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Today we’re going to learn some new nouns to describe places, including the words for “building”, “office”, “bathroom”, and “countryside”. We’ll also get a variety of practice with these new nouns in a variety of Spanish sentences.
Me gusta mi oficina.
Intro: 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 new words for places, including the words for “building”, “office”, and “countryside”. While we do, we’ll also get lots of practice with our new verbs, Tomar, Llevar, and Conocer, as well as our new adjectives from yesterday.
Let’s start with the general-purpose word for “building”, which is edificio. This word is clearly related to the English word “edifice”, which is a quaint or formal word for a building. So here’s a sentence example:
Can you take these to the other building?
¿Puedes llevar estos al otro edificio?
Next, the word for “office” is oficina. This can refer to either a single office room or an entire company office, just like in English. So for example:
Yes, I met her yesterday at the office.
Sí, la conocí ayer en la oficina.
Let’s go ahead and practice these two new nouns, along with a lot of other things we’ve been learning this week on the podcast.
I like my office.
Me gusta mi oficina.
He doesn’t know the building.
No conoce el edificio.
She met a funny guy at the office.
Conoció a un chico gracioso en la oficina.
Look at the building! It’s pretty!
¡Mira el edificio! ¡Es bonito!
I didn’t know the office in that building.
No conocía la oficina en ese edificio.
I had an office in this building.
Tenía una oficina en este edificio.
Next let’s learn a couple of nouns you can use to refer to specific rooms within a building. The word for “bathroom” is baño, which is spelled b-a-ñ-o. So for example:
He wants to know where the bathroom is.
Quiere saber dónde está el baño.
And then a word for “bedroom” is habitación. This resembles the English word “habitation”, but with a C and an accent mark. So it’s spelled h-a-b-i-t-a-c-i-o-n, with an accent mark on the O. Habitación. Remember that the H at the beginning is silent. So for example:
She took it from the table and brought it to her bedroom.
Lo tomó de la mesa y lo llevó a su habitación.
Now, of course, we’ve already learned that the word cuarto means “room” or “bedroom”. The fact is that these two nouns, el cuarto and la habitación, are basically synonyms in Spanish, although habitación is a bit more specifically a place where someone sleeps, such as a room in a hotel, whereas cuarto can sometimes be used for non-sleeping rooms. In general in our quizzing, we’ll translate cuarto as “room” and habitación as “bedroom”.
Let’s practice these. In this first example, the sense is that you’re grabbing something, so use the verb Tomar.
You have to take this from the bathroom.
Tienes que tomar esto del baño.
I always bring this from my bedroom to my office.
Siempre llevo esto de mi habitación a mi oficina.
Do you know the funny guy who lives in that building?
¿Conoces al chico gracioso que vive en ese edificio?
I have a bathroom in my bedroom.
Tengo un baño en mi habitación.
His bedroom is perfect, it even has a bathroom.
Su habitación es perfecta, hasta tiene un baño.
Next let’s learn two words for general places you’ll encounter outside. The word for “countryside” is campo. For example:
We spent the weekend in the countryside.
Pasamos el fin de semana en el campo.
Now, in modern English, most of us are more likely just to say “in the country” rather than “in the countryside”. Of course, when we say that, we’re not referring to a nation; the word in Spanish for that is país. But campo specifically means “country” as in “countryside”, or non-urban areas. Note that it can also mean “field”, but we’re mostly going to translate it as “countryside” in our quizzing today.
Next, the noun for “the sky” is el cielo. For example:
Look at the sky! It looks gorgeous.
¡Mira el cielo! Se ve hermoso.
Something interesting is that cielo can also mean “heaven”. So for example:
In my dream I went to heaven.
En mi sueño fui al cielo.
Note that we said al cielo; in general, you’re likely to use an article when referring to any place in Spanish, including heaven.
Let’s practice campo and cielo.
This is perfect, it looks like heaven.
Esto es perfecto, parece el cielo.
I want her to know the countryside.
Quiero que conozca el campo.
If you look at the sky in the countryside it’s very gorgeous.
Si miras el cielo en el campo es muy hermoso.
I want to go to heaven.
Quiero ir al cielo.
Drink coffee with your family when you’re in the country.
Toma café con tu familia cuando estés en el campo.
Meet him before he is on a plane in the sky.
Conócelo antes de que esté en un avión en el cielo.
For more practice with any of this, feel free to dig deeper at LCSPodcast.com/159. Or if you’re ready, let’s go on to today’s final quiz.
The poor guy had to go to the bathroom.
El pobre chico tuvo que ir al baño.
I haven’t met anyone new at the office.
No he conocido a nadie nuevo en la oficina.
I want to meet the person you met in that building.
Quiero conocer a la persona que conociste en ese edificio.
I’ll take this with me to the bathroom.
Llevaré esto al baño.
I don’t want him to meet her, because she doesn’t drink coffee.
No quiero que la conozca, porque ella no toma café.
He wore that and it looked cute.
Llevó eso y se veía lindo.
Calm down(m)! He didn’t drink it.
¡Tranquilo! No lo tomó.
They don’t know her, but she always wears that.
No la conocen, pero ella siempre lleva eso.
I didn’t know such a beautiful place, it’s heaven.
No conocía un lugar tan bello, es el cielo.
I met her on a plane when we were in the sky.
La conocí en un avión cuando estábamos en el cielo.
She wants me to drink this so I can bring more things.
Quiere que yo tome esto para que pueda llevar más cosas.
Take this to your bedroom, it’s pretty.
Lleva esto a tu habitación, es bonito.
I wanted to meet you when I saw you at the office.
Quería conocerte cuando te vi en la oficina.
Look at the sky, it looks strange today.
Mira el cielo, se ve extraño hoy.
I have a bedroom in my country house.
Tengo una habitación en mi casa de campo.
I’ve been drinking coffee since I arrived in the countryside.
He estado tomando café desde que llegué al campo.
We don’t know that place, but they say it’s cute.
No conocemos ese lugar, pero dicen que es lindo.
I want to meet him, because we didn’t meet at the office.
Quiero conocerlo, porque no nos conocimos en la oficina.
I don’t know the countryside, so it’s strange for me.
No conozco el campo, entonces es extraño para mí.
They want her to take this from her bedroom and to bring it to the building.
Quieren que tome esto de su habitación y que lo lleve al edificio.
What you’re wearing is gorgeous.
Lo que llevas es hermoso.
The poor girl had to go to her bedroom.
La pobre chica tuvo que ir a su habitación.
Everything in this building is gorgeous, even the bathrooms!
¡Todo en este edificio es hermoso, hasta los baños!
Calm down(f)! I think it looks beautiful.
¡Tranquila! Creo que se ve bello.
For more practice with all of this, go to LCSPodcast.com/159, or tune in tomorrow for a big quiz to practice everything we’ve learned this week.
This show is brought to you by LearnCraftSpanish.com. The Spanish voice in this episode was our coach Michael Agudelo. Our music was performed 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.