(I) am doing
This is the counterpart to the "are doing" bit in "How are you doing?" That means, among other things, that it doesn't really mean "am doing" in any of these languages, but that's the best way to think of it. Go back to lesson 4, word 16 if this doesn't sound familiar.
Here's the good news: All of these are at least first person singular, i.e. the "I" form of the verb. Here we go:
Spanish (yo) estoy (yo eh-stoy) means "I am". It goes with Usted está ("you are").
Italian (io) sto (ee-oh stow) means "I stand." It goes with Lei sta ("you stand").
French (je) vais (zhuh vay) means "I go." It goes with Vous allez ("you go").
I take it connections between Spanish estoy/está and Italian sto/sta aren't that mysterious.
For the curious, here's the French... Well, the good news is you're getting a tricky verb out of the way early. The Spanish and Italian versions of "to go" are just as bad; you just aren't learning them yet. But since French uses "to go" to talk about how you're doing, we have to learn about it now. If you want, you can try for rote learning. Here's the full story (and it will apply if you go beyond "Your first 50 words..." and learn "to go" in Spanish and Italian, too).
In the earliest days of Latin, they had three ways (actually more, but play along) to say "to go". These were
1. ire, which meant, of all things, "to go." It's where we get exit (go out, or rather, out go)
2. vadere, "to go forth". It's where we get invade (go forth into something)
3. ambulare, "to walk". You use a perambulator or pram to walk around with the baby. An ambulance is a moving hospital (contracted from the French hôpital ambulant - walking hospital, or field hospital)
Eventually, these three verbs fused into one verb. Here's the way it worked out in the three languages. Note that in this course, you only need to learn the two forms of the French aller that I've put in bold. I've indicated which verb each part came from as follows: ire = (i); vadere = (v); ambulare = (a)
| English | Italian | Spanish | French |
|---|---|---|---|
| to go | andare (a) | ir (i) | aller (a) |
| (I) go | voy (v) | vado (v) | vais (v) |
| (you-s) go | vas (v) | vai (v) | vas (v) |
| (he) goes | va (v) | va (v) | va (v) |
| (we) go | vamos (v) | andiamo (a) | allons (a) |
| (you-p) go | váis (v) | andate (a) | allez (a) |
| (they) go | van (v) | vanno (v) | vont (v) |
| (you-f) go | (Usted) va | (Lei) va | (vous) allez |
So, there's the rundown on how three verbs became one. Like I say, you only need to know the two French forms right now. The rest is for later. But I wanted you to have a chance to see how vais and allez could be so different, yet be the same verb.
In this course, we are only learning the "I" and "you-f" (formal) forms of verbs. If you go beyond "Your first 50 words..." you'll wind up learning the others, but these are the only forms necessary for the situations I'm teaching you to handle for now. Stay tuned, of course, for new items to pop up at multilingua.info that will take you further.
