Today’s Vine is made by Martin LR, from San Diego, CA.

The Vine

Transcript

• Cal: Les nomino al Ice Bucket Challenge.
• Jack: Rose, tenemos que hacer esto.
• Rose: No… no lo sé, Jack…
• Cal: Tienen veinticuatro horas.
• Rose: [gasps] Jaaaack!

Explanation

• Cal: I nominate you guys to the Ice Bucket Challenge.
• Jack: Rose, we have to do this.
• Rose: I…I don’t know, Jack…
• Cal: You guys have 24 hours.
• Rose: [gasps] Jaaaack!

This Vine made me crack up – it mixes a hilarious overdub of the classic movie Titanic, with the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge currently going around on Facebook.

Slo-Mo Version

Useful Phrases

• no lo sé (I don’t know).  Another option for “I don’t know” is no sé.

Common question: how to distinguish between no lo sé and no sé?

A literal translation of no lo sé would be “I don’t know it.”  A literal translation of no sé would be “I don’t know.”  So why did Rose use the word “lo”?  This is an example where we have to throw the literal translation aside.  Saying “no lo sé” in Spanish is far, far more common than saying “I don’t know it” in English.  Typically, when you hear “no lo sé” you can just translate it as “I don’t know.”  Then when do you use “no sé”?  Here’s the distinction.  “No sé” and “no lo sé” are interchangeable when you are expressing lack of knowledge about a specific fact.  For example: “¿Sabes si viene el bus por aquí?” = “Do you know if the bus is coming through here?”  –You could answer “no sé” or “no lo sé.”  However, in some situations, “no lo sé” is used in a less tangible sense to denote uncertainty, and could be interchanged with “no estoy segura” (“I’m not sure”).  In this Vine, Rose is saying “I don’t know about this, I’m not sure about this, Jack,” so she says “no lo sé.”

• tenemos que… (we have to…)
  • Tenemos que irnos (we have to leave)
  • ¡Tenemos que hablar! (we need to talk!)
  • Tenemos que hacer algo (we have to do something)
  • Once you know your conjugations of the verb tener (to have), then you can say things like “I have to…” or “they have to…” as well.  See the Going Deeper section below.

Going Deeper

SENTENCE BREAKDOWN

• “les nomino al…” = “I nominate you guys to the…”
  • Pronunciation: “Lehs no-MEE-no al”
  • Depending on context, can also mean “I nominate them to the…”
  • “to the” in English is “a el” in Spanish, but when “a” and “el” appear next to each other, we condense it to say “al.”
• “tenemos que hacer esto” = “we have to do this”
  • Pronunciation: “teh-NEH-mos keh ahh-SEHR ES-toh”
• “tienen veinticuatro horas” = “you guys have 24 hours”
  • Pronunciation: tyeh-nen veyn-tee-QUA-troh OR-ahs
  • Depending on context, can also mean “they have 24 hours” 
  • Exercise: try to say out loud, “They have 1 hour.”

TENSE

presente (present) (more specifically, present indicative).

• everything this Vine is spoken in the present tense.
• There are four verbs in this Vine (in order of appearance):
  • nominar (to nominate)
  • tener (to have)
  • hacer (to do/to make)
  • saber (to know)
• tener (to have) is conjugated in the present tense:
  • I have = yo tengo
  • You have = tú tienes
  • He/she has = él/ella tiene
  • We have = nosotros tenemos
  • Y’all have = vosotros tenéis (Spain only)
  • They/y’all have = ellos/ustedes tienen
• nominar (to nominate) is conjugated in the present tense:
  • I nominate = yo nomino
  • You nominate = tú nominas
  • He/she nominates = él/ella nomina
  • We nominate = nosotros nominamos
  • Y’all nominate = vosotros nomináis
  • They/y’all nominate = ellos/ustedes nominan
• saber (to know) is conjugated in the present tense:
  • I know = yo sé (notice how it looks weird?  It’s a special case.  All the other ones below are regular.)
  • You know = tú sabes
  • He/she knows = él/ella sabe
  • We know = nosotros sabemos
  • Y’all know = vosotros sabéis
  • They/y’all know = ellos/ustedes saben
• hacer (to do/to make) is in the infinitive, aka its pure, unconjugated form, so we’ll leave it at that for now. 😉
• Notice in the Vine, Jack said “Rose, tenemos que hacer esto.”  He didn’t say, “Rose, nosotros tenemos que hacer esto.”  Why did he leave out “nosotros”?
  • In English, we typically need to say who is doing the action.  If someone left out the word “we” it would sound ridiculous.  Instead of “we have to do this” it would be “have to do this.”
  • In Spanish, since the conjugations are so specific, it is not necessary to say who is doing the action – the conjugation tells you who.  If you see “tenemos que hacer esto,” you know it means “we have to do this” because “tenemos” implies “we.”
    • Pretty convenient, ¿no?
  • Other examples of this:
    • When Rose says “no lo sé” she doesn’t say “yo no lo sé,” because the “yo” is implied.
    • When Cal says “tienen veinticuatro horas” he doesn’t say “ustedes tienen veinticuatro horas” because the “ustedes” is implied.

OBJECTS

What about the “les” in “les nomino”?  This little word changes the meaning from “I nominate” to “I nominate you guys.”

• “les” is an IO (indirect object)
• It can be used to represent “you guys” or “them” depending on context
• It goes right before the conjugated verb of “nomino”
  • Notice this is the opposite of English.
    • English: I nominate you guys.
    • Spanish: You guys I nominate.

• A more fine point: what about the “lo” in “no lo sé”?  The “lo” is a direct object and it means “it.”  So a literal translation would be “I don’t know it” – but that doesn’t really make sense in context.  In Spanish, “no lo sé” can be translated directly to “I don’t know” in most situations.
• Read the objects page for more about direct and indirect objects.

VOCABULARY 

See if you can identify these words/phrase in English.

• tener
• nominar
• hacer
• saber
• no sé
• veinticuatro
• cuatro (can you guess?) 🙂
• la hora
• las horas
• ¿no sabes?
• Ice Bucket Challenge  😛

If you’re still reading this, watch the Vine again!  Then try to speak the words of the Vine out loud again, as slowly as you need to.