Everyday Spanish in Spain: shops, bars and neighbours

You have been in Spain a year and your Spanish is fine on paper. Then you go down to the bar on your corner, the man behind the counter says ¿Qué te pongo?, and you freeze, because the textbook trained you for ¿Qué desea tomar el señor? This is the layer nobody schedules a lesson for: the Spanish of the counter, the queue and the lift. It is not slang: it is the register everyone uses all day.

At the bar

You order with a question built on poner, not on querer.

• ¿Me pones una caña? — A small draught beer, please.
• Ponme un cortado, cuando puedas. — A cortado when you get a chance.
• Para mí, un tercio y una tapa de tortilla. — For me, a 33 cl bottle and a portion of omelette.

Una caña is a small glass of draught beer, the default order across Spain; in much of the centre a larger glass is un doble. Una clara is beer with lemon soda: specify con limón or con gaseosa. Coffee is un solo, un cortado or un café con leche.

The tapa varies by city. In Granada, León or Almería something to eat comes with the drink at no extra charge; in Madrid or Barcelona you order it and pay for it. Ask rather than guess: ¿La tapa va con la bebida?

You pay at the end, the whole table at once.

• ¿Nos cobras cuando puedas? — Could you charge us when you have a moment?
• La cuenta, por favor. — The bill, please.
• Es para llevar. — It's to take away.
• ¿Tenéis menú del día? — Do you have a set lunch menu?

The menú del día is a weekday lunch deal: first course, second, bread, drink and dessert or coffee for one price. The waiter asks ¿De primero? and ¿De segundo?, meaning which of each.

The queue with no line

In small shops, at counters, in the pharmacy, nobody stands in a row. The queue lives in everyone's memory, so you ask out loud.

• ¿Quién es el último? — Who's last?
• ¿Quién da la vez? — The same question, common in Madrid and in the north.

Someone answers yo: that is the only person you have to track. Then:

• ¿Me pone medio kilo de jamón? — Half a kilo of ham, please.
• ¿Algo más? — Nada más, gracias. — Anything else? — That's everything, thanks.
• ¿Me cobra? — Can I pay?

At the market

At a fruit stall, say when you plan to eat it and they will pick accordingly.

• Es para hoy. / Es para el fin de semana. — I'm eating it today. / at the weekend.
• ¿A cómo está el kilo? — How much is a kilo?
• Ponme unos tomates para ensalada. — Some tomatoes for salad, please.

The portal, the lift and the neighbours

Greeting is not optional: on entering a small shop and again on leaving, even if you bought nothing, and in the lift.

• Buenas. — The all-purpose greeting, any hour. Buenas tardes takes over after lunch, around two, not at noon.
• Hasta luego. — Said on leaving, including to people you will never see again.
• ¡Voy! — Hold the lift.

El portal is the street door and the hall behind it, and el telefonillo is the intercom. Floors start at bajo, so el primero is one flight up and flats are primero A or segundo izquierda. Your building is a comunidad de vecinos: it meets in a junta, an administrador de fincas handles the paperwork, and a major repair is paid through a derrama, a one-off extra payment.

• ¿Me abres, por favor? Soy el vecino del cuarto. — Could you buzz me in? I'm your neighbour from the fourth floor.
• Perdona por el ruido del sábado, estamos de obras. — Sorry about Saturday's noise, we're having work done.
• Se ha estropeado el ascensor otra vez. — The lift has broken down again.

Why it all sounds so blunt

Word for word, the phrases above sound curt in English. They are not.

The imperative is neutral. Dame, ponme, dime are the ordinary way to ask across a counter. Politeness lives in the question form and the tone, not in stacked conditionals. ¿Me pones un café? is perfectly polite; ¿Sería usted tan amable de ponerme un café? is heard as a joke.

Please is rationed. Por favor exists, but not in every sentence; repeated, it sounds like pleading. One gracias at the end covers the exchange.

Volume is not aggression. People talk over each other to show interest. Wait for a clean pause and you may wait a while.

Tú is the default with almost everyone in Spain; usted belongs to much older strangers and formal desks. And when you catch someone's attention with perdona or oiga, the reply is often dime, literally "tell me". That is an invitation to speak, not impatience.

The words that buy you time

• Bueno… — Well… Softens what comes next, especially a refusal.
• Pues… — Right, then… Pure thinking time.
• O sea… — I mean… Introduces a rephrasing.
• Es que… — The polite no: Es que hoy no puedo.
• Vale. — OK. Vale, vale means got it, or that's enough.
• Venga. — Come on; also "right, bye": Venga, hasta luego.
• En plan… — Like… Common among younger speakers.

Five of these will do more for the way you sound than fifty new nouns.

What -ito really means

Diminutives are rarely about size.

• Un momentito. — The same wait as un momento, only friendlier.
• ¿Nos tomamos una cañita? — A beer, framed as no big deal.
• Está un poquito caro. — Softened criticism: it is expensive.
• Ahora mismito. — Right now, with warmth. Spain says ahora mismo; ahorita is Latin American.

In Andalusia and much of the south, -illo does the same job: un ratillo, chiquillo. The suffix can also belittle: calling someone's job un trabajito says you think little of it.

How to pick it up faster

Use the same bar three times, listen to what the person ahead of you orders, then order the same way. Copy whole phrases instead of assembling them from grammar, and ask when something goes past you.

• Perdona, ¿me lo repites más despacio? — Sorry, could you say that again more slowly?

Nobody minds: the person behind the counter has been serving foreigners for years.