VALLAS

What is a “valla”? There are many in the world, too many. Some notorious ones are in Spanish territory. Have you ever heard of Ceuta and Melilla? Before you continue, reflect on

• 1. Why could there be two Spanish autonomous cities in Northern Africa?
• 2. Why would they have a big fence around them?
• 3. Do you think this is necessary?
• 4. What could be the consequences of having a fence stopping illegal entry from Africa into Spain?

Read the following information. You can listen to the recording while you are reading, or listen first and then read:

Now that you know about these two big fences, let’s consider the people that try to cross that border on a daily basis. They are migrants. Reflect:

• 1. Why do you think that they cannot cross legally into Spain?
• 2. What are the reasons that they may have to cross no matter what?
• 3. What do you think that happens with those who manage to jump over the fence?

There are land borders but also sea borders, and some migrants try to cross over in overcrowded, dangerous and small boats. They pay high sums of money for a trip that does not always end well. Many drown before they reach the Spanish coast. Others are rescued just in time before the boat sinks. This daily drama in the Mediterranean Sea, is a constant reminder that there are not yet effective solutions for the multitude of problems of which this type of migration is only an alarming indicator.

Iñaki Williams did not cross the sea nor jumped over a high fence in the border, but his parents did. Listen to this extract of an interview in the Spanish programme La Resistencia. Can you summarise what Iñaki is saying?

His parents travelled a long way in difficult conditions. We may hypothesize about the distance they covered and how long it took them to do this. In order to do this in Spanish we need the Simple Future tense.

This type of future tense is very useful and helps to express not only probability, assumptions or hypotheses, but much more…

For this tense you just need one set of endings for the three groups of verbs in Spanish. These endings are good for regular verbs but also for the irregular verbs you need to learn. These are examples of regular verbs:

And the following will give you a good understanding of all you need to know about how the irregular verbs are constructed:

To practice the form a little bit you can access some activities here.

Now you are in a much better position to answer questions such as the ones below, and perhaps also to ask your own questions. What will those be?