Vais | A simple life put in simple language

IF ALL LANGUAGES WERE GRAMMATICALLY THE SAME, WE WOULD’NT HAVE SO MUCH FUN LEARNING THEM!

One curious thing in English grammar is that there is no distinction between talking one-to-one with a person and asking “Are you going to the shop?” or talking to two or more people and asking the same question: “Are you going to the shop?”

In many languages there is a BIG DIFFERENCE in these two terms.

A conceptual difference.

But not in English…

I have taught English as a foreign language to people from differing linguistic backgrounds and some are quite confused by this unusual grammar point. But this is what makes language so interesting, all these little idiosyncracies!

So you think you are confused by Spanish grammar?

Guess what?

Spanish people are also very confused by ENGLISH grammar.

TOTALLY CONFUSED

Take a moment to feel some sympathy for the poor Spaniards when they discover that, grammatically, there is no difference addressing one person in the intimacy of your own home or addressing a group of friends when you’re out on the town one evening.

“How can that be possible?” they ask.

But that’s why we love languages so much, right?

SKIP THIS NEXT PARAGRAPH IN GREEN IF YOU’RE NOT INTERESTED IN THE GRAMMATICAL TERMINOLOGY OF IR = TO GO

It’s a funny old verb IR in Spanish.

This post is looking into what is known grammatically as the SECOND PERSON PLURAL of the verb TO GO = YOU GO or YOU ARE GOING or YOU’RE GOING..

A few weeks ago I wrote an article about addressing ONE person, THE SECOND PERSON SINGULAR Spanish for Beginners: ¿A dónde vas?

Now it’s time to broaden our social network and address two, three or twenty and more. (THIS MEANS SECOND PERSON PLURAL)

Now start looking at the verb itself

Click on the audio link and repeat all the sentences recorded. Get used to hearing yourself making ‘funny noises’; also known as “speaking another language”.

VAIS

VAIS is a bit like English ‘ice’ but with a soft ‘B’ in front (BICE). A soft ‘B’ sound for the ‘V‘ is Spanish.

VAIS means :

YOU GO

(speaking to more than ONE person)

YOU ARE GOING

(speaking to more than ONE person)

YOU’RE GOING

(speaking to more than ONE person)

Repeat the audio link again and as many times as you like/want/need. You choose. The more the merrier!

That was so easy!

Now for the questions.

For this you simply add an inquisitive intonation to the exact same word. This is so much easier than making questions in English.

Remember how lucky you are to be learning Spanish and NOT English as a foreing language!

¿VAIS?

With a ‘question’ voice, this now means, speaking to more than one person:

DO YOU GO? (e.g. …to work at nine?)

ARE YOU GOING? (e.g. to work tomorrow?)

How easy is that? VERY EASY!

TIME TO START SPEAKING SPANISH NOW

Listen now to a native Spanish speaker (my daughter!) using VAIS in real sentences. Repeat after the first sentence, wait to hear her again and then repeat again to accustom yourself and readjust.

See this post about the benefits of repeating ALOUD your new language: Repeat, repeat, repeat…

SPEAK OUT IN SPANISH NOW !

La tienda = the shop A la tienda = to the shop

VAIS a la tienda