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Felix
Calles del Rey, the Spanish general who held the Mexican independence
movement in check until a couple of famous opportunists--Iturbide and
Santa Anna-- switched sides. |
Take a short quiz to see whether Level V is right for you
Level
V Samples:
Entire Unit 35 Text 28pp (.pdf)
Audio
35.23 (partial) (mp3) (1.06)
For detailed contents of Level V, go here.
The Historical Context
The early to mid 19th century was a time of confusion, wars--both of independence and civil wars--all over Latin America. For Spain, the loss of her American Empire marked a wrenching fall from the position of both a major European and World power she had held for centuries.
In Mexico, the century opened with the prolonged struggle for independence, saw first the loss of Texas (1836), and then the loss of territory adding up to more than 50% of that claimed by Mexico at the beginning of the century. With the expulsion of the French in 1867, Mexico's great Indian president Benito Juárez was able to lead a (fairly) united Mexico.
Meanwhile, though spared the trauma of foreign invasion (except by their neighbors), the other countries of Latin America were going through a similarly difficult time, first establishing independence from Spain, then fighting among themselves to define each country's borders, and finally infighting in each country to determine who would rule. Columbia, for instance spent almost the entire century in a state of civil war between the "Conservatives" and the "Liberals"--a civil war which is still going on although new contestants have entered the fray.
See our Books and Music Store pages for some interesting reading about this period. (under construction)
Level V Overview
The descriptions below might make it appear that Level V is full of "small" stuff. Yet it is just such seeming details as the appropriate use of por or para that make the difference between speaking Spanish or speaking something like Spanish, but not really Spanish. This level also has more about the subjunctive, the nightmare of Spanish learners.
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Course Content |
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Unit
31. Past progressive constructions;
nominalized verb forms as subjects of sentences; --ndo forms in absolute
constructions; vocabulary enrichment - business terminology.
Unit 32. Cardinal numbers, days of the week, months of the
year; semantic correlations: saber-conocer, pedir-preguntar; strong
stress as a function differentiator in verbs; 1 sg present vs. 2-3 sg preterit and sg
command vs 1 sg preterit; vocabulary enrichment: economic development.
Unit 33. Articles before nominalized
adjectives; ordinal numbers; Spanish reflexive clitics as the equivalent of English
possessives; definite articles with days of the week and time expressions; vocabulary
enrichment: Latin American geography.
Unit 34. Phrase relators por and para;
colors; English subject-verb vs Spanish object-verb; relative position of the parts of a
Spanish progressive construction - questions; vocabulary enrichment: Latin American urban
life and public facilities.
Unit 35. Nominalization of articles; semantic correlations tomar-llevar,
salir-dejar; position of clitics in commands; adjective agreement - hundreds;
vocabulary enrichment: Education in Latin America.
Unit 36. Present subjunctive after ojalá;
Spanish infinitive for English "--ing" forms as objects of relators; placement
of verb modifiers; vocabulary enrichment: Rural Life.
 Vicente Guerrero, shown with someof his men (an Indian and a Mestizo) was one of the most important leaders of Mexico's struggle for independence. During the dark years following the failure of Hidalgo's revolt, he and a few others kept the movement alive, operating as guerrillas from the mountains |
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