Today’s Vine is by Mario Bautista from Mexico City.

It’s not only entertaining, but also a good review of some basic conversational phrases.

The Vine

Transcript

• Attendant: Qué tal, buenas noches, menores de ocho años HOY entran gratis.
• Mom (madre): Ay, qué bueno, mi hijito tiene siete.
• Son (hijo): Ma, tengo diecinueve.
• Mom: ¡Cállate! Qué te decía–

Explanation

• Attendant: How’s it going, good evening, TODAY anyone under the age of 8 enters for free.
• Mom (madre): Oh, that’s great, my little son is 7.
• Son (hijo): Mom, I’m 19.
• Mom:  Shut it! What did I tell you–

Recall that cállate was used in this lesson as well, and I translated it to shut up.

Cállate is used as an aggressive, direct way of telling someone to be quiet.

However, it is not a perfect one-to-one translation of “shut up.”  Sometimes in English you’ll tell someone, “be quiet!” or “shut it!” or “shhhh!” and you can be just as aggressive “cállate” in Spanish.

Note: mi hijo = my son.  The word “hijito” is a diminuitive, meaning “my little son” – see this lesson (“yo me voy a comprar unas cositas“) for another example of diminutives.

Slow-Mo Version

https://soundcloud.com/spanishin6seconds/wednesday-vine-mi-hijito-tiene

Useful Phrases

• ¿Qué tal? – How’s it going? / What’s up?
  • a useful greeting
  • ¿Qué tal la clase? = How is/was the class?
  • ¿Qué tal + ______? = How is/was ______?

• Buenas noches. – Good night / Good evening
  • can be used for parting (buenas noches, see you in the morning)
  • or meeting (buenas noches, welcome to this nighttime event!)

• Gratis – Free of charge
  • libre – free, as in “available”

•  Tengo ____ años = I am _____ years old.
  • literally, I have ____ years.
  • tengo diecinueve = I’m 19.

• ¿Qué te decía? = What did I tell you? / What did I use to tell you? / What was I telling you?
  • Similar to this: ¿Qué te he dicho? from an earlier lesson

The Artful Act of “Noun-ifying” Things

Consider the phrase,

menores de ocho años = persons younger than 8 years.

menor as an adjective = younger, minor, smaller

menor as a noun = someone or something that is younger, minor, smaller

This is true with a lot of adjectives in Spanish – you can conveniently noun-ify them.

Example:

This is a popular show on Univision, the Spanish-language TV network.

gordo as an adjective = fat

el gordo as a noun = the person/animal/thing that is fat

flaca as an adjective = thin

la flaca as a noun = the person/animal/thing that is thin

VOCABULARY

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

• tengo diecinueve años
• tengo veinticuatro años
• no tengo siete años
• el año
• hoy
• ¿qué tal?
• buenas noches
• cállate
• entrar
• gratis
• mi hijo
• el hijo

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.