29: El que, lo que, and la que

How many different ways can you say what in Spanish?

Join us on a rigorous step-by-step journey to fluency.

I'm Timothy, and this is LearnCraft Spanish.

Today, we're going to learn some more phrases that you can use as nouns, and we'll dive deep

into the various ways that you can say what in Spanish when it's not part of a question.

For example, sentences like, I want what he has.

But first, let's learn our first adjective.

It's one you've probably heard once or twice in your life, the word bueno.

This word roughly means good, and like most adjectives, the ending will change based

on the gender of the noun it's describing.

It'll be bueno for masculine things, and bueno for feminine things.

Now the tricky thing about this word is that it can go either before or after a noun.

For example, a good house might be either una buena casa, or una casa buena.

Either one is idiomatic.

Sometimes English speakers oversimplify by saying that in Spanish all adjectives are supposed

to go after nouns, but that's definitely not true.

Some adjectives do and some don't, and some can do either.

We'll learn when to put adjectives before or after nouns as we learn more of them.

Now let's try using bueno with a masculine noun.

That would be either un chico bueno, or un buen chico.

What happened here?

For some reason, when bueno is used before a masculine noun, it loses the o at the end.

This is unique, most adjectives don't do that, but this is just something to get used

to as you use bueno.

If you don't want to deal with this issue, you can simplify by just making it a point

to put bueno after masculine nouns instead of before them.

The word bueno is generally used with ser, because in Spanish this word for good is normally

considered a part of something's identity.

So see if you can predict how to say this sentence.

The house was good.

La casa era buena.

La casa era buena.

And then how about it's a good place?

Es un buen lugar.

Es un buen lugar.

In that second case, you might have guessed es un lugar bueno.

If you did, you didn't get it wrong.

This is just a situation where there's more than one correct answer.

We can also make either bueno or buena plural by putting a hard S at the end to say buenos

or buenos.

So see if you can predict how to say this one.

The boys were good.

Now to clarify something, this is what you would say if you're talking about the moral

character of the boys.

They were good boys, meaning that they weren't bad boys.

This sentence could not be interpreted to mean that the boys were doing well.

In Spanish, good or bueno specifically refers to the character of someone or something,

where it is or who they are as a person.

So what about when you want to say that you're doing good or doing well, not as what you

are, but as how you're doing or how you're feeling?

You'll use the word bien.

This word spelled B-I-E-N is an adverb and it literally means well.

For example, if someone asks you how you're doing, you're likely to say bien.

You would never say bueno or buena.

The word bien is used extremely often in Spanish.

In English, we might say that we're doing fine, or okay, or good, but in Spanish, all

of those would be translated as bien.

One in doubt you can do a simple test.

If you would use good in English, see if it makes sense to use the word well.

If it does, you'll use bien.

For example, I feel good today, could be I feel well today, so that would be bien.

But if it doesn't make sense to say well, you'll use bueno.

Also, since bien is an adverb, it's used pretty much exactly like the word a key.

And you'll always use it with a star, not with sad.

Also note that adverbs, unlike adjectives and pronouns, don't change forms based on who's

doing well.

For example, the girls are well, still uses the simple word bien.

Las chicas están bien.

Let's practice using ser with bueno and a star with bien.

How would you say he's a good boy?

Es un buen chico.

It was a good house.

Era una buena casa.

We're fine.

Estamos bien.

The girl is good.

La chica es buena.

I hope that they're okay.

Yo, hope, que es bien.

Next, let's talk some more about how to say what in Spanish, especially when it doesn't

occur in a question.

But in order to do that, we need to talk about some things you can do with articles.

The thing is, in Spanish, articles can sometimes be treated like nouns by themselves without

requiring nouns or pronouns.

How does that work?

Well, it largely comes down to sentence templates like this one.

I like the one that we saw yesterday.

To give this some context, let's say we're talking about houses and we're comparing

different houses.

I like the one that we saw yesterday.

I could say I like the house that we saw yesterday, but I'm just using shorthand for that.

I just say the one that.

In Spanish, you don't say the one that.

The word one isn't used that way.

Instead, the word one is simply left out and you say the that.

So here's how you translate it.

I like la que we saw yesterday.

Or let's say you're talking about people.

You met a guy, but don't remember his name, so you ask your friend.

In English, you could say he was the one that was here.

In Spanish, you would say he was the that was here.

Era el que estaba aquí.

Or if it was a girl, era la que estaba aquí.

The phrases el que and la que are actually extremely frequent in Spanish.

You'll see them all the time and you'll sound more like a native speaker if you start

using them all the time too.

Any time you would say the one that in English.

Let's practice this a bit.

She was the one that was in the place.

Ella era la que estaba en el lugar.

Ella era la que estaba en el lugar.

In the next one, the one is masculine.

The one that was here was good.

El que estaba aquí era bueno.

So this is a fun thing we can do with articles and it's actually a very, very common way that

articles can be used.

And while we're on the topic of articles, we need to learn a new one, the word la.

Wait a minute.

We already learned the word la as the word for him, a masculine direct object.

But this word is completely different.

It's used in a totally different way.

It doesn't mean him and it's not masculine.

This is a bit mind-bending but this new word la means the, specifically it means the when

there's no noun.

Bear with me here because this is something that almost never happens in English.

After saying the, we pretty much always use a noun.

For example, we might say the good thing is that we're here.

In Spanish, in sentence templates like that, we don't always use the word thing there.

Instead we just say the good, referring to the good as an abstract non-nawn idea about

what's good.

The good is that we're here would be lo bueno es que estamos aquí.

Lo bueno es que estamos aquí.

Here's a similar sentence example, see if you can predict how to say it.

The difficult thing is that they aren't friends.

Lo difficult es que no son amigos.

Lo difícil es que no son amigos.

I mean in Spanish in both of these cases you could use the word thing which is a noun

in Spanish but that's not idiomatic.

Native speakers are more likely to use la.

This strange word that lets you use the without a noun.

So basically we have a new sentence template we can use and it looks like this.

Lo description es que sentence.

Of course for now we only have one adjective bueno.

So watch for a bunch of sentences entirely in Spanish that start with lo bueno.

But with some more adjectives you can do a lot of fun things with this.

Lo strange es que it's snowing in May.

Lo terrible es que he won't call me back.

Lo funny es que she was sleepwalking.

And again we've now learned multiple different meanings of lo.

We can use it as a direct object pronoun meaning him and now we can also use it as an article.

The nice thing is that when you see lo in real life you can always tell which one it is

because if it's a direct object it's going to be directly attached to a verb.

If it means the it's typically going to be right before an adjective but it'll never

be before a noun.

Speaking of using articles before a noun we were just talking about how you can translate

the English phrase the one that into Spanish using either el que or la que.

But since law means the is it possible to say lo que?

Well yes and this is actually a super common use of the article law.

For example yo want lo que él has.

Yo quiero lo que él tiene.

This is translated as I want what he has.

Literally it's I want the that he has but instead of using el que for a masculine item

or la que for a feminine item we can use lo que when there's no noun specified.

So it's another case of lo being used as an article without a noun and in these cases

lo que translates to what in English.

But wait we've already learned the word for what?

The word que with an accent mark.

Well that word que is pretty much only used in questions and exclamations.

The phrase lo que is specifically used when you're saying what but it's interchangeable

with the one that.

So in this sentence I want what he has.

You could instead say I want the one that he has.

And since that's the case you'll definitely say lo que.

As another example how would you translate this one?

I like what you're cooking.

I like lo que you're cooking.

So the word what in this English sentence is interchangeable with the phrase the one

that.

And that's how you know to use lo que.

So typically when you see the word what in English there are two ways it could be translated.

If it's a question you'll use que.

But if it's interchangeable with the one that you'll use lo que.

Let's try a couple more examples.

But what is it?

So in this case you couldn't say but the one that is it.

So this one uses the word que with an accent mark.

Pedro que es.

Pedro que es?

How about this sentence.

What he said was funny.

So yes you could say the one that he said was funny.

So this is lo que.

Lo que he said era funny.

Lo que dijo era divertido.

How about I see what you did there.

Yo see lo que you did there.

Now for a trickier example I don't know what to do.

You can't really say I don't know the one that to do.

But this is also not a question.

There's clearly a period at the end.

This situation is what we call an implied question.

And in these cases you will use the word que with an accent mark even though there are

no question marks around it.

Here's another example.

I don't know what to say.

Yo no no que to say.

How about this tricky one.

I don't know what he said.

So in this case you technically could say I don't know the one that he said.

But really this counts as an implied question as well.

We're almost asking what did he say.

So this will be translated as que with an accent mark.

Let's get some more practice with que and lo que along with bueno and bien using our

final quiz.

But are you okay?

Pero estás bien?

She is the one that is here.

Ella es la que está aquí.

I hope that you are well.

Espero que estés bien.

The good thing is that you're here.

Lo bueno es que estás aquí.

I am what I am.

Soy lo que soy.

Soy lo que soy.

His friends and I are here.

Sus amigos y yo estamos aquí.

I wanted to be what it was.

I want que sea lo que era.

If it's the one that was here, it's my house.

In the next one everyone is feminine.

Either they're not well or I'm not.

O ellos no es también o yo no lo estoy.

I hope that they are what I want.

I hope que sean lo que I want.

I don't know what they do.

Yo no no que ellos do.

In the next one the friend is masculine.

When we are here your friend will do it.

When we are here your friend will do it.

When we are here your friend will do it.

What we did surprised him.

Lo que we did, lo surprised.

But our house was good.

I hope that the good boy is okay.

Espero que el buen chico esté bien.

In the next one everyone is masculine.

You're the one that I met yesterday.

Are friends don't know what to do.

Nuestros amigos no no que to do.

I hope that he's the one that is doing well.

I hope que él sea el que está bien.

In the next one everyone is feminine.

My friends know what to say.

Mis amigas no que to say.

Mis amigas saben qué decir.

The sad thing was that he wasn't a good boy.

Lo sad era que no era un chico bueno.

Lo triste era que no era un chico bueno.

For more practice with el que, la que, lo que,

and everything else go to lcspodcast.com slash 29.

This show is brought to you by LearnCraftSpanish.com.

The Spanish voice in this episode was our coach Jimena Lama Rondón.

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.