1 Saying your name
To start this week, you will learn how to say your name using the verb ser (‘to be’).
Verbs: ser (‘to be’)
Verbs in Spanish are conjugated; this means that they change according to which person they refer to. For most verbs, conjugating involves changing the verb ending, but ser and a few other commonly used verbs are irregular which means you need to learn the different forms individually.
Table 1 Ser (‘to be’)
ser | ||
---|---|---|
(yo) | soy | I am |
(tú) | eres | you are |
(usted) | es | you are |
(él, ella) | es | he, she is |
Soy Martín. | I’m Martín. | |
¿Eres Mónica? | Are you Mónica? | |
¿Usted es la señora Pérez? | Are you Mrs Pérez? | |
Es José María. | He is José María. |
Note that in Spanish it is not always necessary to use the personal pronouns for ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘he’ or ‘she’.
Activity 1
Listen to the audio, in which people are saying their names, and write down the word they all use before saying it.
OpenLearn - Getting started with Spanish 1 Except for third party materials and otherwise, this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence, full copyright detail can be found in the acknowledgements section. Please see full copyright statement for details.