Collins Dictionaries - Easy Learning Spanish Conversation

There may be times when you wish to make an apology to somebody. The simplest way to do this is to say perdona(to someone you speak to as tú) and perdone(to someone you speak to as usted).

¿LO SABÍAS?

If you need to get past someone, or if you bump into them, just say perdón( excuse me or sorry ).

In social situations you will often want to find out more about someone or their family, job and so on. To do this use háblame( tell me ).

You can use the next questions when chatting socially.

You’ll often want to find out where things are. Remember that when you use ¿Dónde…?, estáis how you generally translate the word is .

One very versatile way of asking someone socially how something is going or has gone is to use the phrase ¿Qué tal…?and then the noun in question. You don’t need to use any verb at all.

Sometimes you’ll want to ask why a friend or acquaintance did or didn’t do something. You can use ¿Por qué…?and a past tense to ask the question ( Why…? ).

When talking to friends and colleagues there’ll be plenty of things you’ll want to do together. To say what you would like to do, you can use me gustaría( I’d like ). This comes from the verb gustar.

Alternatively, you can use quierofollowed by the infinitive. If you want someone else to do something for you, use quiero quefollowed by a verb in the subjunctive. For more information on the subjunctive, see here.

You may want to ask people you know what you should do. One way to do this is to use ¿Crees que debo…?( Should I…? ) followed by a verb in the infinitive. debocomes from the verb deber. For more on deber, see here.