Collins Dictionaries - Easy Learning Spanish Conversation

¿LO SABÍAS?

Buenas nochesmeans both good evening and good night . So you use it both when arriving and leaving somewhere in the evening. When saying goodbye to someone you know you’ll see tomorrow, such as a colleague, you say hasta mañana( see you tomorrow ).

You’ll want to introduce people you know to one another. The simplest way is by saying éste es( this is ) when introducing a man, and ésta eswhen introducing a woman.

¿LO SABÍAS?

When you’re introduced to someone, you’ll want to know how to react. The traditional encantadoshould only be used in formal or business situations these days, and very often people just say ¡Hola! ¿Qué tal?. You would reply in the same way – ¡Hola! ¿Qué tal?.

To get the conversation going, you’ll need to be able to say at least what your name is, who you are or what you do, and where you’re from. Saying what your name is is rather different in Spanish from English. You say me llamo(literally I call myself ). me llamocomes from the verb llamarse.If you want to say what someone else is called you use se llama. For more information on reflexive verbs like llamarse, see here.

¿LO SABÍAS?

When you say what you do in Spanish, don’t include a word for a or an before your job: soy maestro( I’m a teacher ), soy enfermera( I’m a nurse ).

To say how old you are, use tengofollowed by your age and then años(literally I have… years ). tengocomes from the verb tener. For more information on tener, see here.

¿LO SABÍAS?

Remember to say vivo solarather than vivo soloif you’re female.

To talk about yourself, you’ll need to be able to say how long you’ve been doing something, such as learning Spanish! One way to do this is to use hacefollowed by the length of time and then queand the verb in the present. For more information on the present tense, see here. You can also use llevoto mean I’ve been in examples like these.