Visit https://ebooknice.

com to download the full version and

explore more ebooks

(Ebook) Teach Yourself Beginner's Spanish by

Mark Stacey, Angela Gonzalez Hevia ISBN
9780340870181, 0340870184

_____ Click the link below to download _____

https://ebooknice.com/product/teach-yourself-beginner-
s-spanish-1796926

Explore and download more ebooks at ebooknice.com

Here are some suggested products you might be interested in.
Click the link to download

(Ebook) Biota Grow 2C gather 2C cook by Loucas, Jason; Viles, James

ISBN 9781459699816, 9781743365571, 9781925268492, 1459699815,
1743365578, 1925268497

https://ebooknice.com/product/biota-grow-2c-gather-2c-cook-6661374

(Ebook) Matematik 5000+ Kurs 2c Lärobok by Lena Alfredsson, Hans

Heikne, Sanna Bodemyr ISBN 9789127456600, 9127456609

https://ebooknice.com/product/matematik-5000-kurs-2c-larobok-23848312

(Ebook) SAT II Success MATH 1C and 2C 2002 (Peterson's SAT II Success)

by Peterson's ISBN 9780768906677, 0768906679

https://ebooknice.com/product/sat-ii-success-
math-1c-and-2c-2002-peterson-s-sat-ii-success-1722018

(Ebook) Teach Yourself Instant Spanish (with Audio) by Elisabeth

Smith ISBN 9780340868461, 0340868465

https://ebooknice.com/product/teach-yourself-instant-spanish-with-
audio-2337900
(Ebook) Teach Yourself Latin American Spanish by Juan Kattán-Ibarra
ISBN 9780071419048, 0071419047

https://ebooknice.com/product/teach-yourself-latin-american-
spanish-2487266

(Ebook) Red Hat Linux Administration - A Beginner 27s Guide by Michael

Turner, Steve Shah ISBN 9780072226317, 0072226315

https://ebooknice.com/product/red-hat-linux-administration-a-
beginner-27s-guide-1207238

(Ebook) Teach Yourself Complete Old English by Mark Atherton ISBN

9781444104189, 1444104187

https://ebooknice.com/product/teach-yourself-complete-old-
english-4173070

(Ebook) Master SAT II Math 1c and 2c 4th ed (Arco Master the SAT
Subject Test: Math Levels 1 & 2) by Arco ISBN 9780768923049,
0768923042

https://ebooknice.com/product/master-sat-ii-math-1c-and-2c-4th-ed-
arco-master-the-sat-subject-test-math-levels-1-2-2326094

(Ebook) Cambridge IGCSE and O Level History Workbook 2C - Depth Study:

the United States, 1919-41 2nd Edition by Benjamin Harrison ISBN
9781398375147, 9781398375048, 1398375144, 1398375047

https://ebooknice.com/product/cambridge-igcse-and-o-level-history-
workbook-2c-depth-study-the-united-states-1919-41-2nd-edition-53538044
Teach Yourself Beginner s Spanish Mark Stacey Digital
Instant Download
Author(s): Mark Stacey, Angela Gonzalez Hevia
ISBN(s): 9780340870181, 0340870184
Edition: Revised
File Details: PDF, 32.29 MB
Year: 2003
Language: english
 g
o
o
J
t
o
inkodüclion
howlo usolils boot
vl
yll 5
1+
prcnuncielion
01
guido
èqülón
basic
ssquión?
courlesies.
whoE
asking
who?
giving
and .
names
h
I o
. askingwhopeople are. sayingwhoyouare
0Z edodóndo es?wherc areyoufron? 10
askingwhere people areÍrom. sayingwhere
youarêÍrom. nationalities
03 másEoDro Vd.mlsr.onoreabout yoarselÍ18
saying you .
where liveandwork numbers
(F20. addresses
04 t36moaslãUd,? howareyou? n
askingaÍlerpeople andsaying howyouare.
wherethings are. tempbrary and
Derman6nt stal€s
05 nuostrasfamlllas ourÍamiries 34
d€scÍibingÍamilios. sayingwhatbelongs
to whom. saying thereis an1thercarc
0ô onmoulmleíúo novingaruund 43
numb€rs .
21+1 dates . goingand
Íeturning
' means oftransPort
07 llo0adrsy salldasa/,!ã/sanddspaftures58
numbers 32-199 . daysoÍtheweek .
timesoÍday. arriving andleaving
OE d.sôosy oxfg!Ícleswlshes andrcquests03
saylng you .
wiat want syingwhatyou
wouldlike. seying wlìaiyouneed.
buying tickeh
09 0uú0ry p|tLrlncl.r
tastesendDretercncês 70
saying whatyoulike. saying wfiatyou
.
dontlike saying whet you prefer
t0 cos.3putontlr3personal mattoÍs
talkingabout polsonal acttuitles. talking
about peopls in0eneral
11 eíür amlgoa hetween trlends 86
talkingtoÍemily andfÍlends
12 dássr conocÍmake yourself known n
moÍ8onnumberc . 0eÍsonal documents
13 onarâathome g9
houses andÍlats. rooms andfumituÍ€
14 ol llsmpollbrr ÍÍerÍ,lnd 106
spoÌts andkseping Íit . museums, lhoatres,
c0ncerts
15 yfelando p0ÍErp.fafiavelling in SWin 113
asking forand givingdlrections .
driving inSpain
16 nomoslontoDl6n/ dontÍedlwerl 121
minor ailments . simple remedies tmm
thechemist
17 YtmordocomDÍ /eÍ'sgoshopping 130
shopplng inh€ maÍket . shopping in
tie deoaÍtment store
18 Gomfondo y tchfondoeating anddrinking13ô
oÍdoringatek€-away . goingt0thecaÍé.
Spanish dishes andwinos . going to
therestauÍant
19 asunfospÍáclfcos somepacticalnatterc 14ã
changing .
moneybuying sÌamps . Íinding
. using
a lavatory . emergencies
thetelephone
2D hablandodolliômpo
talking
abouttheweather 162
theweather .
Íorecastpoints oÍthecompass
21 panfoÍminar... andíinally... 158
accents .
anddialêctssigns andnolicss .
thegÍammar oÍSpanish
talin! it lüdlroÌ 16Íl
solf-asssssmont tosls 166
koylo theexoÍcisos 1ô9
toylo thosoll-assossmonl lesb 182
SpanlsHn0lisi vocebulary 184
EngllslÈìSpanlslrYocaDülaÍy 188
8uDlocl Inder 193

The symbols
tr This indicates that the recording is recommendedfor the
Íollowing section.
a This section gives information about liÍe in Spain.
ll lr ì
II

ã
i+
o
-
CL
g So you want to leam Spanish.Welcome,then, to one of the

o
world's great languages!In terms of numbers, Spanish is one
of the most widely spoken tongues: as well as the nearly 40
million speakers in Spain, there are at least six times úat
t+ number in oúer parts oÍ úe world, principally, of course, in
Central and South America.

o
II
How much Spanish you wish or need to learn is a matter of
personal choice or circumstance. You can acquire sufficient
social and survival skills to 'get by' on holiday in Spain in a
ã mâtter of a few weeks. At the other end of úe spectrum, you
can make the study of úe language a life's work - Spanish is
one of úe main sourcesof European culture and literature.
The aim of this book, howeveq is modest. We aim to give you
enough language abiÌity to understand and to make yourself
understood in not-too-complicated everyday situations; we
aim also to give you a Íoundation Íor funher study if, as we
hope, you acquire a love for the language and its people and
want to take your studies funher. Though úis book is
designed to help you leam by yourself, dont forget that
language is above all else a social âctivity: try to find every
occasion to listen to Spanish and if possible to speak it,
however haltingly. Spaniards greatly appreciate any effort
people make in their language, of which they are proud, and
are usually quite flattering about your effons. So your
confidence receivesa boost and you are inspired to try further.
Confidence is half the banle in learning to speâk another
language.Never be aÍraid to have a go; don't worry too much
about making mistakes - the main thing is to comrnunicate.
IÍ you are successfulin getting your meaning across,then you
are successfulin using the language,
How to use this book
Units1-1í
You must study the first 11 units in order; as you do so, you will
find you are acquiring many useful language uses,but úey are
not grouped in any sort of topic area. They are basedon what
we call langllage functions, whir,h arc usesoÍ languagethat can
apply to a wide variety oÍ situations.
Each of the fust 11 units includes at least one dialogue or a
descriptionby a Spanishcharacterof an aspectoÍ úeir ãveryday
life. It is important to listen to (or read) this mâteÌiâl at leâst
twice; work out the meaning for yourselÍ as far as you can, but
use the list oÍ key words and phrasesgiven below each dialogue
or passageto help you.
The Languagepoiats and Comentario I sectionsin theseunits
explain how úe Spanishin úe material you have just studied is
puJ togeúer and sometimes include relevant background
lnloÍnatlon too.
The Actividad (exercise) section(s) in each unit gives you the
opportunity to try out the Spanishthat has beenexplained in the
unit so far. The Key is at the back of the book. If you have
difficulty rarith an item in the Actividades, try solving úe
problem Íirst oÍ all by looking again at the Spanish in the
dialogues oÍ passâges,beÍore using the Key as a last resort.
Howeveq do check the Key when you've done each exercise- it
is imponant to go back over material in areas where you are
making errors, rather thân carrying on regardless, which is
bound to get you into trouble later! ú you Íind you are making
a large number oÍ errors, try tâking things more slowly anã
practising the phÍases more as you go thÌough the mâteÍial in
the unit - don't try an Actividad until you are pÍetty suÍe you
have understood everything úat precedesit, as you will find
that iÍ you rush you mâke less progress in the end, IÍ you have
the recording, make good use oÍ úe pausebutton - it's good Íor
your pronunciation and your memory to repeat phrasesas oÍten
as possible.
Finally in each of Units 1-10, there is a shon test - Self-
evaluation, which enablesyou to check whether you can now do
some oÍ the languâgetâsks coveÍed by thât unit, The answeÍsto
tlìese tests are also given in the Key, Always check your results
in úe test, and reüse the unit until you can do it without errors
before you go on to the next unit. A úorough undersanding oÍ
everything in Unit 1 is essentialfor you to succeedin Unit 2, and
so on.

Units12-21
The next nine units, numbered 12 to 20, are based,as you will
see,on broad topic areas.They can be taken in any order, which
enablesyou to learn Íirst how to cope with shopping, say (Unit
17), if this is what you feel you need to tackle before anything
else. Units 12-20 do not have â SelÍ-evaluation, as each unit is
not dependent on úe previous one, and only some have
Languagepoin(s) sections.Unit 21 is a final summing up, and
úere is some extra vocabulary at the end.
Try to use úe book little and often, raúer úan for long
stretchesat a time. I*ave it somewherehandy, so that you can
pick it up Íor just a few minutes to refresh your memory again
with what you were looking at úe time before. Above all, ralÉ.
Talk to other Spanish speakers or learners, if at all possible;
failing that, talk to yourself, to inanimate objects, to the
imaginary characters in this book (warn your farnily and
friends!). If you can find someoneelse to leam along with you,
úat is a great bonus.
Do all the exercises.and do úem more úan once. even to úe
point of committing them to memory. Make maximum use of
the recording: play it as background, evenwhen half your mind
is on something else- in úe caq in the garden, while doing work
in the house, and so on - as well as using it when you are
actually studying. The main thing is to create a continuous
Spanish'presence',so úat what you are learning is always at the
front of your mind, and not overlaid with the úousand and one
pÍeoccupations we all have in our daily lives. Advice on effective
learning is given every so often in úe course.
If at any time you feel you are not making progress, in spite of
having been working assiduously in the manner described
above, put úe whole thing away for a day or two. Sometimes
our minds need a rest to sort out and embedwhat we have been
learning; úe surprising úing is that when we start again we
often seemto have improved in the interval when we were not
consciously doing anything.
 E
E
o
-
=

tr
lJ IÍ you have the recording, listen to it as you work úrough 5
this introductory s€ction. If you dont, follow the guidelines
on how to pronounce certain letters and combinations of
letters. Listening to and imitating native speakersis of course o
IT
the bestway to work on your pronunciation.
Spanishhas no w, but it has three letters in its alphabet that q)
do not exist as such in English.
The first is ch, which is pronounced as inBnglish church.You
l+
o
II
will find that úe words lieginning with ch have their own
section in older Spanishdictionaries, between c and d.
The second is ll, which is pronounced like the //i ín million:
Sevilla, paella, millón. In older Spanish dictionaries, words
beginning with ll have their own sepaÍatesection immediately
5
after the I section - ll is a separateletter in Spanish,though it
looks like a double I in English. GI
The third 'new' letteÍ is ff, which is different from n, and is
pronounced like the ai in oniont seffor, seiorita, Espaia.
There are no common words beginning with ff.
c
II
So úe whole Spanishalphabetis as follows. If you have úe
CL
o
recording, listen to hovr' it sounds when recited in Spânish.
a bcchdef ghii(k) lllmn fr op qrst uvxyz

Spanishvowels
Spanish vowels have very pure sounds, and only one sound
each, It is imponant you try to get these right:
a is nearer to southern English cup thar cap; c s , m Ãana,
Salamanca.
e as in eg$ Enrique, Benavent€.
i as ee in feex Êno, finísimo, quiquiriqú (cock-a-doodle-doo,
pronounced keekeereekee).
õ as in pot - never as knout or toe. Pedro, Rodrigo, Santiago de
Comoostela.
u as in poolt Úbeda, Burgos, Lugo. But u is silent when it occurs
between g and e or i: guerra, guía, Guernica, unless it has two
dots over ie Sigüenza,güisqui luhiskyl.

Spanishconsonants
Someconsonants sound different in Spanish from what we are
used to in English:
b and v tend to be the same sound - a sort of breaúy bv: try
Barcelona,Valencia,and Vizcaya, Álava, Bilbao, Vllaviciosa,
Benavente.
z is always pronounced th as in thing: Zemoru, Zafra,
Zartgoza.
c is pronounced the same way when followed by e or i:
Barcelona, Valencia, Albacete. Now try: civilización.
d is much softer than in English, especially when it is final,
where it becomesalmost ú: Madrid, Valladolid, El Cid.
h is silent: Huesca, Huelva, Maladahonda, Âlhambra.
I is always guttural, rather like the scottish ú in loch: Jaén,
Jijona, José,Javier.
g is gumral like i when followed by an e or i: Jorge, Giión,
Gerona but 'hard' as in English gut when followed by a, o or u.
qu always sounds k, never kw - quiosco (ÈiosÉ), Enrique,
Jadraque. (The letter k only exists in Spanishin a few words of
foreign origin such as kilogramo, kilómero, Kodak.)
r is always trilled - one or two flips of the tongue-tip - and rr is
even strong€r: Granada, Coruia, Rodrigo, Guadarrama,
Torrejón.

The stress rules

Spanish words are stressedon the lust sylhble iÍ they end ïn a
cònsonantoúer than n or s: Valladolid, El Escorial,Santander,
Gibraltar.
They are stressedonthe syllable before /ast if they end in n or s
or a voweL Granada, Toledo, Valdepeãas.
If a word breaks eiúer oÍ these rules, an accent is written to
show where the stess falls: José, Gifón, kilómetro, Cádiz,
Málaga, civiìización. (All words ending in -ión bear this accent.)
So iÍ you seea written accent,you must stressthe syllable where
the âccent is plâced. The only other use of accentsthat you need
to know is úat an açcent is placed on sr to distinguish sí (yês)
from si (if).
Now practise your pronunciation by saying these place names,
and check on the map, to seewhere they are.
't La Coruia 13 Santiagode Compostela
San Sebastián 14 Bilbao
J Burgos 15 Pamplona
4 Zatagoza l6 BarceÌona
5 Taragona 17 Valladolid
6 Salamanca 18 Zamota
7 Madiid 19 ïbledo
8 Cuenca 20 Albacete
9 Badaioz 21 Cáceres
10 Sevilla 22 Córdoba
1l Granada ) 7 AImería
12 Málaga 24 Cádiz

FRAI CI A
Dtlre bare essentials
Here are some essentialswhich you need to learn, and can also
use for pronunciation practice:
Greetings Buenos días
Buenastardes
Buenasnoúes
Hola
Goodbyes Adiós
Hasta luego
Iüe will talk about how these are used in Unit 1.
Now practise saying these courtesy phrases:
Please Por favor
Thank you Gracias; nuchas gracias
Not at all De nada
I'm sorry Perdone
Usefirl emergencyphrasesare
May I? gSepuede?
(if you want to tâke a chair, open a window, push through a
knot oÍ people,etc.);
That's enough, thank you. Basta, gracias.
(use it in a resteurant if your plate is getting too.full);
I don't understand. No entiendo.
I don't know. No sé.
€
J
o
.cIc\.
cn'
-cl
ç

c
II
ã
J Or
o
I !
o
.\) \
=
rü =

o
o
In this unit you will learn
. to say who you arc
. to ask and say who someonê
elsèis
. to give your nâmeand ask
for someoneelsê's
. baslc courtesy phras€s
Before you start
Make sure you have read the study guide in the Introduction'
which gives some helpful advice on how to make the most of
this course. IÍ you have úe recording, use it as much and as
often as you can, taking advantage of the pause button to
practise repeating phrasesuntil you can sây them natually.

ActividadActivity
1 It's likely that you already know a few words of Spanish.IÍ
you can think of âny, such as the words Íor hello, thank you,
please,say them out loud and then check the word list below
to seewhether you were right.

bnenos días, seÍor gpod day (sir)(us€dtill aboú 3pm)

busnas tardes, seõorita gpod altamoon(/7],iss)
(usedtill lâte eveningl
buenas noches, se6ora good nlüt (Ínadan)
l€sta luÕgo 8e WU iá,ter
graclas thankWu
portavoÍ proase
sí j€s
no no
hola l,erro
poldone sor,1 excuseme
d€nado Íhat'sal, dgn don't menüonrt

I The Spanisngrê€tingsBu€nos dÍas, Buenas taldes, Busnas

noches do not corespond sxactly to the English Good
mominglGood day, Good aftemoon, Good sveningleood nlght.
Buonos días is usêdduringthe fitst paÍt oÍ the day until roughlyÌhe
time oÍ the mainmed which,Íor mostSpaniârds,is around2pm or
evên as latê as 3pm. AÍter that, Buonaa taÌdes is usêd. Buenas
noches is us€donly lato in the eveningor whensomeonsis going to
bed. Hola, an irìfoÍmalgreetingequivalèntlo hello, can be usod al
anytime.
Wh6n sâyinggpodbye, hasta lu€go is thê way to say goodbye íor
now, or seeyou raigr. AdÍos meansgoodbye, and should bs used
when you dont expect to sêe Ìhat psrson againfor a while.
Notice the abbreúations$. Íor i€fior (Mr.),Srâ. for soõora (M/s.),
SÌta. for s€õorlte (Mlss/Ms) and Srcs. for s€fioÌ€s (Mr. and
MÍs-/MessÍs.).

DOiátogo 1 Dialogue1
Isabel is going to meet some of Paco's colleagues. BeÍore the
party, he shows her some pictures. Sheasks Pacoto tell her who
vanous PeoPleare.
babêl i,Quiénos sst6 sofior?
Paco Es el Sr.Ortega.
lsabel Estas€õora,eês Luisa?
Paco No. No ês Luisa,ês Juanlta.
leâbel Y estos sefiorês,úquiónesson?
Paco Estosson los Sr€s.HèÍÍêto.

Later Isabel introduces herself to one of úem.

lsabol Sr. HeÍr€Ío,buen6 taroês.
SÍ. ffega No soy êl Sr. HenêÍo,soy êl Sr.Ortêga.
lsebel Oh, peídone,seffor...
SÍ. OÍtsga Denada,seãorita.Y ôquiénês Vd.?Vd. ês tsabel,óno?
lsabêl SÍ, soy lsabê|.
 €st3 a3õoÍ thls manlgentleman
esta s€6oÍa/so6oÌlta this womanllady
€sta seõorita this girl
êatoa solorea thes€people/ladies and genflemên
93 helshelit is,you are
son tlÈy arc,you are {plura}
èqulén es? who is (he/sheftAlwho are you?
a,quiónosson? who dre they?
soy lam
ust€d, ustedès you (oftenwrittèn Vd., Vds,,
but pronouncêdusted, ustedês)

Languagepoints
I Masculineand Íemininewords
In the dialogue you have encounteredesteseior and esta seriora.
Este and esta âÍe the masculine and feminine forms of the same
word, which we have to use becausesúor is masculine and
súora is Íeminine. All names of things in Spanish are either
masculine or feminine, not only the obvious ones like man and
woman, boy and girl, This distinction is known as the gender oÍ
the word. You can often tell a word's gender from its ending: for
example, almost all words ending in -o are masculine, and those
ending in -a are mostly ferninine. Gender is important becauseit
affects the other words in a sentence.There is more on this in
úe next unit, DonÌ worry if this is a new idea that seems
strange - in practice it causesno gÌeat difficultf in Spanish.

2 Estos Ttese
Estos is usedwith plúral words referring to severalmasculine
thingsipeople or to a mixed group of úingVpeople, e.g, estos
seiores, meaning tà esemen oÍ thesemen and uomen.

3 Questions

o
C
)
In Spanish,it is easyto make a question. One way is to add pno?
to the end of the staternent,remembering to Íâise your voice to
give a questioning tone at the end of úe sentence.This has úe
sameeffect as using isnï it, aren't you, etc. in English,
Vd. esIsabel. You are lsabel.
Vd. esIsabel,lno? Are you Isabel?
Ânother way is to turn Vd. es, Vds. son round:
iBs Vd. Isabel? Are you lsabell
lSonVds.los Sres, Are you Mr and Mrs.
Herrero? Herrerc?
You will have noticed úat in written Spanish two question
marks are used to identify a question - an inverted one at the
beginning as well as the stândard one ât the end. If only part oÍ
the sentenceis really úe question, the question marks go round
that part, as in Vd. es Isúel gno? Exclamation marks work in
Ìne sameway:
Paco;esVd,! Paco, ü's you!

4 Formal'you'
Usted (plural ustedes) means you, rnd is used except when
talking to people you know very well or to children (or animals
or God). In writing it is oÍten abbreviated to Vd. (plural Vds.)
There is anotheq lessformal, way of sayingyou, but you won't
needthis until Unit 11.

5 Howto use the negative

'When
you want to sâythat something is zot úe case,simply put
no before the word that tells you what is happening (the verb).
You have in Íact already seenthis in No, zo es Luisa and No soy
el Sr. Herrero.

ActividadesActivities
2 How would you greet the following people at úe times
shown?
a a male businessacquaintance,at 10am
b a girl you know well, at lpm
an older couple you have met a few times, at 6pm
d a hiend at a pârty, at 9pm
e your family when you are going to bed, at l1pm
 Someoneasks you to tell úen who the following characters
are. Answer using the information given in brackets.
a lQuién esesteseíor? (Paco)
b pQuién es esta seíonta? (Isabell
c ;Quién es esta seion? (Sra. Ortega')
d lQuiénes son estosseíores? lSres,Hererol
e Esteseio4 ;es Pedro?(Paco)
Í Esta seãorita, ;es Luisa? (Isaóel)
s Estos sefiores, gsonlos Sres. García? lSres.Albal
4 Tum the Íollowing statementsinto questions by adding;no?
in a, b, c and changing úe order oÍ the words in d and e.
a Estos seõoresson los Sres.Méndez.
b Este seflor es Paco.
c Esta seãorita esJuanita.
d Vd. esPaco.
e Vds. son los Sres.Alba.

D Oialogo2 Dialogue2
óCómose llama? What'syourname?
This time Pacois invited as a guestto Isabel'sparty and he wont
know everyonethere. He asks her to identify a Íew people from
her photo album.
Paco i,Cómo se llamaêsta s€õoílta?
babel Sè llamaAna.
Pâco Y oste s€ãor,ecómosê llamâ?
tsab€l Éstees el Sr.Canera,
Paco Esios Srss., i,quiénosson?
lsab€l Son los Srês.Alba,
Àt the party Paco introduces himselÍ to Sr. and Sra. Âlba - he
has a better memory than Isabel!
Paco Buenastardss. sêfioras. Me llamo Paco. Vds. son los
Srês.Alba, üno?
SÍa. Aba SÍ. somos los SÍ€s.Alba.

sô flamâ helslÌê is @lled,wu a!ê caled

m6 llamo I am @ ec!,my nameis
èCóíìo so ffamaVd,? What üirt.. how)ixê you called,
whal is your name?
30moa wê at€
Languagepoints
6 Me ffamo My nameis
Another way of identifying yourself and other peopleis to use
me llamo I am called oÍ tny ndme r's, and se lLzrna helshe is
called, you are called, To ask someone'snâme, use the word
gCómo?at the beginningof the question:
;Cómo se llama? Vhat is hislher/its name?/
what is helshelit called?
;Cómo se llama Vd.? What is your name?/
uhat are you called?

7 More on questions
You will have seenthat question words or 'interrogatives',as
they are known, such as ;quién? who? anó.pômo? hout! have
an âccent. This is not to indicate where the stressfalls (see
Pronunciationguide)but to show that the word is beingusedin
â question,not in â stâtement.You will find them usedwithout
accentstn stâtements.

Cl Documentonúmerc1 Documento
no. 1

1Cómosellama estehotelì
Actividades Activities
5 Give the questions to which these would be answers.
a Me llamo Paco.
b Sellama Isabel,
Me llamo Sra. Méndez.
d Sellama Sr.Méndez,
e No. No me llamo Pedro.Me Llamo Paco.
Ì No. No sellama Luisa. Sellama Isabel.
s Sí. SomosPedro y Conchita Ortega.
6 Fill in the grid, using the clues given, and column A will
reveal a word you will use on your departure from Spain.
a a way oÍ introducing yourself
b what you would say iÍ you bumped into someone
c you're trying to find out who someoneis
d a greeting used between Íriends
e you have to go but you'll be back soon - what would
vou sav?

Congratulationsl You have completed the first unit of the

cowse. There was a lot to learn in úis unit, and it's important
to make sure you've understood it all properly before
proceeding to Unit 2, Rememberto usethe ânsweÍs (Key) at the
back of the book to check how well you've done in úe
Actiüdades, and keep listening tolrepeating phrases until úey
âre thoroughly familiar. Then make a final check of your
memory and understanding of the material in Unit 1 by uying
the litde test below.
Self-evaluation
How would you do the following?
1 Ask someonewho they are (two ways).
2 Tell someonewho you are (two ways).
3 Check with someone'Isyour name...?'
4 Apologize becauseyou've knocked over a girl's drink.
5 Identify a couple as Mr. and Mrs. Méndez.
ã
J Gr
o CL
õ
0)
õ
o
o CL
c Qr
-+ì
õ =
3
'\) CL
o
o
a In this unit you will leaÍn
rì) . to ask whgrp people aÍ€ Írom
. to tind oú someone's
nâtionalityand toll thEm
yours
Doiátogo
Listen to (or read) the dialogue twice, pâusing to repeat the
phrases.
Sra, Ménd€z ADedóndê€s, Paco?
Paco Soy de Madrid.Soy madrileão.Y èVd.?
St€. Móndoz Soy dê Madridtambién.Soy madÍils6a,
Paco Y Ana, 6s espafiola,òvêdâd?
Sra. lúárd€z SÍ, es espaõola,ês catalana. Los Srss. Alba son
espanobstamblén.
Pâco óDedóndeson?
Sra. Ménd€z Sondê Sêvillalos dos.

úd€ dóndo ê$...? whereis,.. from?

üde dónde son...? whereate ... from?
tamblén a/so
madÌ{lêfro fÌom Mdúd, a manlpersonfrom Maddd
madrflefia frcm Maddd,a womanfrom Madid
los dos Íhe two, both

Languagepoint
I Naüonality
To say your nationality or someoneelse's,use the words soy, es,
somos,son asyou did to identiÍy people, and add the nationality
description: soy inglés, es espaíoUespaiola. Note úat úe
ending of úe nationality word must change according to úe
genderof the person described.It also changesiÍ you are talking
about more úan one person: somos americanos,son francrses,
Here are a few examples wiú the masculine, feminine and
olural forms:

county ma6'cullne feminine Dluìel

Américâ anìencano amêÍlcanâ amedcanos
Australia austÍaliano australiana australianos
Italia italiano Itallana italianos
Francia francés íranc€sa francês€s
Escocia ôscocés êsclcesa escooêses
ldanda iÍlandés irlandêsa lrlandêsss
Al€mania alemán alemana abmanss

Germatry is ÁJemaniain Spanish.

These nationality words are also úe ones you use when you
want to say d Sp^nish uornan, a Fteachtnn, etc. Un ftancés
me ts d Frenchman.

Actividad
1 a Say where you are Írom.
b Say that you are English (or whatever).
c Say that you are not Spanish.
d Àsk Pacoif he is Spanish.
e Ask Isabelif sheis Soanish.
Í Ask Isabel where shi is from.
E Ask the Sres.Méndez where úey are from,
h Ask the Sres.Méndez iÍ úey are from Madrid. (What will
úey answer?)
i Âsk the Sres. Méndez iÍ they are Spanish. (What will úey
answer?)
i Say that you and your companion are English.
k Say that you and your companion are not Spanish.
I Hot Spaniardswill say soy ospahol(a). some Íor êxample,
"n soy câtalán, sotf caialana, soy do Catalufia, somos
may insist,
calalanos, somos d€ Catalufia, iÍ they are fÍom the north-easiof
Soain oÍ Barcalona.
Pooplefrom the Basquecountry aÌè likèlyto think oÍ themsêlvesas
BasquêsÍathèr thân Spaniardsand wlll say: soy vasco, soy vasca,
soy de Etrzkadl,somos ìraooog,gomos d€ Euzkadl. Euzkadl is the
Basqueword Íor the Basquercgion.
It ls importantto bo awaÌeol the strcng Í€gional,or somêwould say
national,s€nsibilitieswithin Spain,particularlyIn those reglonswhich
stlll use thêir own separatè languâgss,such as Cataluffaand the
Basquecountry.
The Basquô languageis quite different fom Spanish. lt is a vêry
ancièntlanguageand excoptionallydifficult to loarn.Catalán,too, is
a soparatelanguagêÍÍom Spanish,and hâsto bê baÍnêd separatêly,
bú unlike Basquêit is clos€ly t€latêdto Spanlshas it also derivês
fÍom Lãtin, Somotimos tho Spanish language is reíerÍ€d to as
castollano or 'Câstillan'. A man íÍom BaÍcelona (ths capital oÍ
Câtalufia) could say: soy d€ BâÌc€lona, Soy barc€lonós. Soy
catalán y tombión .spafrol, Hablo (, spêak) catalán y tamblón
castellano.
All Spaniaídsars vêry attachôd to thelr hom€ region, ev€n iÍ th€y
have movedaway from n. R b in Í€cognitionoÍ thls rôglonalloyaity
that Spain ls diüded irúo autonomÍas or règlonswith a good d6al oÍ
locál selÍ-govsrnment. Local pride is also evldent in people's
attachmerìtând loyaltyto th€lr hometown oÍ city. Unlikein Engllsh,
MìoÍ€ we onfy have a few woÍds lil<ê Londonar ot Mancunlan,
Spanishhas a word Íor lhe InhabltantsoÍ all towns oÍ any slze. For
exampl6,a mantÍom Sôvillewould describehlms€]fas un serdtlano.

Actividad
D 2 S"y *h.r" the following are from, e.g. Un sevillano es de
Sevilla - a sevillano is from Seville.Note aa sevillano. c man
from Seville. Not all oÍ them are obvious, so match the two
columns, or look back ât úe map in the introduction, on
p. xi. Don't forget to check your answersin the Key.
Examole: Un sevillano es de Sevilla.
a sevillano Barcelona
b madrileio Burgos
c barcelonés Câdiz
d granadino Córdoba
e cordobés Cuelca
f malagueõo Granada
g burgalés Madrid
h zaragozano Mâlaga
i tarraconense Salamanca
I toledano San Sebastián
k salamantino Sevilla
I vallisoletano(!) Tarragona
ïbledo
n conquense Valladolid
o gatidano (!!) Zamota
p donostiarra(!l!) Zaragozt

Languagepoints
2 Howto say'a, an': un.,!na
As you saw in the phrase given above Íor a kenchman the word
for a in Spanish is un. It changes to una when used wiú a
feminine word. Note also that in the sort of sentenceshown in
úe first three examples below, the descriptive word /ollozls the
word for úe person in Spanish:
un seflor espaíol a Spanishran
una sefiorita francesa a French gi
una seiora vasca a Basquelady
un irlandés an lrishman
una inglesa an Englishuoman
Look again ât úe list in Actividad 2. There you have a list of
male/masculine iúabitants of a number of Spanish cities: a
Sevíllian, a Cordoban, etc. If we wished to indicate a female
inhabitant, un would become una, and all words ending in -o
would change to -a, thus: una sevillana; una madrileia; una
granadina; una gaditana.
Those ending in -s would add an -a: una barcelonesa; una
cordobesa; una burgalesa. Those ending in -e or -a already
would not change: una taÍÍaconense; una conquensq unâ
donostiarra.
So the word Íor a has two forms, un and una; in general (and
there âre exceptions) you use un wiú a word ending in -o
(masculine),and una with a word ending in -a (feminine).
Words ending wiú oúer letters have to be learnt as you go. This
masculine/feminine divide applies to ever)'thing in Spanish, not
iust people,as you will see.

3 Languages
The masculine singular form oÍ the nationality description, e.g.
espaffol, is also the name of the language.So to say that you can
speakEnglish and Spanishyou say: Hablo ingl!5 y s5pafi6l.Te
sãy that someoneelse speaksSpanishyou would say: Habla
espaiol. llhen you have introduced yourself to a Spanish
person or askedtheir narne, using what you have learned in Unit
1, they may well encourageyou by saying Habla espaíol nuy
bien: You speak Spanishuery well, even if they do not ask you
iEs Vd. espaffol?or gEsVd, espaõola?Notice that in Spanish
there is no capital letter on the word for your nationality or the
name of the lãnguage, only on the name oÍ úe country itselÍ -
espaiol, espaüola,espaioles, Espaia.
 lí51
l Íl
tol
lõ l
!ôl

lõ l
tEl
tt 3âl
l
l'l
ll
ll
to l
Ir9J

countÍies
Spanish-speaking
Actividades
3 The namesof sevenlanguagesare hidden in this wordsearch.
Five are onesthat you have encounteredin this unit, but úere
ere two úat you should be able to guess. The words run
across, down, up, backwards and diagonally.
IGOERMCP
TOS S LARA
A L U P T VS N
LFRANCES
IPLNORLE
AAROTPGN
NZMLIFNA
OP S E B L I D
4 You are having a conversation with a Spanish friend,
Antonio, about which languagesyou speak and understand
(entiendo I undcrstandl. Play your pârt to complete the
dialogue.
Antonlo Vd. habla Inglés,èvordad?
a You Sayyes,you speakEnglisll.
Antonlo èEsVd. âmêdcâno?
b You Tellhim your natíonalv ürd sy: W'rc Caâlan,üut"t
you?
ftrtonio Sí baÍcolon&. Hablocatalán.ôEntiêndeVd. catalán?
c You gy no, you don't undetshnd Cahlán. You sp€É,k
Frenchand Spanislr
Aìtonlo Vd. habla èspafiolmuy biên.
d You &y thankyou verymuch.
5 Various people are stating úeir cities of origin and úeir
native language. Match the cities on the left wiú the
languageson the right.
a soy de Berlín i hablo inglés
b soy de Londres ii hablo francés
c soy de BuenosAires iii hablo catalán
d soy de Barcelona iv hablo alernán
e soy de París v hablo espaflol
0f Documentonúmero2
Un pequeio anuncio para Radio 3. El esloganes 'Somos corno
somos'. (Á linle aduertisementf,õr Radio 3. The slogan is:'We
are as ute are'.|
How woufd vou sav I am as I am?

Self-evaluation
Can you:
1 say whgre you are from (which town)?
2 say whãt nationality you areì
3 say what language(s)you speak?
4 tell someonehe/shespeaksEnglish, very well?
5 ask someonewhere he/sheis from?
6 ask someoneü he/sheis Spanish/English, etc?
7 give the masculine and feminine forms to describe people
from the following places:
a Espaia b Escocia c Cataluf,a d Euskadi e Alemania?
 3
=

õ CL S)r
a
)r, T
o
o
c
3o
ao
II
o
c
-t
a
o
3 ct
oo -

In this unit you will lgarn

. to say whereyou live and
woÍk
. to ask otherswhat they do
and wheÍê they do it
. to give your add̀ss
. numbêr€0-20
0l Lectura
Listen to, or read,the following pâssageabout Pacoand Isabel.
Key words are given in úe vocabulary box, but you should be
able to guessthe meaning oÍ the wo:ds Íor Paco's and Isabel's
iobs.
Paco vivê y trabaja en
Madrid. lsab€l vive y trabaia
ên Madrid también. Paco
trabaja como aiquitêcto en
una oÍicinade lâ calleGoya.
lsabol trabaia como
administradora èn la oÍicina
ds lberia - LÍn6asAáÍeasde
Esoaõa- gn la calle MaÍíadê
Molina.
Pacotrabaiaen la callê Goya,peío viv6 en la calle MoléndezValdós,
en un apartamênto. lsab€lvivêcon la Íamlliaên un piso de la calle
Almagro. El apartamontodê Paco ês pequsõo, pêro èl piso de la
tâmiliâde lsabeles muygrands.

vive /iygs fa Íamilia the famlly

y tÍabda and wott(s un plao a f7aÍ
erl n un apartameúo a smâllílat
como as p€quefio smâ/l
una oflclna an oíttce p€ro but
la câllô Íhe sÍíeaÍ Ínw very
con with graÍìde brg, /a/ge

Actividades
1 Respond to the Íollowing statements,choosing verdad tnre
or Íalso false.
Verdad Falso
a Isabel vive en Madrid. ü !
b Pacovive con la familia de Isabel. D !
c Isabel rabaia en un colegio. n n
d Paco trabaja como profesor, tr !
e La oficina de Paco está en Goya. ! n
Í Paco vive en la calle Meléndez Valdés. tr !
D2 Arrr*", th. questions.
gDónde trabala Paco?
^
b ;Dónde vive Paco?
c ;Dónde trabaja Isabel?
d gDóndevive Isabel?
€ 2Vive Paco en un piso grande?
f ;Vive Isabel en la calle Goya?
c a'Quiénvive en la calle Meléndez Valdés?
h iQuién trabaja en María de Moline?
i pTrabaia Paco como administrador?
i ;De qúén es la oficina en María de Molina?

Languagepoint
1 How to say'thê'! el, la, loí lds
In Unit 2 you found úat theÍe are two Spanishwords for a and
anz rm and,una, used according to the gender of the word to
which úey are attached. Spanish also has more than one word
for thet eI is used wiú masculine words. and la wiú feminine
words, So we have:

el apanamêrìto êl piso el aÍquitec-to olsênor

lâ oficinâ la familia la s€õora la calle*

fnot all femlninewords end in -al)

When táe precedesa plural word, two new Íorms are needed.El
becomeslos and la becomeslas. So we have:

los apaÍtamerúos los pisos los arquitêctos los s€õoÍ€s

las olïclnas lâs Íamilias las seõoras las câllês

As you may remember from Unit 1, when you are talking about
a person by their name and title, you need to use úe definite
article (el, la, los or las), for example
El Sr. Méndez no Mx Méndezdoen't
entiende âlemán. understandGennan.
La Srta, Carrera Mks Cmt*a k from
es madrileãa. Madrid.
Los Sres.Alba son Mr. and Mrs. Alba are
sevillanos. from Seaille.
However, when talking to a person face to fâce, the deÍinite
article is not needed,unlessyou are asking them who they are.
Sr.Méndez,;habla Vd. inglés?
Buenosdías, Srta. Carrera.
;Son Vds. los Sres.Alba?

Actividad
3 Fill in the blanks with el, la, los, or las.
a - apartamentos son generalmentepequeíos.
b ;Dónde trabaia arouitecto?
Isabelvive con - familia.
d iDónde están- oficinasde Isabely Paco?
e - Sres.Méndezson espaõoles.
f Pacovive en - calle MeléndezValdés.
c- piso dondevive Isabelesmuy grande.

Languagepoint
2 2,Quéhace Vd.? Whatdo you do?
There are flvo ۉsy ways of asking what work someone does.
One way is to ask iQué hace Vd.? What do you doì lldany oÍ
the repliesmay soundsimilar to English,but in Spanishmost oÍ
them have a masculine or Íeninine form. Here are a Íew
examples of what a person might say when you ask them gQué
haceVd,?

masculine feminine
soy actor actriz actorlactress
soy profssor profssora ̀acher
soy administrador administradora administtdtor
soy camarêro camargra waiter/waitress
soy dirgctordg direc'torade company
omprêsa ompresa director
soy erìíêrmêto enfermera nulse

Somewords for occupations are the samewheúer they Íefer to

a man or a vr'oman. These include those ending in -ista or -e,
such as:
 un/una axista d tã.xi d.riuer
uÍ/una ertista dn artist
un/una oeriodista a iouÍrralist
uníuna contâble afl acco ntúnt
un/una intérprete 4n intzrprcter
ur/una estudiante a.sü.td.ent
The oúer way to ask about a person's iob is to say pDónde
trabaia Vd.! Wherc do you uork? Here are various possible
answersto úis question:
Trabaio en una oficina. I work in an office.
Trabajo en una agencia I uork in a tourist officel
de turismo. aSency.
Trabajo en un colegio. I utork in a school.
Trabajo en un hospital. I uork in a hospital.
Trabaio en casa. I uork at home.
Note úat 1Dónde?and gQué?are two more examplesof words
that need accentswhen they are used to ask a question.

Actividad
4 Match each of the following professions (on the left) with
one of the places oÍ work on the right. Someplaceswill be
used for more úan one answer
a Es profesor - trabaia en un café
b Soy administradora - trabajo en un hospital
c Soy enÍermera - trabajo en un colegio
d Es arquitecto - rabaia en una oficina
e Es actriz - trabaia en un teatfo
f Soy camarero - trabaio en

ClDiátogo
Paco and Isabel are being asked by Ricardo where they live and
work. Listen to (or read) the dialogue tveicebefore studying the
rest of the unit to seehow to talk about where you live.
Rlcardo èDóndevive Vd., lsabêl?
lsabêl Mvo en Madrid,en la calls Almagro.
Rlcardo èY dóndeüabala?
l.ab6l TrabaF en la calle Maía de Molina.
FicaÌdo èY Vd.,Paco?
Paco Mvo en Madridlambién.
RlcaÍdo eDóndêên MadÍid?
Paco En la calleMsléndezValdés,númerocinco,tercéÍoD.
Ricardo èY trabajaVd. en Madfid?
Paco SÍ, trabajo sn la calle Goya.

Languagepoints
3 'l work, I live,| ...'
Tirabaio and üvo mean I uork and I liue. When you want to say
'I' do sorneúing you will find úat the word almost always ends
in -o, as in severalexamplesyou already know: hablo, me llamo,
entiendo. There are a very small number of exceptions to this
de, one of which is the word Íor I az - soy,

DC HúmerosÈN Numbers
0-20
0 ceÍo 17 once
.1 uno 11 doce
dos 13 trece
J tres t4 câtorce
4 cuatro 15 qúnce
J cinco 16 dieciséis
6 se$ 17 diecisiete
7 siete 18 dieciocho
8 ocho 79 diecinueve
9 nueve 20 veinte
70 diez
Learn these thoroughly. Practise them not only in order but at
random to help you remember them.

5 4Dóndevavê?Wheredo you live?

Depending on the context, you might need to give only a vague
reply such as úvo en Madrid or üvo en Londres, On some
occasions,however, you may need to give your address,and for
visiting Spanish friends or places you will cenainly need to
understand when sorneonetells vou theirs.
Here is a typical address(la dirección).
La direcciónde Isabeles:
 SeãoritalsaúelEdllestêrGarcía
Alnagro 14,fA
2AüO Mdlnid
Esfdãa

Notice you do not need to use the word calle, although other
words, such as avenida, plaza, paseo, are usually not omitted.
The figure 6" A stands Íor sexto Á, i.e. the sixú floo4 Ílat A.
28010 is the codeÍor Madrid (28) and the district (010).
Here is Paco'saddress(Paco is shon for Francisco):

SefrorDot FrdnckaoRuiz ãallego

MeléndezYaldês5, 3D
O15Malril
kpafra

Actividad
5a Ask Paco where he lives. (Ilhat will he answer?)
b Ask Isabel where she works, (Vhat will she answer?)
c Tell Paco you also live in a small apartm€nt.
d Tell Isabel you also work in an office.
e Tell her you do not speak Spanishvery well yet (todaúa).
Í. Give your nationality and say what languageyou speak.
I You witt have noticsd two things ãbout the names in lhis unit.
The first is that lsabel and Paco havetwo surnâmês.All SoaniaÍds
do. Theytake the fiËt of their fathedstwo namssandthe first of thêir
mothêr's. In âny círse, Spanishwomên ksêp their own names on
marÍiags,and take their husband'swhen being spoken of iointly, as
in los Srês, Méndez. lf you onlywant to usêone sumame,which you
normallydo for infoÍmalusê, it must bê thê first. So FranciscoRuiz
Gallogois Paco Rulz to his fÍiênds. The other thing you may havê
noted is the use of don. You use it in fomd situations with the
forename(never with the surnaÍne only). For manied womèn use
doffa. The wiÍe of Sr. Méndez happêns to be Sra. DoÉa AuÌDÌ?
Lozano Bonet. No mentionof Sr. Méndêzat all! Howèvêr,Doõa is
not usuallyusedúth the namesot unmâÍÌìedwomen.Thereis morê
on thisin Unit12.

Actividad
6 The written numbers 0-12 are all - except one - hidden in
this wordsearch. They are written backwards, up, down and
diagonally as well âs âcÍoss. What is the missing number?
LCU ATRON
OTP ORE CR
ZC LTE CNO
EO HV S E IS
INEOCCCA
D U DNTOML
N R OE A DIP

Self-evaluation
Can you do the following?
1 Count backwards from 20 to zero.
2 Say where Paco lives.
3 Ask Isabel what she does and where she works.
4 Say that you are a company director.
5 Say where you live and where you work.
Documentonúmero3

PISOS
A ESTRENAR
4 domilorios.
2 baÍos.
Amueblada.
Gocina
Plaza
deGaraie
Directamente
plopiedad

Somenew flats are for salenear the airpon.

a How many bedrooms do they have?
b Wherecan you keepyour car?
c What times can you phonethe agency?
J
o c\.
ã
9) CLo
õ
I
rü Or
o
c.\) 3
o
o
o
+
0)r
In tlris unit you will lêam
. to ask after othêÍa' hêalth
and rospondto quèriesabout
your own
. to dôscÌibê pêoplêand
things
. to Eaywhê|€ ttrings aÍ€
BeÍoreyou start
You can now say a number of things about yourself in Spanish.
You should be able to write or say at least sú sentencesabout
yourself and where you work and live. Try to come up with a
similady long description oÍ a relative or friend.

Languagepoint
1 'Tob€'or,.. 'to be'?
You have already learnt the Spanishfor I am, he is, etc.:

soy lam somos wo aÌp

es he/shalitis son they €,re
Vd.ss wuarc Vds. son you ar€ (plural)

However, we use a diÍferent set oÍ v.ords for I am, yot Are, etc.
if we are saying where we are, or where things are, or if we are
sayinghow we feel, or what statewe are in - tired, pleased,ill,
well, married or singleand so on
For example, imagine a gossipy man boring his neighbow on
the beach with the following monologue. He doesnt wait for
many ansrvers,but notice how he switches from one group of
vr'ords to the other according to the context. He says soy or es
when he wants to say uhat he ìs, or uhat someúing is, but
estoy, esá, estamos,están, in saying or askìngl2ow or ubere he
is, or peopleand things are.

Cl Monólogo
Soy aÍgentino,pêro sn este momêrúogstoy en Espaffa.Estoy dê
vacaciones,y estoy muy contento. Mi familia €3tá aquí tambión.
Estamos todos muy contentos.Y Vd., èêstá Vd. de vacaciones?
òEslála familiatambión?èEnque hotel€stánVds.?Ah; es un hotel
magnífico.òEsVd. millonario?2QuéhaceVd. puês?Ah, un artista.
Vd. 9s muyÍamoso,€stoy seguro.

€atoy de vacaciones I am on holiday

oatán theyarclyou arê (plural)are
êstoy contonto/soguro I am pleased/sure
€atamos contentos we are pleased
aquí here
todo/ioda/todosllodas all, every
millonaílo millionaire
Languagepoint
Clz soyoestoy/am
So our Spanishfriends would say:
Soy Paco.Rstoysoltero (srzgla).
Soy Isabel. Estoy soltera.
Somoslos Sres,Méndez. Estamos casados(maniedl.
And we can say about them:
Pacoes esoafiol.Está soltero.
-espafrola.
Isabel es Está soltera también, pero los Sres.
Méndezestáncasados,naturalmente(of coursel.
Perhapsúe commonest use of these words is inr
;Cómo estáVd.? ;Cómo estánVds.?Hou are you?
To which you answer:
Estoy bien, gracias./ I'm finc, thank you.l
Estamos bien, gracias. We'refine, thank you.
;Y Vd.?/;Y Vds.? And you?
You can ask after third parties, as in:
;Cómo estáPaco?
iCómo estánlos Sres,Méndez?
To which you hope to hear the answer:
Está bien, / He\ fine.l
Están muy bien los dos. They are both uery uell.
Now here is a subtle point. If you ask ;Cómo es Paco?You are
asking what he is like - all, short, friendly, etc. If you ask
;Cómo es?í Paco?you want to know whether he is well, happy,
tired. and so on.
We said above Paco está soltero. This suggeststhat he is single
at the moment, but will probably marry. If you say Paco es
solteroyou âre suggestingthât he is a confirmed baúelor.
You can knock on Isabel'sdoor and ask lBstí Isabel?That is to
say ls Isabel in! i.e. you are asking about where she is rather
than what she is. You will get the answer sí, esú or no, no €stá.
Actividades
1 Make eight truthful sentencesfrom úese three columns:

Paco una compafiÍaimportante

lsabel madrilofios
Los s€froÍ€sMéndsz es en la calle Goyâ
El apartamêntodê Paco s8tá madrllefia
lboÌia son p€quefio
lsabely Paco €stán muy gÍanoe
El piso d6 lsab€l casados
La oficinadê Paco €spaõol

2 Choose one of the following to fill in the blanks:

no es no êstá no son no ostán

Isabel y Paco -
a casados.
Isabel
b catalana.
-
c
El Sr. Méndez - barcelonés.
La calle Goya -
d en Sevilla,
En general, los taxistas -
e millonarios.
Doía Aurora y dofia Luisa -
f contentas.
g
París - en Espaía.
Los terroristas -
h simpáticos.
Check your sentenceswiú úe Key at úe end of the book.
To sum up: we use soy, es, somos and son to indicate
charudnistics (permanent)and estoy, está"estamosand estánto
indicâte st4tes (temporary) as well as posirloz (boú temporary
and permanent).

Docurnentonúmero4
Look at úe restarant advertisementon úe next page.
a ;Cómo se llama esterestauÍante?
b ;Dónde está?
c iEn qué calle está?
(Horno de asar indicates thât it specializesin roasts; un horno is
an oven; asaÍ meansto roâst.)
 - ïhlf$.(918)
Ci SanSegundo,,l0 25?05ó- 25526l - ostt(tlÁvllÂ

Cloiálogo
Ricardo meetsPaco and enquiresabout Isabel. Listen to (or
read) the dialogue, checking úe key words given below, and
practising saying each of the phrasesout loud.
Ric€tdo èCómoestá Vd., Paco?
Paco Estoymuybiên,gÍacias.eY Vd.?
Ricado Muybien.eDóndêêstálsabel?
Paco Estáên casa.
Ricafdo óEncasa? èNo trabaja?eEstáde vacaciones?
Paco No, no está de vacaciones.No está muy bien. Está
constioada.
Ricado Entoncesla llamopor teléfono.eQuónúmeroes?
Paco Es sl 2 17 18 06 (dos,diecisietè,dieciocho,ceKtseis).

€stá constlpada she has a cord

€ntonces Ínen
fa ffamo poÍ tefóÍono I' give her a fing

I Phonenumbersare usuallygiverÌ
in paiÍs of figures.lf there is an odd <' v P
number oÍ figuÍes, thê one at thê
beginningis trcatêdsingly.So 2 12 16
11 is said as dos. docê. disdséis.
oncê, while10 14 20 wouldbê said
as dlez, catorc€, ìrelnte.
'mr".o
Actividades
3 A Spanish f:iend is talking to you about your English
colleaguewhom he met on â visit to England. Complete the
diaÌogue.
Antonlo óCómoeslá Jane?
a You Say she'svery well.
Antonlo òEstátodavÍa(stil0sotteÍa?
b Vou Say no, shois nanied to (@n\Paul.
Antonio iQué bien! èEstáncontêntoslos dos?
c Vou SayJ€s, oí course.
Antonlo óY cómo es Paul?
d You Sayhe ls very nlce.Heisa Scotsman,
Antonio òY dóndêviven?
è You Saythêy livêin Edinbulgh(Edimbuígo).
Antonlo èQuóhaca Paul?
Í You *y he'san accountantand wod<sin Edinburyh.
Antonlo Muy bien.Y Jane, ètrabaiain Edimburgoiambién?
g You Sayyes, sâe worksin a toutist agÊncy
4 Speakingof Paco, say that:
he is very well
^
bhe is not very well
che is an architect
dhe is at home
ehe is on holiday
Íhe is pléased
s he is frorn Madrid
h he is in Madrid
i he is Spanish
i he has a cold
Check in the Key that you have used es and está correctly, and
then do Exercise 5, speaking of los Sres.Méndez:
5a they are very well
b úey are not very well
c úey are friendly
d they are at home
e úey are on holiday
t they are pleased
c they are Írom Madrid
h they are in Madrid
i they are Spaniards
i they have colds
Languagepoint
3 Adjectives
Descriptive words such as grande, pequeõo, soltero, etc. are
known as adiectives,and in Spanishúey must 'agree' wiú the
person(s)or úing(s) úey describe.This meansúat, as wiú the
words for occupations that you met in Unit 3, the endingsof úe
adjectivemust be masculineor feminine,singularor plural, e.g.
Parn no estâ casúo,los apaÍamentos son pequeõos,Isaúel estrá
contentd, l.asenÍeineras son simpáticas, etc.
Adiectives ending in -e are úe same for boú genders, but take
an -s in úe plural:
Paco es inteligente.
Isabel es inteligente.
Los Sres.Méndez son muy inteliçntes.
When you are not sayin9the gentlenon is maried but simply a
nanied gentlenan, the adjective casadoalways comcs after the
noun un seúor, e.g. un seõor casado. Here are a few more
examples: un piso grande a large flat, u"a úicr antipática a
horrible gi , un chico alto a tall boy, rna seõoÍa contentâ a
happy hdy.

Self-evaluation
Can you do úe following?
1 Say you are pleased.
2 Say you are on holiday.
3 Ask someonewhat their lob is.
4 Say you are married/single.
5 Ask iÍ Paco is at home (when you arrive at the flat).
6 Ask after someone'shealth.
7 Say you are welVnot very well.
t-
-l qr g
{ì
=

I
).I,,
-ì t-
J o
:
õ'
CN
II

-II
o
t+
q)
o q)
-
@

In this unit you wlll lêarn

. to give details, and ask Íor
information,about families
and personalcircumstances
. to sây whât things bolongto
whom
. to say there is and there arc
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
 IV
MR. WELLS AND THE WORLD

Mr. Wells is in love with the human race. It is one of the rarest of
passions. It is a passion of which not even all imaginative men are
capable. It was, perhaps, the grandest of Shelley’s grand passions,
and it was the demon in William Morris’s breast. On the other hand,
it played a small part if any, in the lives of Shakespeare and Dickens.
Their kaleidoscopic sympathy with human beings was at the
antipodes from Shelley’s angelic infatuation with the human race.
The distinction has often been commented on. It is the difference
between affection and prophecy. There is no reason, I suppose, why
the two things should not be combined, and, indeed, there have
been affectionate prophets both among the religious teachers and
among men of letters. But, as a rule, one element flourishes at the
expense of the other, and Charles Lamb would have been as
incapable of even wishing to write the Outline of History as Mr. Wells
would be of attempting to write the Essays of Elia.
Not that Mr. Wells gives us the impression that he loves men in
general more than Charles Lamb did. It seems almost as if he loved
the destiny of man more than he loves man himself. His hero is an
anonymous two-legged creature who was born thousands of years
ago and has been reincarnated innumerable times and who will go
on being re-born until he has established the foundations of order
amid the original slime of things. That is the character in history
whom Mr. Wells most sincerely loves. He means more to him than
Moses or any of Plutarch’s men. Plutarch’s men, indeed, are for the
most part men who might have served man but preferred to take
advantage of him. Compare Plutarch’s and Mr. Wells’s treatment of
Cato the Elder and Julius Cæsar, and you will see the difference
between sympathy with individual men and passion for the purpose
of man. You will see the same difference if you compare the Bible
we possess with the new Bible of which Mr. Wells draws up a
syllabus in The Salvaging of Civilisation. The older book at the outset
hardly pauses to deal with man as a generalisation, but launches
almost at once into the story of one man called Adam and one
woman called Eve. Mr. Wells, on the other hand, would begin the
human part of his narrative with “the story of our race”:

How through hundreds of thousands of years it won

power over nature, hunted and presently sowed and reaped.
How it learnt the secrets of metals, mastered the riddle of the
seasons, and took to the seas. That story of our common
inheritance and of our slow upward struggle has to be taught
throughout our entire community in the city slums and in the
out-of-the-way farmsteads most of all. By teaching it, we
restore again to our people the lost basis of a community, a
common idea of their place in space and time.

Mr. Wells’s attitude to men, it is clear, is primarily that of a

philosopher, while the attitude of the Bible is primarily that of a poet.
It remains to be seen whether a philosopher’s Bible can move the
common imagination as the older Bible has moved it. That it can
move and excite it in some degree we know. We have only to read
the glowing pages with which The Salvaging of Civilisation opens in
order to realise this. Mr. Wells’s passion for the human group is
infectious. He expresses it with the vehemence of a great preacher.
He plays, like many great preachers, not on our sympathy so much
as on our hopes and fears. His book is a book of salvation and
damnation—of warnings to flee from the wrath to come, of
prophecies of swords turned into ploughshares and spears into
pruning-hooks. He loves his ideal group-man almost as Bunyan loved
Christian. He offers him, it is true, at the end of his journey, not
Paradise, but the World-State. He offers it to him, moreover, not as
an individual but as a type. He bids men be ready to perish in order
that man may arrive at the goal. His book is a call to personal
sacrifice to the end, not of personal, but of general salvation. That,
however, is an appeal that has again and again been proved
effective in history. It is of the same kind as the appeal of patriotism
in time of war. “Who dies if England lives?” sang Mr. Kipling. “Who
dies if the World-State lives?” Mr. Wells retorts.
The question remains whether the ordinary man can ever be
brought to think of the world as a thing worth living and dying for as
he has often thought his country worth living and dying for. If the
world were attacked by the inhabitants of another planet, world-
patriotism would become a necessity of self-defence, and the
peoples of the world would be presented with the alternatives of
uniting or perishing. Mr. Wells believes, no doubt, that they are
presented with these alternatives already. But can they be made to
realise this by anything but an external enemy? It is external
enemies that create and intensify patriotism. Can human beings as a
whole organise themselves against war as the enemy with the same
thoroughness with which Englishmen organised themselves against
Germany as the enemy? Mr. Wells obviously believes that they can.
But it is to the great religions, not to the great patriotisms, that he
looks for examples of how this can be done. He recalls how the
Christian religion spread in the first four centuries and how the
Moslem religion spread in the seventh century, and he believes that
these precedents “support a reasonable hope that such a change in
the minds of men, whatever else it may be, is a practicable change.”
His gospel of human brotherhood, indeed, is propounded as a larger
Christianity rather than as a larger patriotism. He realises, however,
the immensity of the difficulties in the way of the spread of this
gospel. He sees that the majority of men are still indifferent to it.
Unless they are in the vein for it, “it does not really interest them;
rather it worries them.” That is why he believes so ardently in the
need of a new Bible—a Bible of Civilisation—which will restore to
modern men “a sense of personal significance, a sense of destiny,
such as no one in politics or literature seems to possess to-day.”
That is why he scorns such a compromise and concession to the
frailty of human nature as a League of Nations and calls on men to
turn their eyes from all such conveniences and makeshifts and to
concentrate on the more arduous ideal of human unity. Of the
League of Nations he writes:

The praise has a thin and legal and litigious flavour. What
loyalty and what devotion can we expect this multiple
association to command? It has no unity—no personality. It is
like asking a man to love the average member of a woman’s
club instead of loving his wife.
For the idea of man, for human unity, for our common
blood, for the one order of the world, I can imagine men
living and dying, but not for a miscellaneous assembly that
will not mix—even in its name. It has no central idea, no
heart to it, this League of Nations formula.

Many people will agree with much of Mr. Wells’s scornful criticism
of the League of Nations. He is obviously writing the plainest
common sense when he declares that it has failed so far to solve the
problem of modifying the traditional idea of sovereign independence
and the problem of a super-national force that will be stronger than
any national force. The average statesman is still an Imperialist at
heart, even when he praises the League of Nations with his lips. He
desires a world-order that will confirm the present order of rival
Empires rather than a world-order that will supersede it. He desires
to avert war, but only if he may preserve all the conditions that make
war inevitable. Mr. Wells is impatient of all this as a treachery to the
greatest ideal that has come into the world in our time. On the other
hand, I think that the advocates of the League of Nations and not
the advocates of the World State are going the right way to
propagate the sense of world-unity that Mr. Wells desires. The
League of Nations, whatever its shortcomings, does make human
nature a partner in its ideal. It remembers the ordinary human
being’s affection for his own country, and does not treat it as a mere
prejudice in the path. It realises that the true victory of
internationalism will be not as the destroyer of individualism but as
its counterweight. It used to be thought that a man could not be
loyal to both his church and his country unless the Church were a
State Church. Some Socialists have believed that the family and the
State were inevitable rivals. As a matter of fact, every man is in a
state of balance among conflicting loyalties—loyalty to himself, to the
family, to the school, to the Church, to the State, to the world. The
religion of the brotherhood of man must bow to this fact, or it must
fail. To ignore it is to be a doctrinaire—to fail, that is, to bring home
one’s doctrine to men’s business and bosoms. It is to sit above the
battle so far as the immediate issues with which mankind is faced
are concerned. Mr. Wells has rendered an immense service to his
time by compelling us to remember the common origin and the
common interests of mankind. He has invented a wonderful
telescope through which we can look back and see man struggling
out of the mud and can look forward and see him climbing a dim
and distant pinnacle. I am not sure, however, if he has pointed out
the most desirable route to the pinnacle—whether he does not
expect us to reach it as the crow flies instead of by winding roads
and by bridges across the deep rivers and ravines. He may take the
view that, as man has learned to fly mechanically, so he may learn
to fly politically. One never knows. The glorious feature of his
prophetic writing, meanwhile, is its driving-force. He is one of the
few writers who have given momentum to the idea of the world as
one place.
 V
MR. CLUTTON-BROCK

Mr. Clutton-Brock is a critic with an unusual equality of interests. He

seems to be the centre of an almost perfect circle, and literature,
painting, religion, philosophy, ethics, and education are the all but
equal radii that connect him with the circumference. Many writers
have been as versatile, but few have been as symmetrical. He has all
his gifts in due proportion. He is not more æsthetic than moral, or
more moral than æsthetic. His idealism and his intellect balance
each other exactly. His matter and his manner are twins. He
produces on us the effect of a harmony, not of a nature in conflict
with itself. Had he lived in the ancient world, he would probably have
been a teacher of philosophy. He has gifts of temper as well as
powers of exposition and understanding that make him a teacher
even to-day, whether he will or not. He does not speak down to us
from the chair, but he is at our elbows murmuring with exquisite
restraint yet with an eagerness only half-hidden the “nothing too
much” of the Greeks, the “Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty” of Keats,
the good news that the flesh and spirit are not enemies but friends,
and that the Earth for the wise man is not at odds with Paradise.
Those who shrink from virtue as from a split infinitive sometimes
speak in disparagement of Mr. Clutton-Brock’s gifts. He is the head of
a table at which the virtues and the graces sit down side by side,
and they are dressed so much alike that it is not always easy to tell
which is which. He is always seeking, indeed, the point at which a
virtue passes into a grace, and he knits his brows over those
extreme differences that separate one from the other. The standard
by which he measures things in literature and in life is an ideal world
in which goodness and beauty answer one another in antiphonal
music. His ideal man is the kalos k’ agathos of ancient Athens. He
goes among authors in quest of this part-song in their work. He
misses it in the later Tolstoy: he discovers it in Marvell and Vaughan.
He is not to be put off, however, with a forced and unnatural
antiphony. He is critical of the antiphony of body and soul that
announces “All’s well!” in Whitman’s verse. He finds in Whitman not
organic cheerfulness but functional cheerfulness—“willed
cheerfulness,” he calls it. And he says of Whitman with penetrating
wisdom: “He was a man not strong enough in art or in life to do
without that willed cheerfulness; it is for him a defence like irony,
though a newer, more democratic, more American defence.” He
writes with equal wisdom when he says that Whitman “has got a
great part of his popularity from those who were grateful to him for
saying so firmly and so often what they wished to believe.” But
might not this be said of all poets of hope? Might it not be said of
Shelley and of Browning? I am not sure, indeed, that Mr. Clutton-
Brock does not do serious injustice to Whitman in exaggerating the
element of reaction in him against old fears as well as old forms. His
discovery of the secret of what is false in Whitman has partly blinded
him to the secret of what is true. Otherwise, how could he ask us
whether there is anything in Leaves of Grass that moves us as we
are moved by Edgar Allan Poe’s The Sleeper? Can he have forgotten
Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking, to name but one of Whitman’s
profoundly moving poems? Mr. Clutton-Brock does, indeed, end his
essay with fine if tempered praise of Whitman’s genius. But his essay
as a whole is a question-mark, expressing a doubt of something
false, something even “faked.”
His essay on Poe is more sympathetic. He finds in Poe, not a
false harmony, but a real discord—a pitiable discord. “There was a
fatal separation,” we are told, “between his intellect and his
emotions, except in a very few of his poems, because he could not
value life or human nature in comparison with the life and the nature
of that other planet for which he was homesick. So he exercised his
intellect on games, but with a thwarted passion which gives a
surprising interest and beauty even to his detective stories.” This is
well said, but, as we read the essay, we become aware of a curious
ultra-fastidiousness in Mr. Clutton-Brock—a lack of vulgarity, in the
best sense of the word. We see this in his attitude to Poe’s most
popular work; he dismisses The Raven and The Bells as “fit to be
recited at penny readings.” That certainly has been their fate, but it
does not prevent them from being masterpieces in their kind—the
jeux d’esprit of a planet-struck man. They are not, however, we may
admit, the poems that reveal Poe as an inspired writer. It is a much
more serious thing for Mr. Clutton-Brock to omit Annabel Lee from
the list of the six poems or so, on which Poe’s reputation as a poet
rests. Annabel Lee is a work of genius, if Poe ever wrote a work of
genius. Helen, Thy Beauty is to Me—which has none of its faults—is
the only one of his poems that challenges its supremacy, perhaps
successfully. Mr. Clutton-Brock’s essay on the other hand, will be of
service to the general reader if it gives him the feeling that Poe is to
be approached, not as a hackneyed author, but as a writer of
undiscovered genius. He does not exaggerate the beauty of The
Sleeper, though he exaggerates its place in Poe’s work. The truth is,
Poe is a neglected poet. The average reader regards him as too well
known to be worth reading, and The Sleeper, The City in the Sea
and Romance are ignored because The Bells has fallen into the
hands of popular reciters.
Mr. Clutton-Brock has the happy gift of taking his readers into
the presence of most of his authors in the spirit of discoverers. It is
not that he aims at originality or paradox. He is always primarily in
search of truth, even when he gets on a false scent. His essay on
Meredith is a series of interesting guesses at truth, some of which
are extremely suggestive, and some of which seem to me to miss
the mark. The most suggestive is the remark that Love in the Valley
is not only written on “a theme that inspired the music of the first
folk-songs,” but that the verse itself has “for its underlying tune” a
folk-measure—the old Saturnian measure of the Romans. Macaulay,
it may be remembered, was startled to learn that his ballad of “brave
Horatius” was written largely in the Saturnian metre, and still more
startled when he was unable to find any perfect example of this
metre in English verse, except:

The Queen was in her parlour, eating bread and honey.

It comes as something of a shock to be told that the lines—

Lovely are the curves of the white owl sweeping

Wavy in the dusk lit by one large star;

are musically akin to:

Lars Porsena of Clusium,

By the nine gods he swore.

And Mr. Clutton-Brock would be the last man to pretend that it is the
same music we find in both. Meredith’s variations on the old tune
are, he makes clear, as important a part of the music as is the old
tune itself. “It is folk-song with the modern orchestra like the
symphonies of Dvorák, and it combines a singing rhythm with
sharpness and fullness of detail as they had never before been
combined in romantic poetry.” Criticism like this is not merely a
comment on technique; it is a guess of the spirit, emphasising the
primitive and universal elements which make Love in the Valley
probably the most enduring of Meredith’s works.
I do not think Mr. Clutton-Brock is so happy when he writes of
Meredith as a novelist. He goes too far when he suggests that
Meredith’s witty characters, or mouthpieces, are “always subsidiary
and often unpleasant,” like the wise youth in Richard Feverel.
Meredith, he declares, “does not think much of these witty
characters that he cannot do without.” He “would never make a hero
more witty than he could help, for he likes his heroes to be either
men of action or delightful youths whom too much cleverness would
spoil. He himself was not in love with cleverness, and never aimed at
it.” This is only partly true. It is partly true in regard to Meredith’s
men, and not true at all in regard to his women. Diana of the
Crossways alone is enough to disprove it. Meredith’s heroes were
conventions; his heroines were creations; and he liked his creations
to be witty. He loved wit as his natural air. His Essay on Comedy is a
witty dithyramb in praise of wit. Mr. Clutton-Brock seems to me to
make another mistake in regard to Meredith when he says that “if he
had had less genius, less power of speech, less understanding of
men, he might have been an essayist.” As a matter of fact, Merdith
was too proud to be an essayist. There are no proud essayists,
though many vain ones. Mr. Belloc is the nearest thing to a proud
essayist that one can think of, and his pride is really only a
fascinating arrogance.
It will be seen that Mr. Clutton-Brock excites to controversy, as
every good critic who attempts a new analysis of an author’s genius
must do. Were there space, I should like to dispute many points in
his essay, “The Defects of English Prose,” in which, incidentally, he
accepts the current over-estimate of the prose—the excellent prose
—of Mr. Hudson. The purpose of criticism, however, is to raise
questions as much as to answer them, and this Mr. Clutton-Brock
continually does in his thoughtful analysis of the success and failure
of great writers. He is an expositor with high standards in life and
literature, who worships beauty in the temple of reason. His essays,
though slight in form, are rich in matter. They are fragments of a
philosophy as well as comments on authors.
 VI
HENLEY THE VAINGLORIOUS

Henley was a master of the vainglorious phrase. He was Pistol with a

style. He wrote in order to be overheard. His words were sturdy
vagabonds, bawling and swaggering. “Let us be drunk,” he cried in
one of his rondeaux, and he made his words exultant as with wine.
He saw everywhere in Nature the images of the lewd population
of midnight streets. For him even the moon over the sea was like
some old hag out of a Villon ballade:

Flaunting, tawdry and grim,

From cloud to cloud along her beat,
Leering her battered and inveterate leer,
She signals where he prowls in the dark alone,
Her horrible old man,
Mumbling old oaths and warming
His villainous old bones with villainous talk.

Similarly, the cat breaking in upon the exquisite dawn that wakes
the “little twitter-and-cheep” of the birds in a London Park becomes
a picturesque and obscene figure:
 Behold
A rakehell cat—how furtive and acold!
A spent witch homing from some infamous dance—
Obscene, quick-trotting, see her tip and fade
Through shadowy railings into a pit of shade!

Or, again, take the description of the East Wind in London

Voluntaries:

Out of the poisonous East,

Over a continent of blight,
Like a maleficent influence released
From the most squalid cellarage of hell,
The Wind-fiend, the abominable—
The Hangman Wind that tortures temper and light—
Comes slouching, sullen and obscene,
Hard on the skirts of the embittered night;
And in a cloud unclean
Of excremental humours, roused to strife
By the operation of some ruinous change,
Wherever his evil mandate run and range,
Into a dire intensity of life,
A craftsman at his bench, he settles down
To the grim job of throttling London Town.

This is, of its kind, remarkable writing. It may not reflect a poetic
view of life, but it reflects a romantic and humorous view. Henley’s
humour is seldom good humour: it is, rather, a sort of boisterous
invective. His phrases delight us like the oaths of some old sea-
captain if we put ourselves in the mood of delight. And how
extravagantly he flings them down, like a pocketful of money on the
counter of a bar! He may only be a pauper, behaving like a rich man,
but we, who are his guests for an hour, submit to the illusion and
become happy echoes of his wild talk.
For he has the gift of language. It is not the loud-sounding sea
but loud-sounding words that are his passion. Compared to Henley,
even Tennyson was modest in his use of large Latin negatives. His
eloquence is sonorous with the music of “immemorial,” “intolerable,”
“immitigable,” “inexorable,” “unimaginable,” and the kindred train of
words. He is equally in love with “wonderful,” “magnificent,”
“miraculous,” “immortal,” and all the flock of adjectival enthusiasm.

Here in this radiant and immortal street,

he cries, as he stands on a spring day in Piccadilly. He did not use

sounding adjectives without meaning, however. His adjectives
express effectively that lust of life that distinguishes him from other
writers. For it is lust of life, in contradistinction to love, that is the
note of Henley’s work. He himself lets us into this secret in the poem
that begins:

Love, which is lust, is the Lamp in the Tomb.

Again, when he writes of Piccadilly in spring, he cries:

 Look how the liberal and transfiguring air
Washes this inn of memorable meetings,
This centre of ravishments and gracious greetings,
Till, through its jocund loveliness of length
A tidal-race of lust from shore to shore,
A brimming reach of beauty met with strength,
It shines and sounds like some miraculous dream,
Some vision multitudinous and agleam,
Of happiness as it shall be evermore!

The spectacle of life produced in Henley an almost exclusively

physical excitement. He did not wish to see things transfigured by
the light that never was on sea or land. He preferred the light on the
wheels of a hansom cab or, at best, the light that falls on the
Thames as it flows through London. His attitude to life, in other
words, was sensual. He could escape out of circumstances into the
sensual enchantments of the Arabian Nights, but there was no
escape for him, as there is for the great poets, into the general
universe of the imagination. This physical obsession may be put
down in a measure to his long years of ill-health and struggle. But
even a healthy and prosperous Henley, I fancy, would have been
restless, dissatisfied, embittered. For him most seas were Dead
Seas, and most shores were desolate. The sensualist’s “Dust and
Ashes!” breaks in, not always mournfully, but at times angrily, upon
the high noon of his raptures. He longs for death as few poets have
longed:

Of art and drink I have had my fill,

he declares, and the conclusion of the whole matter is:

For the end I know is the best of all.

 To his mother, to his sister, to Stevenson he writes this recurrent
message—the glad tidings of death to come. Man’s life is for him but
a child’s wanderings among the shows of a fair:

Till at last,
Tired of experience he turns
To the friendly and comforting breast
Of the old nurse, Death.

And in most of his poems on this theme it seems to be the

peace of the grave he desires, not an immortality of new
experiences. There is one moving poem, however, dedicating the
“windlestraws” of his verse to his wife in which a reference to their
dead child suggests that he, too, may have felt the hunger for
immortality:

Poor windlestraws
On the great, sullen, roaring pool of Time
And Chance and Change, I know!
But they are yours, as I am, till we attain
That end for which we make, we two that are one:
A little exquisite Ghost
Between us, smiling with the serenest eyes
Seen in this world, and calling, calling still
In that clear voice whose infinite subtleties
Of sweetness, thrilling back across the grave,
Break the poor heart to hear:

“Come, Dadsie, come?

Mama, how long—how long?”

Sufferer and sensualist, Henley found in the affections some relief

from his savage unrest. It was affection that painted that masterly
sonnet-portrait of Stevenson in Apparition, and there is affection,
too, in that song in praise of England, Pro Rege Nostro, though
much of his praise of England, like his praise of life, is but poetry of
lust. Lust in action, unfortunately, has a way of being absurd, and
Henley is often absurd in his lustful—by which one does not mean
lascivious—poems. His Song of the Sword and his Song of Speed are
both a little absurd in their sheer lustfulness. Here we have a mere
extravagance of physical exultation, with a great deal of talk about
“the Lord,” who is—to the ruin of the verse—a figure of rhetoric and
phrase of excitement, and not at all the Holy Spirit of the religious.
Henley, indeed, was for the most part not a religious man but an
egoist. He saw his own shadow everywhere on the universe, like the
shadow of a crippled but undefeated lion. He saw himself sometimes
with pity, oftener with pride. One day he found his image in an “old,
black rotter of a boat” that lay stranded at Shoreham:

With a horrid list, a frightening lapse from the line,

That makes me think of legs and a broken spine.

But he preferred to think, as in the most famous of his poems, of

his “unconquerable soul,” and to enjoy the raree-show of life
heroically under the promise of death. To call this attitude
vainglorious is not to belittle it. Henley was a master in his own
school of literature, and his works live after him. His commixture of
rude and civil phrase may be a dangerous model for other writers,
but with what skill he achieves the right emphasis and witty
magniloquence of effect! He did not guess (or guess at) the secrets
of life, but he watched the pageant with a greedy eye, sketched one
or two figures that amused or attracted him, and cheered till his pen
ought to have been hoarse. He also cursed, and, part of the time, he
played with rhymes, as if in an interchange of railleries. But, in all
circumstances, he was a valiant figure—valiant not only in words but
in the service of words. We need not count him among the sages,
but literature has also room for the sightseers, and Henley will have
a place among them for many years to come.
 VII
LORD ROSEBERY

Lord Rosebery’s oratory is the port at a banquet. It is a little

somnolent in its charm. Mr. Birrell has a better cellar of the livelier
French wines. But the Rosebery port is a wine without which no
memorial dinner can come to a perfect end. It is essentially the wine
of memory. It is used to moisten monumental effigies as champagne
is used to christen ships. As you read his two volumes of
Miscellanies, you get the impression that, wherever there is an effigy
to be unveiled, you will find Lord Rosebery present with his noble
aspersion of words. I do not know whether Lord Rosebery himself
chooses what effigies he will talk about or whether he has them
chosen for him. It is difficult to imagine a statue on which he would
not talk admirably. He is the greatest living showman of statues.
Even when there is no statue to be unveiled, but only a centenary to
be commemorated, he usually sees the great man in the posture of
a statue—a little larger than life, and with the sins and scandals
discreetly slurred over. Hence it would be in vain to look in his
commemoration addresses for great character studies or critical
interpretations of genius. They are compliments, not criticisms. They
are spoken on behalf of all present. Lord Rosebery’s art is the art of
the funeral speech blended with the art of the speech at a
distribution of prizes. Of this difficult though minor art he is an
accomplished practitioner.
Hence it would be ridiculous to judge his addresses on Burns by
the same standards by which we judge the studies of Carlyle and
Stevenson and Henley on the same subject. Lord Rosebery’s
speeches belong to the literature of formalities, and it is their chief
virtue that they express the common view with brightness of
emphasis, humour of anecdote, and at times with a charming
sentimental music of speech. They say what everyone present would
regard as the right thing to say, and they say it very much better
than anybody else on the platform could say it. He is a spokesman,
not a discoverer. His freshness is that of a man who furnishes what
is already known rather than of one who adds to the stock of
knowledge. That he has also the gifts of the writer who can add to
the stock of knowledge is shown by his humorous, fascinating and
amiable portrait of Lord Randolph Churchill. Here he speaks for
himself, not for the meeting. Lord Randolph is as real to him as a
character in fiction, with his spell, his impudence and his disaster. As
we read this story we feel that, if he cared, Lord Rosebery might
write a book of reminiscences, telling with detached frankness the
whole truth about himself and his great associates, which would
have an immortal place in English biographical literature. For the
present, however, we must be content that there should be someone
who can speak the general mind on Burns and Burke, on Oliver
Cromwell and Dr. Johnson, with a hint of majesty and a lulling
charm.
Certainly, he reveals no secrets that are not open secrets about
his heroes. He is continually asking “What is his secret?” and the
answer is usually a little disappointing, a little exiguous in surprise,
when it comes. Thus he tells us that the secret of Burns “lies in two
words—inspiration and sympathy.” That is true, but it leaves Burns
smooth as a statue. Burns appeals to us surely, not only through his
inspiration and sympathy, but as the spirit of man fluttering
rebelliously, songfully, satirically, against the bars of orthodoxy.
Scotsmen revere him as the champion of human nature against the
Levites. His errors, no doubt, were as gross as those of the Levites,
but human nature turns affectionately to those who protest on its
behalf against tyranny, and Burns with all his sins, was a liberator.
When he comes to Burke, Lord Rosebery again asks, “What is his
secret?” “The secret of Burke’s character,” he says, “is this, in my
judgment—that he loved reform and hated revolution.” This, again,
leaves Burke with the eyes of a statue. We shall understand the
secret of Burke much better if we see him as a man who had far
more passionate convictions about the duties than about the rights
of human beings. He believed in good government and in good
citizenship, but he was never even touched by the Utopian dream of
the perfectibility of man. Lord Rosebery, indeed, brings the figures of
the dead to life, not in his interpretation of their secrets, but usually
in some anecdote that reminds us of their profound humanity.
His happiest speeches, as a result, are about great men whose
private lives have already been laid bare to all the world. When he
has to speak on Thackeray, whose life still remains half a secret, he
devotes more space to literary criticism, and Thackeray remains for
the most part an effigy hung with wreaths of compliments. It is the
fashion nowadays to speak ill of Thackeray, and Lord Rosebery’s
extravagances on the other side would tempt even a moderate man
into disparagement. He refers to Thackeray as “the giant whom we
discuss to-day.” There could not be a more inappropriate word for
Thackeray than “giant.” One might almost as well call Jane Austen a
“giantess.” Charlotte Brontë, as a young author coming under
Thackeray’s spell, might legitimately feel that she was in the
presence of a Titan. But a man may be a Titan to his contemporaries
and yet be no Titan in the long line of great authors. Thackeray, I
am convinced, is greatly underestimated to-day, but he will come
back into his own only if we are prepared to welcome him on a level
considerably below that of the Titans—below Dickens and Tolstoy,
below even Sterne. Not that Lord Rosebery finds nothing to censure
in Thackeray. Though he remarks that Vanity Fair “appears to many
of us the most full and various novel in the English language,” he has
no praise for “the limp Amelia and the shadowy Dobbin.” At the
same time, he turns aside his censures with a compliment. “The
blemishes of Vanity Fair exalt the book,” he declares; “for what must
be the merits of a work which absolutely eclipse such defects?” It is
one of the perils of oratory that it leads men to utter sentences of
this kind. They mean little or nothing, but they have the ring of
amiability. On the other hand, Lord Rosebery makes no concession
to amiability in his criticism of Esmond. “The plot to me,” he says, “is
simply repulsive. The transformation of Lady Castlewood from a
mother to a wife is unnatural and distasteful to the highest degree.
Thackeray himself declared that he could not help it. This, I think,
only means that he saw no other than this desperate means of
extricating the story. I cannot help it, too. One likes what one likes,
and one dislikes what one dislikes.” An occasional reservation of this
kind helps to give flavour to Lord Rosebery’s compliments. It gives
them the air of being the utterances, not of a professional
panegyrist, but of a detached and impartial mind. Thus he begins his
eulogy of Dr. Johnson with a confession that Johnson’s own writings
are dead for him apart from “two poems and some pleasing
biographies.” “Speaking as an individual and illiterate Briton”—so he
makes his confession. It is as though the tide withdrew in order to
come in with all the more surprising volume.
One thing that must strike many readers with astonishment
while reading these speeches and studies is that an orator so
famous for his delicate wit should reveal so little delight in the wit of
authors. His enthusiasm is largely moral enthusiasm. We think of
Lord Rosebery as a dilettante, and yet the dilettanti of literature and
public life make only a feeble appeal to him. He is interested in few
but men of strong character and men of action. His heroes are such
men as Cromwell and Mr. Gladstone. Is it that he is an ethical
dilettante, or is it that he is seeking in these vehement natures a
strength of which he feels the lack in himself? Certainly, as we read
him, he casts the shadow of a man who has almost all the elements
of greatness except this strength. He has been Prime Minister, he
has won the Derby, he has achievements behind him sufficient (one
would imagine) to fill three lives with success, and yet somehow we
picture him as a brilliant failure as we picture the young man who
had great possessions. These very Miscellanies bear the stamp of
failure. They are the praises of famous men spoken from a balcony
in the Castle of Indolence. They are graceful and delightful. But they
are haunted by a curious pathos, for the eyes of the speaker gaze
wistfully from where he stands towards the path that leads to the
Hill Difficulty and the pilgrims who advance along it under heavy
burdens to their perils and rewards.
 VIII
MR. VACHEL LINDSAY

Mr. Lindsay objects to being called a “jazz poet”; and, if the name
implied that he did nothing in verse but make a loud, facetious, and
hysterical noise, his objection would be reasonable. It is possible to
call him a “jazz poet,” however, for the purpose not of belittling him,
but of defining one of his leading qualities. He is essentially the poet
of a worked-up audience. He relies on the company for the success
of his effects, like a Negro evangelist. The poet, as a rule, is a
solitary in his inspiration. He is more likely to address a star than a
crowded room. Mr. Lindsay is too sociable to write like that. He
invites his readers to a party, and the world for him is a round game.
To read “The Skylark” or the “Ode to a Nightingale” in the hunt-the-
slipper mood in which one enjoys “The Daniel Jazz” would be
disastrous. Shelley and Keats give us the ecstasy of a communion,
not the excitement of a party. The noise of the world, the glare, and
the jostling crowds fade as we read. The audience of Shelley or
Keats is as still as the audience in a cathedral. Mr. Lindsay, on the
other hand, calls for a chorus, like a singer at a smoking-concert.
That is the spirit in which he has written his best work. He is part
entertainer and part evangelist, but in either capacity he seems to
demand not an appreciative hush, but an appreciative noise.
It is clear that he is unusually susceptible to crowd excitement.
His two best poems, “Bryan, Bryan” and “The Congo,” are born of it.
“Bryan, Bryan” is an amazing attempt to recapture and communicate
a boy’s emotions as he mingled in the scrimmage of the Presidential
election of 1896. Mr. Lindsay becomes all but inarticulate as he
recalls the thrill and tumult of the marching West when Bryan called
on it to advance against the Plutocrats. He seems to be shouting like
a student when students hire a bus and go forth in masks and fancy
dress to make a noise in the streets. Luckily, he makes an original
noise. He knows that his excitement is more than he can express in
intelligible speech, and so he wisely and humorously calls in the aid
of nonsense, which he uses with such skill and vehemence that
everybody is forced to turn round and stare at him:

Oh, the long-horns from Texas,

The jay hawks from Kansas,
The plop-eyed bungaroo and giant giassicus,
The varmint, chipmunk, bugaboo,
The horned toad, prairie-dog, and ballyhoo,
From all the new-born states arow,
Bidding the eagles of the West fly on,
Bidding the eagles of the West fly on.
The fawn, prodactyl, and thing-a-ma-jig,
The rakeboor, the hellangone,
The whangdoodle, batfowl and pig,
The coyote, wild-cat, and grizzly in a glow,
In a miracle of health and speed, the whole breed abreast,
They leaped the Mississippi, blue border of the West.
From the Gulf to Canada, two thousand miles long—
Against the towns of Tubal Cain,
Ah—sharp was their song.
Against the ways of Tubal Cain, too cunning for the young,
The long-horn calf, the buffalo, and wampus gave tongue.

In such a passage as this Mr. Lindsay pours decorative nonsense out

of a horn of plenty. But his aim is not to talk nonsense: it is to use
nonsense as the language of reality. As paragraph follows paragraph,
we see with what sureness he is piling colour on colour and crash on
crash in order that we may respond almost physically to the
sensations of those magnificent and tumultuous days. He has
discovered a new sort of rhetoric which enables him to hurry us
through mood after mood of comic, pugnacious and sentimental
excitement. Addressed to a religious meeting, rhetoric of this kind
would be interrupted by cries of “Glory, Hallelujah!” and “Praise de
Lord!” Unless you are rhetoric-proof, you cannot escape its spell.
Isolated from its context, the passage I have quoted may be
subjected to cold criticism. It is only when it keeps its place in the
living body of the poem and becomes part of the general attack on
our nerves that it is irresistibly effective.
In “The Congo,” it is the excitement of Negroes—in their dances
and their religion—that Mr. Lindsay has set to words. As he watches
their revels, the picture suggests a companion-picture of Negroes
orgiastic in Africa, in the true Kingdom of Mumbo-Jumbo—a Negro’s
fairy-tale of a magic land:

Just then from the doorway, as fat as shotes,

Came the cake-walk princes in their long red coats,
Canes with a brilliant lacquer shine,
And tall silk hats that were red as wine.
And they pranced with their butterfly partners there,
Coal-black maidens with pearls in their hair,
Knee-skirts trimmed with the jessamine sweet,
And bells on their ankles and little black feet.

But it is the grotesque comedy of the American Negro, not the

fantasia on Africa, that makes “The Congo” so entertaining a poem.
The description of the “fat black bucks in a wine-barrel room” has
often been quoted. There is the same feeling of “racket” in the
picture of a religious camp meeting:
 A good old negro in the slums of the town
Preached at a sister for her velvet gown;
Howled at a brother for his low-down ways,
His prowling, guzzling, sneak-thief days;
Beat on the Bible till he wore it out
Starting the jubilee revival shout.
And some had visions as they stood on chairs,
And sang of Jacob, and the golden stairs.
And they all repented, a thousand strong,
From their stupor and savagery and sin and wrong,
And slammed on their hymn books till they shook the room
With “glory, glory, glory,”
And “Boom, boom, Boom.”

Whatever qualities Mr. Lindsay lacks, he has humour, colour and

gusto. When he writes in the tradition of the serious poets, as in
“Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight” and “Epilogue,” he is negligible:
he is only one of a thousand capable verse-writers. He is dependent
on his own idiom to a greater extent even than was Robert Burns.
Not that his work in rag-time English is comparable in other respects
to Burns’s in Scots. Burns’s themes were, apart from his comic verse,
the traditional themes of the poets—the aristocrats of the spirit. Mr.
Lindsay is a humorist and sentimentalist who is essentially a
democrat of the spirit—one of the crowd.
And, just as he is the humorist of the crowd, so is he the
humorist of things immense and exaggerated. His imagination is the
playground of whales and elephants and sea-serpents. He is happy
amid the clangour and confusion of a railway-junction. He rejoices in
the exuberant and titanic life of California, where:

Thunder-clouds of grapes grow on the mountains.

and he boasts that:

 There are ten gold suns in California,
When all other lands have one,
For the Golden Gate must have due light
And persimmons be well done.
And the hot whales slosh and cool in the wash
And the fume of the hollow sea,
Rally and roam in the loblolly foam
And whoop that their souls are free.

Mr. Lindsay himself can whoop like a whale. He is a poet in

search of superlatives beyond the superlatives. He cannot find them,
but he at least articulates new sounds. As one reads him, one is
reminded at times of a child in a railway-train singing and shouting
against the noise of the engine and the wheels. The world affects
Mr. Lindsay as the railway-train affects some children. He is
intoxicated by the rhythm of the machinery. As a result, though he is
often an ethical poet, he is seldom a spiritual poet. That helps to
explain why his verse does not achieve any but a sentimental effect
in his andante movements. As his voice falls, his inspiration falls. In
“The Santa Fé Trail” he breaks in on the frenzy of a thousand motors
with the still, small voice of the bird called the Rachel Jane. He
undoubtedly moves us by the way in which he does this; but he
moves us much as a sentimental singer at a ballad concert can do. It
is not for passages of this kind that one reads him. His words at
their best do not minister at the altar: they dance to the music of
the syncopated orchestra. That is Mr. Lindsay’s peculiar gift. It would
hardly be using too strong a word to say that it is his genius.
 IX
MR. PUNCH TAKES THE WRONG TURNING

There are those who gibe at Punch. There are also those who gibe
at those who gibe at Punch. The match is a fairly even one. Punch is
undoubtedly not as good as it used to be, but it is not quite so
certain that it is not as clever as it used to be. Very few people
realise that Punch was once a good paper—that it was a good paper,
I mean in the Charles-Kingsley sense of the adjective. It began in
1841, as Mr. C. L. Graves prettily says, by “being violently and
vituperatively on the side of the angels.” If Punch had kept pace with
the times it would, in these days, at the age of eighty, be suspected
of Socialism. Its championship of the poor against those who
prospered on the poverty of the poor was as vehement as a Labour
speech at a street-corner. One of the features of the early Punch was
a “Pauper’s Corner,” in which “the cry of the people found frequent
and touching utterance.” It was in the Christmas number of Punch in
1843 that Hood’s “Song of the Shirt” was first published. Mark
Lemon, the editor, insisted on publishing it, though all his colleagues
were opposed to him on the point. In the following years we find the
same indignant sense of realities expressing itself in Leech’s cartoon,
“The Home of the Rick Burner,” which emphasised the fact that the
cause of an outburst of incendiarism in Suffolk was the greed of the
farmers who underpaid their labourers. Punch also took up the
cause of the sweated labourers in verse:
 I’ll sing you a fine old song, improved by a modern pate,
Of a fine Old English Gentleman, who owns a large estate,
But pays the labourers on it a very shabby rate.
Some seven shillings each a week for early work and late,
Gives this fine Old English Gentleman, one of the present time.

Nor did Punch shrink from looking a good deal higher than the fine
Old English Gentleman for his victims. He had a special, almost a
Lloyd Georgian, taste for baiting dukes. He attacked the Duke of
Norfolk with admirable irony for suggesting to the poor that they
should eke out their miserable fare by using curry powder. He made
butts in turn of the Duke of Marlborough, the Duke of Buckingham,
the Duke of Sutherland, the Duke of Richmond and the Duke of
Atholl. He did not spare even the Duke of Wellington. “The old
Duke,” he declared, “should no longer block up the great
thoroughfare of civilisation—he should be quietly and respectfully
eliminated.” It was in the same mood that the Marquis of
Londonderry was denounced both as a tyrannical coal-owner and an
enemy of the Queen’s English—“the most noble, but not the most
grammatical Marquis.” Punch’s view of the House of Lords is
expressed with considerable directness in his scheme for reforming
the Chamber, which begins:

It is an indisputable truth that there can be no such thing

as a born legislator. As unquestionable is the fact that there
may be a born ass.
But your born ass may be born to your legislator’s office,
and command a seat in the house of legislators by
inheritance, as in not a few examples, wherein the coronet
hides not the donkey’s ears.

This is not particularly brilliant. It is interesting not so much in itself

as because it is the sort of thing with which Punch used regularly to
regale its readers. Punch in those days was a paper with a purpose.
Its humour, like Dickens’s was to a certain extent a missionary
humour. Punch saw himself as the rescuer of the underdog, and, if
he could not achieve his object comically, he was prepared to do it
angrily. He did not hesitate to fling his cap and bells rudely in the
face of royalty itself. He might be accused of vulgarity, but not of
being, as he has since become, the more or less complacent
advocate of Toby, the top-dog.
Mr. Graves seems to think that the change in the spirit of Punch
is due to the mellowness that comes with increasing years. But the
real reason, I fancy, is that, while Punch began under an editor
whose sympathies were with the bottom-dog, the sympathies of
later editors have been much more respectable. It is not that Punch
has lost the fire of youth, but that it has lost the generosity of the
Victorian man of letters. It was, it may be admitted, easier to be
generous in those days. A Victorian could make himself the
champion of the ill-used poor without any feeling that he was
assisting in bringing about a new order in society. A middle-class
Georgian who attaches himself to the same cause cannot do so
without realising that it is not a question of patching an old suit of
clothes, but of making a new and a better one. The Victorian
committed himself to charity. The Georgian has to commit himself to
the cold-blooded charity of equality. Punch, indeed, seems to have
begun to take alarm as soon as the Chartist movement made it
appear likely that the workers were going to demand, not
sympathetic treatment, but something like self-determination. By
1873, according to Mr. Graves, “references to the champagne-habit
among the miners abound.” In a cartoon, “From the Coal Districts,”
we are shown a lady in a fruiterer’s saying, “I’m afraid I must give
up the pineapple, Mr. Green! Eight shillings is really too much!” She
is interrupted by a “successful collier” who bids the fruiterer, “Just
put ’em up for me, then, Master. ’Ere’s ’arf a sovereign; and look ’ere
—yer may keep the change if yer’ll only tell us ’ow to cook ’un.”
Punch, as we know it to-day, had been born.
It is interesting to trace the change in the temper of Punch, not
only in domestic, but in foreign, affairs. Punch appears to have given
Welcome to our website – the ideal destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. With a mission to inspire endlessly, we offer a
vast collection of books, ranging from classic literary works to
specialized publications, self-development books, and children's
literature. Each book is a new journey of discovery, expanding
knowledge and enriching the soul of the reade

Our website is not just a platform for buying books, but a bridge
connecting readers to the timeless values of culture and wisdom. With
an elegant, user-friendly interface and an intelligent search system,
we are committed to providing a quick and convenient shopping
experience. Additionally, our special promotions and home delivery
services ensure that you save time and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Let us accompany you on the journey of exploring knowledge and

personal growth!

ebooknice.com