More Spanish, asking for a newspaper and saying shut up

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Saturday, February 23. 2008

More Spanish, asking for a newspaper and saying shut up

Yesterday we had our fifth(?) spanish lesson, gee that's a hundred Euros spent already, oh well it's got to be worth it to learn the language. Every day that goes by we are feeling more and more at ease in Spain, the language isn't as difficult as we thought it would be, although we're still struggling to put together sentences. Anyway here is a basic script we worked on yesterday, and don't ask me why we're asking for an English newspaper, it's one of those things other expats like to do and the other guy in our class is one of those.

Shop Assistant: Buenos dias. Que le pongo?
Customer: Quiero la prensa inglesa, por favor
Shop Assistant: Bueno. Toma.
Customer: Cuanto vale?
Shop Assistant: tres con veinte.

This really basic script essentially goes along the lines of 'hello, how can I help you?', que le pongo is the more formal way of asking although I haven't heard this yet when I've been into a shop. Mostly we just get ignored by the staff who are far too busy chatting amongst themselves. The customer then asks for an English newspaper, to which the shop assistant replies 'OK, take it', and no doubt you've figured out the customer then asks how much before being told 'three with twenty' which the canny observer would guess means three euros twenty.

We practiced this little script for a while taking turns to the be the expat and the shopkeeper, then we got onto some interesting stuff, here are a few phrases we learned;

La cuenta, por favor - Asking for the bill in a restaurant etc
Quitate! - get out of my way
Con permiso - with your permission, same as excuse me
Tarda mucho - it's really late
No es justo - It's not fair
Por supueste - of course
Callate! - Shut up
Mira! - Look!
Para! - Stop!
Lo siento - I'm sorry
Se puede cambiar un billete de cincuento - Can you change a fifty, which is a big problem when you want to buy a coffee that costs one euro but the bank ATMs only give you fifty euro notes
No tengo nada mas pequeño -I don't have anything smaller
Yesta! - Enough!
Que peste! - It smells

And last but not least, a quick phrase you would utter to someone you love, and it's not to be taken lightly, this is serious;
Te quiero, te adoro, te llevo a los toros
It means, I love you, I adore you, I'm going to take you to the bullfight.
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Posted by Carl in Spanish at 22:52   Comments (12)

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  1. Gustavo said,

    Sunday, February 24. 2008 at 04:27 (Reply)

    Felicitaciones por tus clases de EspaƱol!!!! vas muy bien!!!
    Saludosss
  2. Jillian said,

    Sunday, February 24. 2008 at 17:00 (Reply)

    Que bueno!

    Check you Carl... pretty soon you'll speak like a native!

    A little self-imposed homework might be to write a whole post in Spanish! I dunno, it seems fun to me, anyway.
  3. Carl said,

    Monday, February 25. 2008 at 00:52 (Reply)

    Thanks for the kind felicitations, and as for writing a post in Spanish, most of my readers wouldn't understand it, I think; of course I could be completely wrong on that score.
  4. Yeibi said,

    Monday, February 25. 2008 at 11:28 (Reply)

    Enhorabuena, progresas bastante. Lo de que le pongo solian decirlo antes en las tiendas, ahora se usa menos, pero todavia te lo preguntan en algunos supermercados sobre todo. Saludos y suerte.
  5. Carl said,

    Monday, February 25. 2008 at 11:36 (Reply)

    Yeibi, gracias, El progreso es lento pero eso necesite un poco de tiempo
  6. Jillian said,

    Monday, February 25. 2008 at 13:26 (Reply)

    LOL... wow!!!
  7. Carl said,

    Monday, February 25. 2008 at 13:27 (Reply)

    Cool heh?
  8. Jillian said,

    Monday, February 25. 2008 at 13:31 (Reply)

    Yes, very much so!!
  9. Carl said,

    Monday, February 25. 2008 at 13:43 (Reply)

    Hey BTW, all of your comments are now coming up in my mail spam folder, have you changed email address?
  10. Costa Rica SEO said,

    Monday, February 25. 2008 at 23:42 (Reply)

    It is very likely that we could both be sitting in a room and talking Spanish, but not understand half of what the other is saying.

    There are a few very different words in there from the normal Spanish here. Fun stuff though. So when can we expect our first "learning Spanish" podcast?
  11. Carl said,

    Monday, February 25. 2008 at 23:50 (Reply)

    Hey Paul,

    I'd love to get a podcast going, but you've got me confused about different words. A couple of people have said we're learning stuff that seems wrong and I'm wondering what seems different to you. Our intention is to learn proper Spanish and be able to have conversations with people and sound as good as we can apart from being guiris, so what's very diffferent?
  12. Robin said,

    Wednesday, April 30. 2008 at 10:45 (Reply)

    Carl,

    I have been reading some of your posts gradually as I get the time to do so. I'm sure you've posted the answer to this, but I am curious where you are from and what brings you to Spain?
    I speak an intermediate level of Spanish. I got my first opportunity to do something useful with it a couple of weeks ago. My ex husband called me at work and asked me to explain something important in Spanish to his neighbor who doesn't speak English. So everyone at work was saying "Hey, Robin, I didn't know you speak Spanish" and a couple of people have asked me to translate things for them.
    What an awesome opportunity you have to get to learn a foreign language in a foreign country!

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