Curso → Level 2 · La vida diaria → Lección 6
Level 2 · Lesson 6 Uno, dos, tres…
One, two, three…
Contamos hasta cinco, y «uno» pasa a «un» delante de un nombre masculino.
Count to five, and watch uno turn into un before a masculine noun.
Escucha · Listen
Uno, dos, tres
Luis, do you study with Marta?
Yes. Marta, Pablo, Sara and me: one, two, three, four.
Four! I study with two friends.
Two?
Yes: one male friend and one female friend.
And with the teacher, five.
Five, yes: one, two, three, four, five.
Explicación · Explanation
Uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco. Solo el primero cambia: delante de un nombre masculino, «uno» pasa a «un».
These are the first five numbers, and none of them carries a tilde. Four of the five never change shape at all — dos, tres, cuatro and cinco look the same in front of anything. Only uno moves. Standing alone, when you are simply counting or answering a question, it stays uno; in front of a masculine noun it drops its last letter: un amigo, un profesor, un mercado.
Con un nombre femenino usamos «una»: una amiga, una escuela, una oficina. «Dos amigos», «dos amigas»: dos no cambia.
The feminine form is una, and it keeps its -a everywhere: una amiga, una escuela, una oficina. So 'one' is un or una depending on the noun it introduces, while two to five just sit in front of the noun and leave it alone. The noun itself goes into the plural after them — dos amigos, tres oficinas. That -s is the business of level 3; for now, copy the pattern.
«Un amigo» es «one friend» y también «a friend». El contexto decide.
Spanish does not separate the numeral one from the article a/an: un amigo covers both 'one friend' and 'a friend', and una escuela covers both 'one school' and 'a school'. Context, and a little stress on the word when you say it aloud, tell your listener which one you mean.
Vocabulario · Vocabulary
| Palabra | Meaning | Nota · Note |
|---|---|---|
| uno | one | un delante de un nombre masculino |
| dos | two | |
| tres | three | |
| cuatro | four | |
| cinco | five |
Práctica · Practice
Ponlo en práctica · Use it
Ahora hablas tú, en voz alta: uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco. Y después: un amigo, una amiga, un profesor, una profesora, un mercado, una oficina.
Count from one to five out loud, twice. Then say the six phrases: three with un and three with una. Finally, look around the room and count what you can see up to five — the counting itself is the drill, and the numbers must come without hesitating before you add anything to them.