Intermediate Spanish

The focus of this course will be both grammar and conversation. Students will learn to understand the main idea and some essential details of conversations among native Spanish speakers about subjects familiar to the student. The course will review public announcements and media news briefs. Students will learn to express themselves in simple tenses and to convey general opinions about familiar topics. Students will practice speaking in the past tense (referring to a specific moment in time, referring to an amount of time, relating two occurrences in the past, talking about habits and their frequency in relation to the present, and describing events). Students will also learn to express opinions, speak about the future and recount statements. The grammar component will cover vocabulary related to personal experience and characteristics and geographical descriptions. The basic functions of ser and estar, the uses of the imperfect tense, and the indefinite and the perfect indicative tenses will be introduced. The syntax of comparative structures and the tools used for identification will be covered. Possessive adjectives and pronouns will also be introduced. Skills to tell time: Hace/Hacía + amount of time (que) and to narrate in the past will also be covered. In addition, students will be introduced to the construction of the future, future perfect, and present subjunctive tenses and the basic uses of the conditional. The transformation of the imperative, the present indicative, the subjunctive, the future, the indefinite and the perfect tenses will also be covered. The course will go over the use of the subjunctive in expressing wishes and/or necessity.