Level Four
Nivel Cuatro

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Level IV Samples:
Entire Unit 29 Text 19pp (.pdf)
Audio 29.22 (partial) (mp3) (1.30)

For detailed contents of Level IV, go here.

The Historical Context

The colonial period in Mexico and all over Latin America left little mark on the history of the world. Most Latin Americans lived in great isolation--it was not until the 20th century that such important cities as Bogotá, Colombia; Quito, Ecuador; and even Mexico City could be reached by any other means than horses or mules. The "criollo" and "peninsular" upper classes lived in great wealth and splendor; the indígenos and the growing mestizo population had very little share of power or its rewards. This is an issue that still remains unsettled in many countries. During most of the colonial period, Spain lived on the seemingly endless supplies of gold, and especially silver, from her colonies. Many believe that this "easy" money was destructive to Spain and caused her to lag far behind other Western European countries in economic development. In addition to the Spanish language (or castellano), the one positive legacy of the colonial period on which almost everybody can agree is the beautiful architecture to be found all over Latin America. Another positive legacy is the tradition of almost courtly politeness which still marks most of Latin society.

Level IV Overview

Level IV continues with more about clitic pronouns, the command form of verbs (which is in a way an indirect introduction to the infamous Spanish subjunctive), and ends up with a general review of the first half of the program.   This may seem very little content to constitute an entire level.  Yet, it is not learning such seeming "details" well that can cripple your ability to speak accurately and with fluency, and not paying sufficient attention to them is a significant weakness in many programs of learning.  The use of object pronouns is for many English speakers one of the most confusing aspects of Spanish; the time and effort spent in mastering their use will pay huge dividends in the understandability, accuracy and cultural acceptability of your speech.

Unit 25. Reflexive and indirect clitic pronouns in the same construction, review of verb-subject order in dependent clauses.

Unit 26. Reflexive and indirect clitic pronouns in the same construction, review of verb-subject order in certain dependent clauses.

Unit 27. Formal and informal command forms for regular verbs, formal and informal command forms for irregular verbs, review of nominalized possessives.

Unit 28. Regular and irregular indirect command forms, hortatory command forms, review of Past I (preterit) tense forms.

Unit 29. Clitic pronouns with command forms, clitic pronouns in constructions with infinitives and with --ndo forms, review of present perfect construction.

Unit 30. General review, Units 1 - 29. Verb review.

The Spanish colonial period left a grand architectural legacy. Spanish colonial buildings can be found not only in Mexico and Latin America, but also in the southwestern part of the U.S.--which was part of Nueva España, and later of Mexico when Mexico became independent--and in the Philippines, also part of the Spanish Empire until 1898. This is the church at Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico, still in use. Illustration from Platiquemos Level IV

 

 

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