The alarm that arrives before the earthquake
A newcomer to Mexico City hears the seismic alert for the first time and repeats what her neighbour, the radio and her teacher told her about it. B1 Spanish reported speech.
La alarma que llega antes del temblor
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On 19 September the narrator, three weeks into life in Mexico City, hears street loudspeakers repeating the words alerta sísmica. Her neighbour Lupita explains it is the national drill held every 19 September, that two severe earthquakes struck the city on that date, in 1985 and in 2017, and that the ground shook again on the same date in 2022. On the radio, specialists explain that many of the sensors sit on the coast hundreds of kilometres away and that the radio signal outruns the seismic waves, which is what makes the warning possible. Everything the narrator learns reaches the reader as a reported statement.
Mi vecina Lupita tocó la puerta un minuto después. Me explicó que no pasaba nada, que era el simulacro nacional y que se hacía cada 19 de septiembre. Bajamos juntas y encontramos a media colonia en la banqueta, algunos en pijama.
Le pregunté por qué habían elegido esa fecha. Me contó que dos terremotos muy graves habían golpeado la ciudad un 19 de septiembre, el de 1985 y el de 2017, y que en 2022 había vuelto a temblar en esa misma fecha. Añadió que el de 2017 había llegado unas horas después del simulacro de ese mismo día. En su edificio nadie se toma el ejercicio a broma.
Por la tarde puse la radio. Los especialistas explicaron que buena parte de los sensores estaba en la costa, a cientos de kilómetros de la capital. Dijeron que la señal de radio viajaba mucho más rápido que las ondas del sismo y que ese adelanto era lo que hacía posible el aviso. Añadieron que, según la distancia, la ciudad podía ganar desde unos segundos hasta más de un minuto.
En la calle, sin embargo, la gente decía temblor mucho más que sismo.
En la escuela de idiomas, la maestra dedicó a esto la clase siguiente. Nos aseguró que lo importante no era correr, sino saber de antemano adónde ir. Comentó que en un sexto piso no había tiempo para bajar y que cada persona debía tener localizado un punto seguro.
Aquella mañana, al final del simulacro, el locutor había anunciado que el ejercicio se repetiría el año siguiente. Lupita, antes de subir, me había contado algo más: me dijo que después de 1985 se había formado una brigada de rescatistas voluntarios, los Topos, y que ese grupo había viajado después a otros países a ayudar.
Lupita también se burló un poco de mí aquel día. Me dijo que dentro de poco yo reconocería el sonido antes de despertarme del todo. Tenía razón: la segunda vez ya sabía dónde estaba la puerta.
¿Y tú? ¿Hay alguna alarma pública en tu ciudad, y sabes qué significa? ¿Alguien te explicó alguna vez qué debías hacer en una emergencia? ¿Qué te dijo exactamente?
About this article
What you'll learn
Reported statements in Spanish: present to imperfect, preterite to pluperfect, future to conditional, the repeated que, and reported questions.
On 19 September the narrator, three weeks into life in Mexico City, hears street loudspeakers repeating the words alerta sísmica. Her neighbour Lupita explains it is the national drill held every 19 September, that two severe earthquakes struck the city on that date, in 1985 and in 2017, and that the ground shook again on the same date in 2022. On the radio, specialists explain that many of the sensors sit on the coast hundreds of kilometres away and that the radio signal outruns the seismic waves, which is what makes the warning possible. Everything the narrator learns reaches the reader as a reported statement.
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.
de antemano
newin advance, beforehand
A fixed adverbial phrase: it never changes form and it means in advance, before something happens. It works with saber, decidir and preparar.
The natural alternative to the heavier previamente in speech.
se toma el ejercicio a broma
newnobody treats the drill as a joke
Tomarse algo a broma means to treat something as not serious. The opposite is tomarse algo en serio, with en instead of a.
A pair of everyday idioms that come up in any argument about attitude.
dentro de poco
newsoon, before long
With time, dentro de means after this much time has passed, not inside something: dentro de poco, dentro de dos semanas.
Learners regularly read dentro de as a place word and lose the meaning.
Tenía razón
newshe was right
Spanish has the reason rather than being right: tener razón. Ser correcto is said of an answer or a calculation; said of a person it means well mannered, not that they are right.
Saying estoy correcto about yourself is one of the most audible learner errors.
Key words
Vocabulary that carries the school-day topic.
A drill
el simulacro
drill, practice run
Un simulacro is a rehearsal of an emergency: fire, earthquake, evacuation. It is not a simulation in the computer sense, which is una simulación.
It appears on signs in schools and offices across the Spanish speaking world.
The sidewalk
la banqueta
pavement, sidewalk
In Mexico the pavement is la banqueta; Spain says la acera and much of South America says la vereda. In the same sentence, la colonia is the Mexican word for a city neighbourhood.
Two words that place a text in Mexico as clearly as an address would.
Earthquake, everyday word
temblor
tremor, quake
In Mexico there are three words for the same event: temblor is the one of everyday conversation, sismo is the one of the news and official warnings, though you hear it in the street too, and terremoto is kept for the most destructive ones. In Spain the usual word is terremoto. Temblor comes from temblar, to shake.
Choosing the right one of the three is what makes you sound local rather than translated.
Loudspeakers
los altavoces
loudspeakers
A compound of alta and voz, so literally a loud voice. In everyday Mexican speech a speaker at home is more often una bocina.
Compound nouns like this one take their plural on the second part: altavoces.
Rescue workers
rescatistas
rescuers
From rescatar, to rescue. The ending -ista names the person doing the job and does not change for gender: el rescatista, la rescatista.
The -ista ending builds dozens of job words that behave the same way.
Grammar in context
Patterns from the text worth noticing after reading.
Present becomes imperfect
Me explicó que no pasaba nada
she explained that nothing was wrong
Lupita actually said no pasa nada, es el simulacro. Because the reporting verb explicó is in the past, the present usually slides back into the imperfect: pasaba, era, se hacía. If what was said is still true today, you can also keep the present.
This single shift covers most of the reported statements you will ever need.
Past becomes pluperfect
Me contó que dos terremotos muy graves habían golpeado la ciudad
she told me that two earthquakes had hit the city
Her own words were dos terremotos golpearon la ciudad. Reported after a past verb, the preterite moves one step further back and becomes había golpeado. The same happens later with había llegado and se había formado.
It is what lets you tell a story that was already in the past when it was told to you.
Future becomes conditional
anunciado que el ejercicio se repetiría el año siguiente
he had announced that the drill would be repeated
On air the announcer said se repetirá el año que viene. Reported, the future turns into the conditional se repetiría, and the time expression moves with it: el año que viene becomes el año siguiente.
Forgetting to move the time expression is what leaves a reported sentence sounding wrong.
The que you cannot drop
Dijeron que la señal de radio viajaba mucho más rápido que las ondas del sismo y que ese adelanto era
they said that the signal travelled faster and that this head start was
English can drop that and can use it once for two clauses. In Spanish the first que of a reported clause cannot be dropped; when a second clause is joined with y, that second que may be repeated or left out. Here the writer repeats it, and repeats it again in the second paragraph.
Leaving out the first que of a reported clause is a very common structural error in reported speech.
Reporting a question
Le pregunté por qué habían elegido esa fecha
I asked her why they had chosen that date
A reported question takes no question marks, and normally no que either, though with preguntar you do hear me preguntó que por qué. The accent on por qué stays, because the word is still a question word inside the sentence.
Writing porque here instead of por qué changes the sentence from a question into a reason.
sino, not pero
no era correr, sino saber de antemano adónde ir
not running, but knowing in advance
Sino replaces a rejected idea with the right one, and it needs a no earlier in the sentence. Pero simply adds a contrast without cancelling anything: no era correr, pero ayudaba would mean something quite different.
Both words come out as but in English, which hides the difference completely.
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