Hola Primary Two.
¿Qué tal? ¡Estoy feliz porque me gusta la playa! (I’m happy because I like the beach.)
This week’s Spanish challenge is to find out the names for some things that live on the seashore.
Some of the animals have a different word for ‘the’ at the beginning. Some start with el and some start with la. Why do you think that is? (Answer: under the Spanish words.)
¿Que vive a la orilla del mar? – What lives at the seashore?
El cangrejo – crab
La gaviota – seagull
La foca – seal
El alga marina – seaweed
El caballo de mar – seahorse
La ballena – whale
El pulpo – octopus
El delfín – Dolphin
La anémona de mar – sea anemone
El erizo de mar – sea urchin
La estrella de mar – starfish
La concha – Shell
El percebe – barnacle
El frailecillo – puffin
La medusa – jellyfish
*Ms F’s Top Tip* – Remember j in Spanish makes a sound like ch asin the Scottish word loch. So cangrejo sounds like can-grey-cho. When you see ll in Spanish, it is actually a special letter. The sound it makes is y, like in ‘you’, so estrella sounds like es-tray-ya. You may recognise it from me llamo (my name is) and amarillo (yellow) and llueve (rain). In Spanish the letter c can make a hard sound like ‘cuatro’ if it comes before a, o or u. But if c comes before e or i, it makes a soft ‘ss’ sound. So frailecillo sounds like fray-le-sea–yo.
Answer: The reason why some animals have different versions of saying the in Spanish is that some are male words and others are female words. Well done if you worked that out!
For male animals you would use el for ‘the’ or un for ‘a’. For female animals you would use la for ‘the’ and una for ‘a’.
Most of the animals you just add s to the end to say there is more than one (plural). The only different one is:
Dolphins – delfines
Ideas to help you practise
- Create your own seashore flashcards – one set with the Spanish words and another set with a picture or photo of something that lives at the seashore. You can then use these to play a game of memory, match pairs, or create your own game.
- Practise your Spanish along with Mrs McCracken’s sign-a-long animals – remember we learned the word for fish last week.
- Play Pictionary, where one player has to draw something from the seashore and the other says the answer in Spanish.
- Pick something that lives at the seashore and act like it, you could use sounds or actions. The other player has to guess in Spanish.
- Draw a picture of the seashore and label what lives there in Spanish.
¡Que te diviertas!
Ms Ferguson
Here are some fun videos to help you practise and learn some other words for animals, including wild animals:
Sciennes Primary Five 