The main mistake that people make when they are in a conversation with somebody and they are asked or they want to talk about where they’re from is they confuse the verb vivir, which means to live, with the verb ser, to be, where you’re actually from. So one thing is where you live, and the other thing is where you’re from.
So, in this blogpost, I thought I’d take you back to basics and recap how to say where you’re from in Español. We’re not doing where you live, we’ll save that for another post.¿Listo? ¡Vamos!
So let’s do it informally, so when you’re addressing somebody informally in Español, we use the informal you ‘tú‘. So the question that you are going to be asked or that you’re going to be asking is ‘¿De dónde eres?’ where are you FROM. And ‘eres‘ comes from the word ‘ser‘ which is one of the two to be verbs and we use the verb ser when we’re talking about permanent things or professions. So when you’re saying where you’re from in Españolit’s a permanent thing, you’re always going to be from wherever you’re from.
The Verb SER – TO BE conjugates like this;
| Pronoun | Spanish | English |
| Yo | Soy | I am |
| Tú | Eres | You are (informal, singular) |
| Él/Ella | Es | He/She/It is |
| Usted | Es | You are (formal, singular) |
| Nosotros/as | Somos | We are |
| Vosotros/as | Sois | You all are (informal, plural) |
| Ellos/Ellas | Son | They are |
| Ustedes | Son | You all are (formal, plural |
So the question is,
‘¿De dónde eres?’ Where are you from?
Now there are two ways of responding to this: You can say, I’m from _ (wherever) or I am _ (you’re nationality) And i’m going to go through three different countries, three different nationalities so that you can learn how to respond in both ways.
Ok, so let’s say that I am from England, and I’m asked the question, ‘¿De dónde eres?’ My first option would be to say ‘Soy de Inglaterra’ I am from England or I can say ‘I am English’ ‘Soy Ingles(a)’ If you are a male you would say ‘soy Ingles‘ but if you were a female you would say ‘Soy Inglesa’. Ok? So that’s the first one.
Now let’s say I’m from Wales, and I’m asked the question ‘¿De dónde eres?’ I’m going to say first of all I am from Wales ‘Soy de Gales’. And if I’m Welsh: ‘Soy Gales(a)‘ Again if you’re a male, no ‘a’, and if you’re female, you add the ‘a’.
And the last one I’m going to do is if you’re Scottish. Or if I’m from Scotland, same question: ‘¿De dónde eres?‘ Where are you from? ‘Soy de Escocia’ ‘I’m from Scotland’. And the second ‘Soy Escoces (a)‘ Same rule with if you’re a male or female, no ‘a’ or ‘a’.
So some may question that you can’t really say your nationality from talking about where you’re from. But for the purpose of this blogpost, I think it’s a fabulous way to practise because you can do it with any country. So if you learn your country for example if you’re Mexican, ‘Soy de méxico‘ ‘Soy Mexican (a)’ ¿Bien?
The big one is from America, so if you’re from North America, ‘Soy de los Estados Unidos’ and if you’re American ‘ Soy Estadounidense. And as you go through the countries and the nationalities, you’ll learn that some of the endings don’t change whether you’re masculine or feminine, whether you’re male or female. So some of them will stay the same. As in ‘Estado Unidense‘ it doesn’t change. And there are others.
But for now I think we’ll leave it there, practice asking someone where they’re from, practice saying where you’re from, and record yourself and listen to it back, so that you get used to hearing your Spanish self.
That’s all for today, ¡hasta la proxima, adios!
If you’d like to practice your pronunciation check out the mini-lesson I recorded for my YouTube channel here;
Want to see more lessons like these? Leave a comment and let me know what you’d like to learn.