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Let's learn how to use "mi", "su", "tu", and "nuestro" before Spanish nouns. We'll also get some practice with new conjunctions, including "pero" and "cuando".
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LearnCraft Spanish — 28: Mi, tu, su: Spanish possessive adjectives. Machine-transcribed; use the interactive transcript above to jump the player to any line.
Let's sort out the possessive words, mi, su, and du. Join us on a rigorous step-by-step journey to fluency. I'm Timothy, and this is LearnCraft Spanish. As we continue practicing the subjunctive uses of seer and asthar this week, let's also work on a few words that are not nearly as difficult to learn. Let's start with some words that you can put before a noun. You already know how to use the word house or friend in a sentence by putting articles before these words, such as una casa, or el amigo. Let's learn a couple more things that you can use right before a noun, specifically things like my house, your house, and their things. To do this, we need possessive adjectives. The main three are mi, tu, and su.
Mi means my, tu means your, and su means there. Actually su can mean pretty much anyone other than mi, you, or we. It can mean his, her, or its as well. But only in the possessive sense. Let's practice this a bit. How would you say, the guy was at your house. El chico estaba en tu casa. El chico estaba en tu casa. Their house was near my house. Su casa estaba por mi casa. Su casa estaba por mi casa. Incidentally there's some ambiguity in this sentence, su casa estaba por mi casa, since
su casa could also mean his house, or her house. If you want to be more specific about whose house it is, you'd have to say la casa de él, o la casa de ella. The word su is just shorthand that can be used when it's clear who we're talking about. Note that su can also refer to your, specifically if we're talking to someone using usted. Remember that usted takes third person verb conjugations and also pronouns and adjectives. So for example, is it your house spoken in a formal voice might be su casa? These words can also be pluralized easily by just putting a hard S at the end. This is a bit confusing to English speakers, but these words are only plural if the noun
they accompany is plural. For example, their house is singular su casa, but their house is plural su casa. My friends is mis amigos and your friends is tus amigos. Let's practice these a bit with a few sentence examples. Make sure you can predict whether the possessive adjective would be singular or plural. In this first one everyone is masculine. His friends are at my house. Sus amigos están en mi casa. Your houses are very big. Your houses are very big.
Your houses are very big. I hope that it's their house. Yo hope que sea su casa. Yo espero que sea su casa. In the next one everyone is feminine. I hope that my friends are here. Yo hope que mis amigas estén aquí. So all of these words tu, mi, and su changed based on whether they were singular or plural just like our articles la versus la. However, these words aren't changing based on gender. Your friend feminine uses tu, as in tu amiga.
And your friend masculine is also tu, as in tu amigo. We have one more possessive word to learn and it's a bit more complicated than these. It's the word nuestro, meaning hour. And it's a bit of a mouthful. In the memory palaces we sometimes use with our students, we use a silly story that emphasizes that the stress of this word sounds like waste, nuestro. This word does change based on gender, as well as whether the noun is plural or singular. For example, our friend might be nuestro amigo. But plural our friends would be nuestro amigos. And our house is nuestra casa, but our houses is nuestras casas. Let's practice this a bit. I hope that the boys are our friends.
Yo hope que los chicos sean nuestros amigos. Yo espero que los chicos sean nuestros amigos. I want her to be our friend. Yo want que ella sea nuestra amiga. In this one everyone is masculine. Our boy wants us to be friends. Nuestro chico, once que seamos amigos. Nuestro chico quiere que seamos amigos.
We were at our houses in order to be safe. Estábamos en nuestras casas para estar safe. Now let's learn a few conjunctions that are really easy to use because they're used almost exactly like they are in English. Remember when we learned E, the word for AND. We didn't really have to do any special grammatical work because it's pretty much a direct translation. That's true of the words for IF and BUT as well. The word C spelled SI is used pretty much exactly like the English word IF. And the word Pero, P-E-R-O, is used basically exactly like the conjunction BUT.
You can use either of these words to join two sentences or clauses together and neither one of them tends to imply a subjunctive when you use it except in some advanced sentence templates that we'll learn later. So both C and Pero are pretty easy to use by default. Let's practice this. I do it if he does it. Yo lo do si él lo does. Yo lo hago si él lo hace. I was here but they weren't. Yo estaba aquí pero ellos no lo estaban.
Here's a tricky one. But I hope that he's here if she is. Pero yo hope que él esté aquí si ella lo está. Pero yo espero que él esté aquí si ella lo está. Now let's learn the word O which means OR. It's spelled simply as the letter O. This word is a lot like the word E because you can either use it between items of a list or between two sentences to join them together. As an example of that first use, he and she are here could turn into he or she is here. Él o ella está aquí.
Or to put two entire sentences together we did it or they did it. Nosotros lo did o ellas lo did. Nosotros lo hicimos o ellas lo hicieron. But there is one difference from English. This word is also how you translate the word either into Spanish when talking about a list of options. In English we say either he or she. In Spanish you say O él o ella. Try this with some examples. Either he isn't present or she isn't present. O él no está o ella no está.
Either it's because of being friends or it's because of being here. O es por ser amigos o es por estar aquí. O es por ser amigos o es por estar aquí. We have one more conjunction to learn and it's kind of a tricky one. The word cuando means when. If you want to mnemonic for this the stress is on wand. So maybe you're thinking of when you have a magic wand or cuando you have a magic wand. Here's a simple example. We were friends when we were kids. Eramos amigos cuando éramos kids. Eramos amigos cuando éramos niños.
But there's something interesting and magical that the wand does or that cuando does in a particular situation. Check out this sentence. We will do it when you are here. My question is what time does when you are here refer to? Is it the future tense, the present tense or what? We will do it when you are here. In the first clause we're using the future. We will do it. But in the second clause for some reason we're saying you are here. If that's the future we should say when you will be here. But we never say we will do it when you will be here. Basically what's happening is that we're referring to when something happens but when something happens in the future. And the rule in Spanish is that when you say when something happens and it happens in
the future you actually use a subjunctive. Why is this? It's not indicating an intention or an emotion. But the fact is there are some situations in Spanish that just flip a switch and trigger the subjunctive. You'll stumble over them once in a while as you learn more and more Spanish words and the word cuando is just one of them. This is simply a new sentence template to learn. But it specifically happens only in this future situation. If you're using cuando in the past, for example we were friends when we were kids, you don't use the subjunctive. You just use the normal past tense. You also won't do this when talking about the present if you're referring to things that are repeated. For example, I always give easy assignments when I am the teacher. This uses a normal conjugation after when.
You'll always give easy assignments when you are the teacher. But specifically if you're talking about the future, we will do something when this thing happens. The happens there is going to be subjunctive. For example, I will give easy assignments when I am the teacher. Now as a side note, we haven't really talked about the future much in these lessons. This is just something to watch for. We'll actually learn how to put Ser and Estar in the future next week. For now, the only future thing you have to worry about is when using the future triggers a subjunctive, specifically when the word cuando is involved. So how much can you translate of this sentence? We will do it when you are here.
You should be able to translate everything except for will do. Nosotros lo lo lo haceros cuando tú estes aquí. How about? He was happy when he was my friend. He was happy when he was my friend. I will do it when I'm at the place. Yo lo will do cuando esté en el lugar. Yo lo haré cuando esté en el lugar. We will be relieved when we are at home.
We will be relieved when we are at home. We will be relieved when we are at home. Nosotros we will be relieved cuando estemos en casa. Nosotros estaremos aliviados cuando estemos en casa. Alright, let's put it all together and practice our possessive adjectives and our new conjunctions in just a few more sentence examples. Some of these are going to be very bizarre, definitely nothing you'd say in real life. But this is great practice for making up your own sentences on the fly in real life, so make sure to make a guess and practice every single one of these weird sentences out loud. Your friends are at home, but I'm not.
How funny that our houses are close. How funny that our houses are close. How funny that our houses are close. The problem was that either she or he wasn't here. The problem was that either she or she wasn't here. The problem was that either she or she wasn't here. In the next one everyone is feminine. Not if your friend is here.
Not if your friend is here. In this one everyone is masculine. We'll do it when my friend is here. We'll do when my friend is here. Why are their houses bigger than my houses? Why are their houses bigger than my houses? Why are their houses bigger than my houses?
Our friend is here so that you be his friend. Our friend is here so that you be his friend. Either it's because of being friends or it's because of being here. Or it's because of being friends or it's because of being here. To get more practice with all of this go to lcspodcast.com slash 28. This show is brought to you by LearnCraftSpanish.com. The Spanish voice in this episode was our coach Michael Aguadelo.
Our music was provided by the Seattle Marimba quartet and I'm Timothy encouraging you to do the hard work of learning Spanish. acquiring a second language is one of the most fulfilling things you can do so start your fluency journey today at lcspodcast.com. You
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