No Photo in Front of Guernica
A1 Spanish: she walks from Atocha to the Reina Sofía to photograph Picasso's Guernica for her sister, and photos are not allowed in that room.
Sin foto delante del Guernica
Tap any word to see its translation
. . . , , . , , . . . , . .
. . , . 1937, , . . . , , 1981.
. : . . , . , , . . . , , .
.
« », .
. , . , , . . . . . . . , .
: « . , , . , , . .»
: « .»
. . , .
Keep reading with translations
Create a free account: 7 days of Pro, then 20 word translations a day or a paid plan.
About this article
What you'll learn
Present-tense narration, museum words, and simple past for the painting's story.
A woman leaves Atocha for the Reina Sofía, a former eighteenth-century hospital named for Queen Sofía. She rides a glass elevator, then finds Picasso's Guernica: almost eight meters long, only black, white, and grey, with a horse, a bull, a mother and child, and a lamp. The painting spent years in New York and came to Spain in 1981. She cannot photograph it, so she describes it, and her sister says she will come. She does not look for Dalí or Miró.
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.
Está en Madrid, al lado de la estación de Atocha
newit is in Madrid, next to Atocha station
Location is given by estar, never by ser: está en Madrid. Al lado de means right next to.
Estar is the verb for where anything is.
Guernica es un pueblo del País Vasco
newGuernica is a town in the Basque Country
Ser gives identity: what something is. Guernica is not only the title of the painting, it is a real town in the north of Spain.
The fact that unlocks the painting: it carries the name of the town that was bombed.
es el museo de arte moderno más importante de España
newit is the most important museum of modern art in Spain
Relative superlative: el + noun + más + adjective + de + place. The article el cannot be dropped.
The pattern for the biggest, the oldest or the most important of a group.
No tiene colores: solo blanco, negro y gris
newit has no colours: only white, black and grey
Tener says what something has. In the negative Spanish drops the article: no tiene colores, not no tiene los colores.
Guernica really is painted in white, black and grey only.
Hay una biblioteca de arte, una tienda y una cafetería
newthere is an art library, a shop and a cafe
Hay never changes, singular or plural, and takes un, una or no article at all: hay una tienda, hay ascensores.
One word covers both there is and there are.
no se pueden hacer fotos
newphotos are not allowed
Se pueden hacer is the passive se: fotos is the subject, so the verb goes plural, and nobody is named as doing it. The sentence means photos are not allowed.
How every rule and every sign in Spanish is worded.
La entrada es gratuita algunas tardes de la semana
newentry is free on some evenings of the week
La entrada is both the way in and the ticket. Gratuito agrees with it in the feminine: entrada gratuita.
Worth knowing before you go: the museum has free evenings.
Key words
Vocabulary that carries the school-day topic.
Painting, picture
el cuadro
painting, picture
El cuadro is the framed painting hanging on the wall. La pintura is paint, or painting as an art; el cuadro is the object itself.
The word a Spanish speaker actually uses inside a museum.
Work, piece
la obra
a work, a piece
La obra is any single created thing: a painting, a book, a building. It also means building work, so a sign reading obras on a street means roadworks.
One word with two everyday meanings you will meet in Spain.
El artista, la artista
artistas
artist
Artista ends in -a but never changes form: el artista for a man, la artista for a woman. Only the article moves. Every noun in -ista works this way: el/la pianista, el/la turista.
The trap: an -a ending does not make this noun feminine.
Building
el edificio
building
El edificio is any large building. The related verb is edificar, to build.
Basic word for describing a city, and it looks nothing like the English one.
Antiguo, antigua
antiguo
old; former
Antiguo means old, but placed before the noun it means former: un antiguo hospital is a building that used to be a hospital. Feminine antigua.
A double trap: it is not antique, and its meaning shifts with its position.
Century
el siglo
century
El siglo is a hundred years. In speech Spanish reads the number plainly: el siglo dieciocho, the eighteenth century.
Needed for any date, and it looks nothing like century.
Rooms, galleries
salas
rooms, galleries
La sala is a room in a public building: a museum gallery, a cinema screen, a hospital ward. A room in a home is una habitación.
The right word for a museum gallery, where habitación would be wrong.
Lifts, elevators
ascensores
lifts, elevators
El ascensor comes from ascender, to go up. Plural ascensores, with -es because the word ends in a consonant.
You read it on every building in Spain, and it is nothing like the English word.
Mide (medir)
mide
it measures, it is ... long
Medir gives size: mide ocho metros, it is eight metres long, where English uses to be. Medir is stem-changing: mido, mides, mide.
Spanish states size with medir or tener, never with ser.
Gratuito, gratuita
gratuita
free of charge
Gratuito means free of charge and agrees with its noun: entrada gratuita, museo gratuito. The everyday synonym gratis never changes.
Free as in costing nothing; free as in unoccupied is libre.
Grammar in context
Patterns from the text worth noticing after reading.
Present of ser
Presente de ser: soy, eres, es
soy, eres, es, somos, sois, son
Ser is irregular in every person: yo soy, tú eres, él es, nosotros somos, vosotros sois, ellos son. The text uses es and son.
The most frequent verb in Spanish, and the whole set has to be learned.
Ser for identity
Ser para identidad y profesión
he is an artist, it is a town
Ser says what someone or something is: Picasso es un artista, Guernica es un pueblo. With a bare profession no article is used: es artista.
Ser for what things are, estar for where they are.
Hay: there is, there are
Hay para existencia
there is, there are
Hay never changes, whatever follows it: hay una tienda, hay ascensores. It is the impersonal form of haber and has no plural.
One form covers both there is and there are.
Adjectives in -o and -a
Adjetivos en -o y -a
moderno, moderna; antiguo, antigua
An adjective ending in -o becomes -a with a feminine noun: un edificio antiguo, una entrada gratuita, el arte moderno, la sala moderna. Adjectives in -e or -ista do not change: un cuadro grande, una sala grande.
Every adjective in this text follows one of these two rules.
Past: pintó, llegó, bombardearon
Picasso pintó el cuadro ese mismo año
he painted, it arrived, they bombed
The preterite of -ar verbs tells what happened once, at a fixed moment: pintó, llegó, bombardearon. The accent sits on the last syllable and is the only thing separating pinto, I paint, from pintó, he painted. Estuvo, from estar, is irregular.
Four verbs in this text are in the past; miss the accent and you read the wrong person and the wrong tense.
Read a book in Spanish
All A1 books
Comments
Log in to leave a comment
LoginNo comments yet. Be the first!