MFL ©CAS 2002

MFL What is the subject of a verb ? The person or thing that performs the verb in a sentence is called the subject. For example: Ana speaks Spanish.Who speaks Spanish ?Ana is the subject. The book is on the table.What is on the table ? The book is the subject. Have a go at this one: The sun shone brightly in the sky.

MFL ©CAS 2002 Subjects are often proper names, objects, animals, …… Just as often, they are pronouns. Pronouns are words which stand in place of nouns. When these pronouns replace the noun which is the subject of the sentence, they are called subject pronouns.

MFL ©CAS 2002 Which pronouns would you use to replace these nouns ? e.g.Paul likes swimming. Paul swims every day. He Ana and I speak Spanish. Ana and Juan speak English. Juan doesn’t like paella. The dog loves paella. We They He It

MFL ©CAS 2002 Infinitives tell us the action of the verb without reference to any person or time. To make the verbs refer to specific people, we need to know a set sequence of subject pronouns. Each verb in each tense has 6 parts

MFL ©CAS 2002 EnglishSpanish I you he she it we you they singular plural 1 st person 2 nd person 3 rd person 1 st person 2 nd person 3 rd person (sg) (pl) yo tú él ella él / ella nosotros/ nosotras vosotros/ vosotras ellos/ ellas The person speaking The person spoken to The person spoken about

MFL ©CAS 2002 You’ll see that list of subject pronouns a lot in the later presentations on the different tenses. In English, we have to use the subject pronouns all the time. If we didn’t use them, we wouldn’t know who was doing the verb. Think about it…… I speak You speak He/she/it speaks We speak You speak They speak With one exception, all the forms are identical. It’s the subject pronouns that make it clear who the subject of the verb is. In Spanish, we very rarely use Subject Pronouns, because all six parts of the verb are so different. We don’t need the pronouns to tell us who the subject of the verb is. Here’s an example: Hablaré Hablarás Hablará Hablaremos Hablaréis Hablarán

MFL ©CAS 2002 Now that you know all about verbs and subject pronouns, you can look at the presentations about the different tenses. Have a go at the exercises to test your understanding.

MFL ©CAS 2002 FIN