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6 Español

Spanish
  Lectura Primera (1ͣ) First reading [reading first].
  Alberto va a París Albert goes to Paris.
   

The Spanish a is midway between a in cat and a in father, even before l or r.
1 Alberto! ¡Tú! ¿'Es posible? Albert! You! is (it) possible?
     
2 ¿Cómo va, Carlos? ¿y tu familia? How goes (it), Charles? And your family?
   

(One syllable for lia).
3 Todos perfectamente ¡que sorpresa!
¡yo te creía en Paris!

All perfectly, what (a) surprise?
I thought you in Paris.

    In creía, stress the í.
4 Me marcharé la semana que viene.
Mi director no me lo permite antes.		 I shall start (march me) the week that comes.
My director does not permit me before.
    Note, in marcharé, that ch is pronounced tch in Spanish as in English.
In viene, vie in one syllable, as in de-via-tion.
The v articulated lazily, tends towards b.
In antes, an is sounded as in "animal",
5 ¿Vas por mucho tiempo? (Do you) go for a long [much] time?
    The accent on moô indicates that the sound moo must be strongly stressed.
V is soft, nearly b.
    (We put between parentheses the words which are necessary for the English meaning,
but useless in Spanish;
between brackets, the literal translation.)
6 No lo sé; probablemente por tres semanas,
y, si es posible, por un mes.		 (I do) not know it; probably for three weeks,
and, if (it) is possible, for one month.
     
   

English :
You have read attentively the Spanish text, and compared it to the figured pronunciation and the English.
You understand it easily.
Read it again aloud, marking the stress well.
(If you study with the records, listen to it twice previously,
following on the book at the same time.)

When this has been done, let us read it over together :
A propos of Lectura primera, let us note that the English mute e does not exist in Spanish.
Generally, e is sounded like ay (or a in mate).
In Alberto va a París, the accent on the í does in no way alter its sound,
but simply means that the syllable rís is stressed,
The final s is sounded;
s is always pronounced in Spanish;
between two vowels, as in possible, it remains hard, not degenerating into z.

In sentence n° 1, you are probably surprised at the punctuation.
The exclamation and question marks, inverted, are placed at the beginning;
that will be explained in lesson 7, paragraph 4.
In Spanish, r is always sharply sounded, and corresponds to rr in English, as in err.

Sentence n° 2 : Notice that tu meaning your (tu familia) does not bear an accent,
as opposed to tú meaning you (sent. n° 1);
no difference in pronunciation.

Sentence n° 4 : me marcharé : I shall start, literally "march me",
without the pronoun yo, I.
Likewise, in sent. 5 : ¿Vas por mucho tiempo?;
without the pronoun tú;
this omission of pronouns, very common, makes the sentence lighter,
without any danger of error, since the forms of the verb in the different
persons are sufficiently distinguished by the ear.
Mucho means much, or very.

Sentence n° 6 : no difficulty;
remember that for the moment your work consists only in understanding the Spanish text,
and in knowing how to repeat each sentence immediately after reading it.

To end the lesson : read aloud the first sentence in Spanish;
then look up and repeat it aloud again - mind the stress!
If you get muddled up, begin again.
Is this done? Now to the next sentence, and so on to the end of the lesson.

If you have the records, listen twice again to the lesson before this exercise,
and try to follow without looking at the printed text.