Spanish GCSE Reading and Grammar — Constance e Imran Episode 4 (learn through a novel)
- The story episode in Spanish.
- The translation into English.
- A grammar explanation with examples from the story.
Mr Whitmore escribe en la pizarra:
Mr Whitmore writes on the board:
«La felicidad se puede encontrar incluso en los momentos más oscuros, si uno solo recuerda encender la luz.»
“Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”
Constance sonríe.
Constance smiles.
«Eso lo dice Dumbledore en Harry Potter.»
“That’s what Dumbledore says in Harry Potter.”
Jason se ríe fuerte.
Jason laughs loudly.
«Biblioteca con piernas.»
“Library with legs.”
Constance lo mira seria.
Constance looks at him seriously.
«Mejor una biblioteca con piernas que un estante vacío con piernas.»
“Better a library with legs than an empty shelf with legs.”
La clase hace ruido. Mr Whitmore levanta la mano.
The class makes noise. Mr Whitmore raises his hand.
«Los libros no muerden. Pero los prejuicios sí.»
“Books don’t bite. But prejudice does.”
Silencio. Jason murmura:
Silence. Jason mutters:
«Esto no termina aquí.»
“This isn’t over.”
We will introduce the Regular Present Tense. Regular Verbs follow always the same pattern, so once that you know one, you know the rest. It’s like joining pieces in a puzzle. We have three groups of verbs in Spanish:
- MIRAR (ending with AR) → Constance lo mira seria.
- HACER (ending with ER) → La clase hace ruido.
- ESCRIBIR (ending with IR) → Mr Whitmore escribe en la pizarra.
Today, I will teach you verbs ending in -AR. You need to drop the ending AR and replace it in this way:
MIRAR: to watch → MIR-
For only one person, you have:
- yo miro – I watch
- tú miras – you watch
- él/ella mira – he/she watches
For more than one person, you have:
- nosotros/nosotras miramos – we watch
- vosotros/vosotras miráis – you all or you both watch
- ellos/ellas miran – they watch
ESTUDIAR: to study → ESTUDI-
- yo estudio
- tú estudias
- él/ella estudia
- nosotros/nosotras estudiamos
- vosotros/vosotras estudiáis
- ellos/ellas estudian
Here you have a video made by me explaining more:
La clase termina. Pero la guerra entre Jason, Constance e Imran recién empieza.
A very easy but effective way to impress your teacher is to enlarge your sentences when writing or speaking. To do that, you need to connect ideas with words like pero (but).
Instead of saying Estudio matemáticas (I study math), say Estudio matemáticas pero no ciencias (I study math but not science).
An alternative to pero is sin embargo (however):
Uso TikTok. Sin embargo, a veces me hace perder tiempo (I use TikTok. However, sometimes it wastes my time).
Find all the episodes here: Contents – GCSE Spanish
Highly qualified native teacher with 30 years of experience. One-to-one lessons via Zoom. Contact me at laura@spanishforlondon.com
We post two new episodes every week — keep up with Constance and Imran’s story!
