My blue backpack before school (A1)
A boy wants his blue backpack ready. The snack pocket opens, and his mother explains that azul comes from Arabic.
Mi mochila azul
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About this article
What you'll learn
Present tense, backpack words, the afternoon snack, and Arabic-origin words: azul, azúcar, almohada, and aceite.
The narrator wants his blue backpack ready before bed. The front zipper will not move until his mother opens it the other way. He puts an apple and a sandwich there. The water bottle goes in the side pocket, and the books and pencil case go inside. He wears the backpack on both shoulders. Azul, like azúcar, almohada, and aceite, comes from Arabic. At night the clean backpack hangs in his room.
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.
Yo tengo una mochila
newI have a backpack
Tener expresses possession. The pronoun yo is optional: tengo una mochila already says who.
Spanish usually drops the subject pronoun, because the verb ending carries it.
Es de color azul
newit is blue
The plain way to say it is es azul. De color azul is the longer form, used when you want to stress the colour.
Two ways to say the same thing, one short and one long.
La mochila es grande y cómoda
newthe backpack is big and comfortable
Adjectives follow the noun and agree with it: cómoda is feminine because mochila is feminine. Grande does not change for gender.
Agreement is the first thing a beginner forgets.
Tiene dos tirantes acolchados
newit has two padded straps
Los tirantes are the bands that go over your shoulders. Acolchados means padded, and it agrees in the masculine plural with tirantes.
A very clear example of adjective agreement.
En la mochila caben muchas cosas
newmany things fit in the backpack
Caber means to fit, to have room. Its yo form is very irregular: yo quepo, tú cabes, él cabe, nosotros cabemos, vosotros cabéis, ellos caben.
Quepo surprises everyone the first time they meet it.
La mochila tiene un bolsillo frontal
newthe backpack has a pocket at the front
Frontal means at the front. The backpack in the text also has un bolsillo lateral, one on the side.
Frontal and lateral describe any object, not just backpacks.
Es importante beber agua
newyou need to drink water
Es importante followed by an infinitive gives advice: es importante beber agua, es importante dormir bien.
A simple frame for advice and rules.
Cuando voy al colegio
newwhen I go to school
Al is a and el joined together: voy al colegio, voy al parque. In Spain el colegio is for children and el instituto for older students.
The contraction al is obligatory; a el is never said.
Key words
Vocabulary that carries the school-day topic.
Backpack
mochila
a bag you carry on your back
Una mochila is the bag you carry on your back. It is used throughout the Spanish-speaking world.
The central word of the article.
Straps
tirantes
the bands that go over your shoulders
The tirantes of a backpack go over your shoulders. The same word means the braces that hold up a pair of trousers.
One word, two everyday objects.
Pencil case
estuche
a case for pens and pencils
El estuche holds pencils and pens. Estuche is also the case for a pair of glasses or for a violin.
Its meaning is wider than just a pencil case.
Afternoon snack
merienda
a small afternoon meal
La merienda is the small afternoon meal. In Spain many children have bread with chocolate for it, at around five or six.
Merendar is a verb too: yo meriendo, tú meriendas.
Bottle
botella
a container for liquids
Una botella de agua is built with de rather than an adjective: botella de agua, botella de leche.
The X de Y frame replaces the compound nouns other languages use.
bolsillo
a pouch for small things
A bolsillo is the pouch where you keep small things, in clothing or in a bag.
It appears twice in the text: the front pocket and the side pocket.
Grammar in context
Patterns from the text worth noticing after reading.
Tengo (the verb tener)
tengo
I have
Present of tener: yo tengo, tú tienes, él tiene, nosotros tenemos, vosotros tenéis, ellos tienen. The yo form is irregular, and e becomes ie in tú, él and ellos.
Tener appears three times in the text and is one of the commonest Spanish verbs.
I carry my pencil case
llevo mi estuche
I take my pencil case with me
Llevar is to carry something with you or to wear it: llevo mi estuche, llevo una camiseta azul. Spanish uses llevar for clothes, not tener.
One verb covering what other languages split between two or three.
I clean it at weekends
La limpio los fines de semana
I clean the backpack at weekends
La stands for la mochila and goes in front of the verb: la limpio, la guardo. In Spanish the object pronoun comes before the verb, not after it.
Putting the pronoun after the verb is the commonest beginner mistake.
It should not weigh more than ten per cent
no debe pesar más del diez por ciento
it must not weigh more than ten per cent
Deber followed by an infinitive expresses an obligation or a recommendation. Before a figure Spanish uses más de, not más que: más de diez kilos, más del diez por ciento.
Reaching for más que before a number is a very common mistake.
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