to it.
Real practical information, and an adjective with no plural.
Key words
Vocabulary that carries the school-day topic.
Pintura: painting
pintura
painting, the art of painting
La pintura is both a painting and painting as an art, and it is also the paint in the tin. From the verb pintar.
One word covering the picture, the craft and the material.
Pintor: painter
pintor
painter
Pintor for a man, pintora for a woman. The same word covers an artist and the person who paints your walls.
A profession name, and a masculine and feminine pair.
El retrato: portrait
retratos
portrait
Un retrato is a picture of a person. Retratar means to portray, and un autorretrato is a self-portrait, which is what Velázquez put into Las Meninas.
The word for a whole room of the Prado, and the root of autorretrato.
La sala: gallery room
sala
room, hall, gallery
Una sala is a large room open to people: a museum gallery, a cinema screen, a hospital ward. The room at home is la habitación.
A false friend for anyone who reads it as a living room.
La obra: a work
obra
work, piece
Una obra is any finished work: a painting, a book, a play, even a building site. Su obra más famosa means her or his best known work.
The word Spanish uses where English switches between work, piece and play.
El cuadro: a framed picture
cuadro
picture, framed painting
Un cuadro is the physical picture hanging on the wall, frame included. La pintura is the art, la obra is the work, el cuadro is the object.
Three words for one thing, separated by what each of them really means.
Grammar in context
Patterns from the text worth noticing after reading.
Era: a lasting past state
Diego Velázquez era pintor del rey
Velázquez was the king's painter
Era is the imperfect of ser and covers a state that lasted: he held the post for years. A single dated event would take the preterite instead, as in abrió sus puertas.
The half of the past tense that describes rather than reports.
Asking with tú: conoces
¿Conoces algún cuadro del Prado?
do you know any painting from the Prado?
Conoces is the tú form of conocer, used for knowing a person, a place or a work. Knowing a fact is saber, a different verb.
Two Spanish verbs where English has only one know.
Uno de los más: superlative
Es uno de los museos más importantes del mundo
one of the most important museums in the world
The frame is uno de los plus a plural noun plus más plus an adjective plus de. The noun and the adjective go into the plural, but uno stays singular and changes for gender: uno de los museos más importantes, una de las obras más famosas.
A ready-made frame you can drop almost any noun into.
Pintó: the preterite
También pintó escenas de la guerra
he also painted scenes of the war
Pintó is the preterite of pintar: he did it, it is finished. Regular -ar verbs take -é, -aste, -ó in the singular: pinté, pintaste, pintó.
The tense for what somebody did, next to era for how things were.
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