Chapter 4

In Chapter 4 we learned about weather, clothing, professions, and reciprocal verbs. For weather, we learned that there are many ways to talk about it using hacer, estar, and hay. At first this seemed confusing to me, but the more and more we've talked about weather, the more it all makes sense. We also learned about clothing and professions, for the most part at the same time by explaining what one wears at a particular job. I always love when there is the least bit of familiarity to what we are learning in class to the little I learned in high school. We didn't go over much, but in high school we at least learned clothing and different professions. In class we've learned that although most professions can be used in the masculine and feminine form, there are a few such as el/la chofer, el/la dentista, etc., that are only used in one form. At the end of the chapter we learned about reciprocal verbs and when they are appropriate to be used. Reciprocal verbs are only used to talk about people doing something towards each other, or you and someone doing something towards each other. Although it is something I forgot to include in my own quiz, when using reciprocal verbs it is necessary to put "nos" or "se" in front of the verb. Examples include "nos amamos" and "se aman", when talking about two people loving each other. Lastly, we learned to put -mente or -amente on the end of adverbs just as in English we put -ly at the end. Therefore the word "rapidly" in English translates to "rapidamente" in Spanish. For words that end in an -o, it is necessary to drop the -o and add -amente. For all other adverds, adding -mente is all that is needed. I feel like this chapter covered so much, but most of it wasn't confusing. I'm so glad that when I read a sentence in spanish now I don't have to skip from word to word that seems familiar, but these actual grammatical lessons are teaching us the context of each sentence. We realize now if it's reciprocal, or possessive, or meaning in the future, etc..