Celebrate Day of the Dead in Spanish
Vocabulary
Let's start off with the vocab words in these lessons!
Adjectives
| examples |
|---|
Nouns
| examples |
|---|
Remember that feminine nouns that begin with a stressed a or ha- sound in Spanish, like alma, use the articles el and un in the singular.
Noun Phrases
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| el objeto personal | personal item |
| el pan de muerto | pan de muerto |
| el papel picado | papel picado |
| el ser querido | loved one |
| examples |
|---|
Copal, Pan de Muerto, and Papel Picado
You may have noticed that we used the same words in English and Spanish for three of the nouns and noun phrases you learned in these lessons: copal, pan de muerto, and papel picado. Why? These are Spanish loanwords and phrases you may also encounter in English! Let’s take a more detailed look at what they are.
- Copal: Copal is a resin that comes from trees. It is often burned as incense. It is frequent to find copal being burned on the Day of the Dead!
- Pan de muerto: Literally the bread of the dead, pan de muerto is a sweet roll or bread traditionally made to celebrate the Day of the Dead in Mexico.
- Papel picado: Papel picado is tissue paper with cut-out shapes. It is used to create banners with extremely intricate, lace-like designs.
Verb and Verb Phrase: Tú Command Forms
In this skill, you learn the tú command forms for the following verb and verb phrase!
| Infinitive | English | Tú Command Form | Negative Tú Command Form |
|---|---|---|---|
| conversar | to talk | conversa | no converses |
| dar gracias | to say thanks | da gracias | no des gracias |
Affirmative Tú Commands: The Informal Imperative
Tú commands are the singular form of informal commands. You can use affirmative tú commands to tell a friend, family member the same age as you or younger, classmate, child, or pet to do something. To tell somebody not to do something, you would use a negative tú command.
How to Form Regular Affirmative Tú Commands
For regular verbs, you will simply use the third-person singular form of the present indicative to form an affirmative tú command:
- For verbs that end in -ar, add the third-person singular ending -a to the stem
- For verbs that end in -er and -ir, add the third-person singular ending -e to the stem
Forming Commands with Verbs with Stem or Spelling Changes
For verbs with stem changes or spelling changes in the present tense, the stem or spelling change also applies to the informal command form.
Irregular Affirmative Tú Commands
All verbs with irregular third-person singular forms in the present tense maintain that same irregularity in the affirmative informal command, except for the following eight verbs, which have special irregular affirmative command forms.
To remember the super-duper irregular command forms in the table above, memorize this mnemonic device:
Pronoun Placement in Affirmative Commands
Pronouns are attached to the end of affirmative commands. A written accent (tilde) is often added to maintain the verb's original stress, especially if more than one pronoun is used.
Negative Informal Imperative Forms
The negative informal imperative, yet another term used to describe negative tú commands, is formed differently than the affirmative informal imperative. It is actually formed much like the negative formal imperative in that it uses the present subjunctive form of the verb.
If you already know the formal command forms, you can simply add an s to the end of the formal command to form a negative informal command.
Irregular Negative Informal Commands
If a verb is irregular in the present subjunctive, its negative informal command form maintains the same irregularity.
Pronoun Placement in Negative Commands
In negative informal commands, the pronoun goes between the negative word (like no or nunca) and the verb.
Quiz Yourself!
Want more practice with the vocabulary you learned in these lessons? Click here!
Spanish Conversation
Fantastic! Let's put the grammar and vocab from above to the test in the following example of a conversation in Spanish.
Want to learn more about how to celebrate Day of the Dead in Spanish? Check out the following articles!
